I live in the Silicon Valley, CA (highly expensive housing market) and I'm renting a 1 bedroom apartment with my wife.

@Airika PopeI am actually investing in Greenville now.Moved here from Silicon Valley SF Peninsula 5 years ago and we love it.Great place to live and invest.Feel free to reach out to me and I can help.ThanksArn

That is a job worth whatever they charge. 3 ruined pieces of gutter, siliconed together (not straight) and a sliced thumb requiring stitches, and I was done.Concrete flatwork is another art.But I can paint, install flooring, do finish carpentry, install kitchens and baths, electrical work, plumbing if it's sharkbite or pex, and lay tile at least as well as any contractor.

Me, "Do you know you are in the Silicon Valley of the East." 

Tell that to those who bought real estate in San Jose or Palo Alto (Silicon Valley) 30 years ago. 

I make a comfortable living in IT for a Silicon Valley start-up, but I'm looking to create a side business and passive income sources (the hamster wheel can only spin for so long until the hamster tires).

Prime San Francisco only dropped 15-20%, and same with prime Silicon Valley towns like Palo Alto.

Clearly, silicon valley just gets a bad rap because everyone else is just a bunch of haters... haha.

Historians call it the "Silicon Valley of the 19th Century".

Seems we both are living in the insolvent state of CA :)My company is based in Silicon Valley and IL.