Seeing this firsthand, Sold our house in southern California in mid 2022. Moved to another state and regretted it. Looking to buy back in our area(also looking at another area if we can't find something in socal). Both me and my Wife are extremely high earners(Staff FANG comp for me and HR Director salary for Wife) and we are shocked at how expensive things have become in our old city(not naming it as I don't want more people looking there!).
Basically when we bought there during the early stages of the pandemic(mid 2020) most decent/somewhat updated 3 br 2 bath houses were between $800k to $1.2M, with some really nice ones $1.4M to $1.6M. Now the same houses are $1.7M to $2.1M which is basically a doubling of prices, and oh you have 7% interest rates which make housing payments insane. The local wages do not support these housing prices and being a rational person myself it is quite frustrating.
Our realtor is saying alot of the offers(about 75%) she has been seeing are coming from either SF or SF bay area as things are falling apart up there and families want to get out while they can(this is what they are telling her). And alot of all cash buyers have beaten us in almost every offer we have made, so a decent amount of these buyers are from northern california.
I wonder why people think it's crazy for housing prices to go up in a short amount of time but don't think twice about the stock market going up more than that over the same time period.
I think people get confused by how this is possible because they only consider the wages required to buy a home when buyers in high cost areas have benefited from a doubling in their liquid net worth via stocks and other financial assets.
Basically when we bought there during the early stages of the pandemic(mid 2020) most decent/somewhat updated 3 br 2 bath houses were between $800k to $1.2M, with some really nice ones $1.4M to $1.6M. Now the same houses are $1.7M to $2.1M which is basically a doubling of prices, and oh you have 7% interest rates which make housing payments insane. The local wages do not support these housing prices and being a rational person myself it is quite frustrating.
Our realtor is saying alot of the offers(about 75%) she has been seeing are coming from either SF or SF bay area as things are falling apart up there and families want to get out while they can(this is what they are telling her). And alot of all cash buyers have beaten us in almost every offer we have made, so a decent amount of these buyers are from northern california.