The San Francisco housing market is the most overvalued market in the United States. People over inflate the market because tech is sexy and cool and many are chasing the next Google, Amazon, or Facebook. Everyone wants to strike it rich with as little work as possible. And what better way to do that than in real estate? In San Francisco the typical crap shack will cost you $1.2 to $1.5 million. The response from many housing cheerleaders is the typical logic you see in manias – hey, someone paid for it! You also get similar stories from the tulip bubble, dotcom bubble, and other bubbles where the justification for higher prices is simply that some other sucker paid for it at that level. And there is now signs that we may be in a rental bubble in the Bay Area.  83 percent of renters surveyed in the Bay Area said they plan on leaving. Tie that in with the UBS Global Real Estate Index showing that San Francisco is dangerously close to bubble territory and you have indicators that something is rotten in SF.
People have once again lost their collective marbles when it comes to real estate. There is now a massive trend with momentum for non-stop housing appreciation. In other words, our housing bubble sins are now fully washed away making way for more aggressive risk taking. I’ve been traveling and seeing real estate from many different locations and thanks to ubiquitous sites like Zillow, virtually every large metro area is seeing massive housing appreciation detached from income growth and people are tracking real estate down like starving hyenas after an injured wildebeest. We are now in a market where potential buyers are in a panic to buy for no other reason beyond they feel they will miss the boat yet again. Today we highlight what is probably the smallest home we have ever featured on the site.
There has been a massive trend towards renting. The vast majority of household growth since the housing bubble imploded has been with rental households. I know this is hard to believe for Taco Tuesday baby boomers but this is simply the new reality. And all of those investors that bought up single family homes for rentals are living it up. There are now a few major changes impacting the housing market – many more single family homes are rentals and many more renters are staying put. In other words, many are not looking to buy and builders realize this. There is now a large category of permanent renters since many people live and work in more expensive metro markets. Short of forking out an insane amount of money to live in say San Francisco, people are opting to rent. The proof is in the numbers.
Well being back in the Bay Area I realize once again how delusional people have become when it comes to chasing unicorn startups and all things real estate. I ran into multiple people and it seems like everyone is talking about real estate. Some of these people were showing me “deals†on apps like Zillow or Redfin on their phones. “This place with some work can then be flipped in a month for a $200,000 profit.â€Â Why work when you can speculate on housing? The housing market is now in cult status and this psychological territory isn’t new. We don’t have to dig deep into historical texts and read about Florida real estate in the 1920s but need only look at the 2000s. San Francisco is out of control. And of course you have insulated mindsets from many that work in tech or the financial sector since they feel that money or an app can solve all of life’s challenges. Today we take a look at a home worthy of the crap shack title in San Francisco.
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