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Morbidly, I think a big earthquake will be the turning point for housing in the Bay Area. After a 6.5+, just about all the brick buildings will be degraded to the point of no return. We might see plenty of new steel / wood construction with the rebuilt (or 3d-printed) facades of old buildings, with new heights and efficiencies inside (better lighting, accessability, modularity).

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I've often thought it might take a natural disaster to fix things a bit.

But realistically, at this point I'd expect investors to circle the aftermath like vultures waiting to throw money at whatever they could. There might be a small downturn, but then things will get right back up there.

My hypothesis is that it would only slightly dent demand for the area. And that says nothing about all the single story wood-framed ranches in the Peninsula which would largely be fine.

We already had Loma Prieta in 1989. You don't see very many bricks in the Bay Area, compared to back east.

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