Take, like 30 cash-rich buyers chasing 25 available homes in a given year. That sets the value of hundreds of thousands of homes in the metro area. All those ho

Take, like 30 cash-rich buyers chasing 25 available homes in a given year. That sets the value of hundreds of thousands of homes in the metro area. All those homeowners now have a ton of equity that they throw around in their subsequent purchases. That doesn't mean "everyone" is spending huge multiples of their salary in cash, it just means a handful of people did. The rest rode the wave of equity.