The Royal Treatment

San Francisco was in the news recently for two bits of forehead-slapping news that demonstrated how science fictional the city’s housing market has become.

First came KPIX’s undercover report on a Mission District shared-housing situation, in which 30 people share a house. The price for a bunk bed? A mere $1,800 a month.

Then comes the news — noted on NPR’s comedy quiz show Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me, no less, so you know it’s become part of the zeitgeist — that you can rent a seven-bedroom castle on 200 acres in France for less than it costs to rent a 401-square-foot studio apartment in San Francisco.

Sure, that sounds like a bargain, but the castle is nowhere near a Google bus stop, so it’s not such a good deal after all.