While this threat is specific to the renting market, I digress to the general housing market,as renting has steadily turned into a very expensive option for mos

While this threat is specific to the renting market, I digress to the general housing market,as renting has steadily turned into a very expensive option for most households in the bay. We were in the market to buy a small home in the bay and were totally out priced from the market despite being a 2 income high tech couple. While most people talk about the hip SF and downtown areas, desirable homes in even more middle of the road places like Fremont and South Bay(Milpitas, Sunnyvale and Santa Clara) are over inflated. In one instance our offer was declined in East Palo Alto / East MPark area even after being over 22% of list price. While I am not for protectionist ideas, It might be worth considering a cap on the number of foreign 'investors' in residential real estate -unless- they actually live in the home or area. I have seen that a huge section of the current price inflation is driven by overseas investors putting together a safe home for future generations without actually living in the place. This ensures that sufficient stock is available in the real east market. Also all overseas cash home sales in the bay area above $'X' should be subject to an IRS audit to prevent overseas ill-gotten gains, corruption money or worse drug money being re-invested in US real estate.