Chris Ramos in the Bay Area of California, where he sought to buy his first home for less than $600,000. While he preferred San Francisco, he was open to East Bay locales like Oakland and Berkeley. Marissa Leshnov for The New York Times

The notion of a grounded existence always felt a little out of reach to Chris Ramos.

Out of his family home at age 16 after a tumultuous couple of years, the Clovis, Calif., native went spinning through a series of short-term living arrangements, crashing at friends’ houses and taking tiny apartments or room rentals. A move to Portland, Ore., when he was 21 opened Mr. Ramos to the kind of urban, cultured environment that he’d been seeking as a young gay man, but it was no cakewalk.

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“I worked in a nightclub as a booking assistant, at a coffee shop in the morning and at a restaurant,” said Mr. Ramos, now 43, smiling at the memory. “People would get their coffee in the morning and then go to the club at night, and they’re like, ‘You’re working everywhere.’ But I needed to, because I was the one taking care of me.”

Looking for steadier income, he cycled through jobs in Portland and then, beginning in the mid-2000s, in San Francisco. A short but impactful stint at an architecture firm introduced him to the city, and a subsequent gig at the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy lasted a decade. Meanwhile, he was juggling schoolwork as he pursued a bachelor’s degree in urban study and planning at San Francisco State University.