Bugs: I cannot speak for Seattle, but the SF/Bay Area has always seemingly had the ability to defy gravity when it came to pricing. It apparently still does: Mountain View (right outside Palo Alto) just set a record for home sales. There are properties throughout Los Altos and Palo Alto that are in the nosebleed range and staying there.
As to whether that market will correct or not is anybody’s guess. It did following the NASDAQ bust, and viciously.
I agree wholeheartedly with your assessment as to the underlying economics of the San Diego area. While it certainly has a tech/biotech core, it represents nothing even close to what the Silicon Valley has in terms of both high wage employment and the number of large and very profitable companies domiciled there. One of the explanations regarding Mountain View’s recent surge is that Google is on a hiring tear.
