What I do: Land a Silicon Valley tech job but work remotely from the Midwest. I make almost double the median income for my area and I live in the white zone. My employer can pay me 60-70% of the salary they would pay for someone in San Francisco to do my job and I still earn way above median for my area.
I could buy a really decent home here (Southern Missouri) for somewhere between 0.5 to 1.5 times my yearly salary. There are many factors affecting that price but there are some really decent houses at the low end of the price range. Extra bonus: property tax, income tax and sales tax are all relatively low. Unfortunately that doesn't apply to the entire region; some neighboring counties have ~8x higher property tax than where I live.
I could buy a really decent home here (Southern Missouri) for somewhere between 0.5 to 1.5 times my yearly salary. There are many factors affecting that price but there are some really decent houses at the low end of the price range. Extra bonus: property tax, income tax and sales tax are all relatively low. Unfortunately that doesn't apply to the entire region; some neighboring counties have ~8x higher property tax than where I live.