Zoho is already in a relatively cheap part of Bay Area:
Zoho, based in Pleasanton, Calif, and founded in 1996, is a privately-held company that makes more than 40 business software applications. The company has more than 45 million users in 180 countries and its revenue grew 39 percent last year, according to a news release. Zoho has also recently added offices in Singapore, Mexico, United Arab Emirates, Australia, and the Netherlands.
I passed by their building on 580 many times. It means the company is not in good shape⊠
Guess is not 
doing well since it expands in SE and not in The Domain area.
Then why it added so many offices and build a 375-acre campus?
IMHO, cost of living/housing + labor cost have shot up too high leading to too high cost of operating businesses. Also, Bay Area is becoming more anti-business. Not many OOS techies coming to Bay Area, companies are stealing from each other. Canât be good for RE prices/ rentals. Better sell your rentals and go to Austin while it is in early innings, remember what I told you?
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If Zoho is doing well none of the costs matter, just like it doesnât matter for google and Facebook.
Quiz: do you know what Zoho does without googling?
Of course it matters, FB and GOOG are expanding outside Bay Area aggressively. Either you have not been reading widely or youâve short memory 
I donât google. I web search before replying the first post. Iâm not from UCLA so I do background check, and verify news for authenticity and accuracy.
Expanding outside vs moving HQ are qualitatively different, no?
Playing on nuances? FB and GOOG canât move HQ, their HQs have to be in SV, ditto for Apple in Cupertino, MSFT and AMZN in Seattle. Is symbolic. Zoho doesnât have this constraint. Move while it is not symbolic yet is a very wise strategic move. Think Strategic!
Their strategic thinking is that now that the company is dying it better stretch every dollar they have. 
Zoho has been around since 2005. If it were any good it would have gone public or at least preparing to go public now that the IPO market is hot. But it knows it doesnât make the grade so better skip town with its tail between its legs. 
Enough of OT. Fact is many companies have stopped/minimal expansion in Bay Area and expansion elsewhere. Short term, declining demand is still higher than supply so prices wonât fall but no more those double digital annual appreciation, would be happy with the historical 6-8% p.a. Have to wait a few years to see what happen, new industry? continue losing population?
Where do you get this âfactâ from? What companies? Tech?
From you 
Fact is Austin is an overflow room for SV. The eternal spring is still in SV. Even Seattle is a distant second.
Spring or diffusion, it means moving out of SV into Austin. Prices of Austin would continue to appreciate while prices in SV would stabilize. You know where to invest in the future (please donât invest in the past).
I agree with all 3 statements there, but also even overflow room from SV still going to generate a lot of opportunities to local market. I think thatâs good enough for our investors. Knowledge workers are like snowball effect, as they start to saturate in the area more reason for other companies opening up offices which attract more ppl to move, like Denver, Toronto.
@manch apparently agree with this line of thought but unable to convince his SO to leave nor invest in OOS rentals. Spouse wish trumps his wisdom. Outcome is worse than ignorance 
. Going forward, it is likely that the prices in Austin, Atlanta, Denver, and RTP triangle would outperform BA.
You sound like you are speaking from experienceâŠ
Saying from my own experience, if I listen to my spouseâs wish, I might have come out with better outcome on some of the investment We all have different constraints and beliefs that control our decisions, and nothing wrong with that. IMO, there is no need to optimize to 100% efficiency, good enough efficiency that makes you sleep better or keep you happy is the right path.
Price appreciation is so so everywhere now and in the next few years. Residential investment is not super attractive now. On top of that, Sacramento has many and many scary rent control bills in consideration.
Itâs better to think on what to do in this environment, not buying and buying.
Everyone should slow down, read, go to Sacramento and city halls, have a lot of thought processes going on in your brain, tons of brain storming and lots of debate.