Ahem. So you are one of those people who live in SF? Just kidding....
I've been living in the Bay Area for close to 10 years now and never really understood the appeal of living in the city for whatever reason. I've had endless arguments with my friends on why it doesn't make financial sense to live there. I get some really lame reasons as responses. Any how, have you looked at Fremont as a potential city to buy? Has really good schools, good commute options to go across to the peninsula, to south bay and to the city and rest of East Bay.
I recently bought a town home (2 Bed, 1 bath) for 440K. Looking back I actually paid a bit more (~10K) than market rate. You can find some really good single family homes in 650K range in Fremont in some nice neighborhoods. I am not talking about Mission San Jose.
Coming to commute, there is BART to East Bay and the city. I work in Mountain View, so I take the ACE train from Fremont Centerville Amtrak station, get down at Levi's Stadium take the free VTA shuttle to virtually all companies in San Jose, Santa Clara, Sunnyvale, Mountain View. If you work in Palo Alto, San Mateo, Redwood City etc, VTA runs the Dumbarton Express bus from Fremont BART to take you across the bridge. If ACE train is not your thing, then you can take the VTA route 120 to go to Mountain View from Fremont BART via 880/237/101. It takes exactly 55 min. Sure, commute takes at least an hour. But better than driving. Once you have kids, then you can maybe look into buying an EV ti get the incentive and the HOV lane permit. Most companies provide a commute benefit and if not, you can still apply pre-tax dollars towards monthly pass up to $250 per month.
There are plenty of options and hidden gems in the Bay Area. You just have to look for them :)
In general, ideally, Id plan to move away from Bay Area when I FIRE but when I could buy a house at 440K(My monthly PITI+HOA is less than the rent for a comparable house) it is too hard to pass up, even if it means paying 10K more than market value to make sure you get the house. Worst case, I'd save the remaining money to buy a log cabin some where and rent this sucker out when I FIRE :)