Sort of. Often a big chunk of your CoL is going into a massively appreciating asset. People always seem to ignore this when talking about the top n most expensive cities in the world. You can literally sell your apartment and go live in a mansion most other places on the planet when you feel like it.
People in general or people in tech? Well what’s the typical mortgage multiple, 6 or 7 times salary? So for the latter, it seems pretty attainable to get an apartment at the lower end of the market to start out on. Correct me if I’m wrong, though.