I was comparing the mechanism of SF housing market to post-pandemic inflation, not saying that it had anything to do with post-pandemic inflation. Tons of tech people have fled the area since 2020 with the ability to work remote and get a lot more for their money, which has taken some pressure off the local market.
Like anything, the housing market here is a function of supply and demand. There is a lot of demand because there are good jobs here. Supply is artificially constrained because entrenched homeowners don't want growth (NIMBY) and they benefit from the supply/demand inbalance (their house goes up in value). Everyone could be a billionaire but prices could still be low if there was enough supply. Even if people don't have a ton of money, homes will go up in price if there is more demand than supply, as people are just required to shift their money to housing from other spending possibilities in order to acquire scarce housing.
"Tons of tech people" haven't really fled the area, and those that have, have been replaced - there's still a net increase in highly paid tech workers. The market has stabilized because a lot of people who *don't* have that sort of compensation packages are leaving. The most acute area I've been exposed to is teachers. My son had three spanish teachers last year, and his school was operating down 1-2 math teachers, and cut some other programs.
It causes huge problems, driving a lot of people to private schools where they can throw money at faculty more easily via donations, whereas it's a trickier process to do so in the public schools because a tax increase impacts the entire population, not just the wealthy. And it's not acceptable to say, have big donations for an art program at one school in the district while the other school needs to cut art, when you have districts with multiple schools that have big disparities in income in their catchment - which you then get parents trying to sever the districts in order to remove this problem and build a "private public school. That then causes the next level where you have "homeless" people living in RVs on the street in the wealthier district in order to get their kids into that public school.
Income disparity is a bitch
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