Colorado - land of the... beautiful?

I am done with San Diego. I moved here from New York when I was five, and I have lived here ever since. I have decided to move to the beautiful state of Colorado. Towards that end, I took a little 3 day jaunt to Colorado to spy out the land, and to go to a job fair. Thank God this was not my first trip to Colorado, because I caught the state at is most ugly. It looked like San Diego in the summer, only no ocean and 40 F. For those of us who live here in San Diego, that combination = sucky. More on Colorado later.

Everyone asks me why I want to move away. San Diego has some of the best weather in the country, has a beach, has local mountains, has a local desert, has a great downtown area, has good theater venues, yadda yadda.... All this is true. It is also true that houses start at 450,000 dollars, and a condo will run you more than 300,000. Now, I make about $27 an hour, which is VERY good for my age(24). There is no way I can afford 300,000 dollars for a condo. It just is not going to happen. This fact fills me with some righteous indignation. It is just not possible for young people to break into home ownership right now without signing their soul to the mortgage.