Surely this must not have been a like-for-like comparison, unless your landlord is very charitable or somehow secured a much lower property tax rate than your coworker did (as is possible in California through various Prop 13 mechanisms). Have you looked up what the property tax bill is on your apartment?

He had a nice house in an expensive area. I think his wife was someone important at a bank.

I was in a one bedroom apartment, so not like-for-like, but I didn’t need or want anymore space than I had. I was also in a nice area, and in the nicest apartments in that area, as far as I could tell.

A couple people who moved out there when I did bought places, and I heard nothing but regrets from them a year later.