Not Bay Area specific but posting this as food for thought.
One thing that surprised me is the steep rise in home ownership during the pandemic. I would never have guessed it.
Despite many articles pointing homes were not being sold - I definitely see in my direct neighborhood, homes are sold quite quickly (pending after <1 week), even during the pandemic back in April/May. Overall SFHs with good schools are still getting multiple offers.
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My neighbor has an investment apartment on a three acre ranch in Nevada in the middle of nowhere. A BA couple making $23k/m tech salary just rented it site unseen for $1800/m. WFH… WTF?
6 m lease. I bet they don’t stay long. Either leave or buy. $1m gets you a large house with acreage
So with the help of the pandemic, home ownership rate may surpass the level last seen in the housing bubble? WTF? And people say the stock market is unhinged from reality? Looks like the housing market is even more unhinged!
Mind = blown.
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I certainly hope so. Time to cash out.
I already made my temporary move but I know of 2 other Big tech employees looking at either Oregon (Portland or Bend) or Sacramento as possible destinations. All with family and wanting get out of the Bay Area for more space at a reasonable cost. Other few I know already left to places like Napa, Tahoe, Colorado and Texas…
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What would you do if most of your coworkers return to office? Would you stay where you are or move back closer to the bay? Curious what your game plan is.
About the people you mentioned moving to Portland etc, do they have family in the places they are moving to? For people who are convinced WFH is here to stay, I don’t think it makes much sense to move to another tech hub. After all WFH forever implies there won’t be tech hubs anymore. But I can see why they may want to move back to be closer to their parents.
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Pandemic and a deep recession, therefore house price soared? Didn’t see that coming.
it depends. short term low interest rate encourage home buying but long term carrying costs will outweigh any benefit of buying it. not to mention transactions costs of buying and selling those are surely going to increase once county and cities increase taxes and fees.
First are the weaker cities.
https://www.culvercitynews.org/culver-city-council-discusses-potential-ballot-measure-on-property-transfer-tax/
Median price of homes? Need to drill down e.g. Please separate into condos and SFHs.
As pointed out by many bloggers here, condos stink in 7x7 while SFHs in vacation area are soaring.
Please learn from the 2007-8 housing crisis, no securitization of houses please.
We plan to come back but if lifestyle is too good, we are ready to work remote permanently. It doesn’t matter if co-workers come back or not as long as the company allows it.
As for folks moving to Portland,etc, it’s usually friends they know that are there. Lot of the folks I talked to just want to get out to nature or get a big house due to kids.
Heard a great podcast on the booming housing market. It’s nation wide and has to do with millennials finally settling down and raising families. Good stuff.
Warning though. The guest talked about how we are lucky to have Fannie and Freddie in the federal government and not as profit making companies. Or else they would have tightened credit at the worst possible moments. If you are of the opinion governments can do no good it may cause you some discomfort. Listener discretion advised.
This week’s housing inventory is down to the 500K range. Insane.
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Home building is a big contributor to the economy. As we ramp it up to house the newly formed millennial families we will see GDP growth 
I thought the population was declining and demand disappearing? Oh yeah 80 million millennials are finally moving out of the basement…
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The bears never got anything right. Their pain is our gain.
We are having a bear population explosion in Eldorado County. Too many bears. Three break ins on my street in Tahoe. One broke into chicken coup near my farm. We plan on rounding them up a putting them in Newsoms yard.