>I came here with the mindset that we’d save money but I had
>no tangible clue how much.
>The plan was to rent a house, but the numbers worked that it
>made much more sense to purchase one.

The median condo price in San Diego is $440,000, while the median single family home price is is $640,000 - so some of us are just plain priced out of having a lawn. (Some condos have more yards than others.)

Even moving to the "country" in San Diego to a place like Alpine or Ramona only gets median SFH to $570,000.

Only way I can see possibly ever getting a yard is for folks to be a)wealthy 2)have a lot of equity in a house they bought when it was more affordable or 3)couple up.

I looked it up: The median price of homes currently listed in San Antonio is $234,999.

Wow - that's way way way cheaper than I thought. You could get a place that requires a tractor and a crop duster for half of what a house in my neighborhood cost :)