4 ms·

Simple. Demand for housing. Supply issues aside, a huge number of people want to live in the SFBA, and the rents reflect that.

• theNJR 7y ago
  My grandmother in law just sold her place in SF after living there since the 60s. 7 of 9 offers were from Chinese nationals looking to park their money. Full cash, no inspection, no contingency and of course never visited by the potential buyer. Market forces and demand are not necessarily about a desire to live there.
  • massaman_yams 7y ago
    That's part of the effect, but I don't think you can reasonably claim it's most of it - demand for rental housing is still high.
    • theNJR 7y ago
      I don’t know enough to make a declaration. But I do know that she was renting the downstairs (it was a 2 unit apartment) for the past decade to the same people. Once this is a ghost house, no one will live there, thus one rental off the market. Is some demand artificially constrained?
    • scruple 7y ago
      I don't think anyone can claim one way _or the other_ on this issue. Once you live in a place that is being used in some part to park mainland Chinese money, like I currently _do_, you really start to wonder why there aren't readily available statistics on this problem.