Like, I'm curious what drives the demand for homes in the ~$2M range in the bay area, if it's not the general software developer who's able to afford it.
My grandmother's home and my childhood home, both in Cupertino, just sold for upwards of 2.5 mil each to all-cash buyers. I can't verify the foreign money aspect for these sales but people I have worked with who have left the valley in the last few years indicate it is quite common. I left silicon valley nearly 10 years ago now but was born and raised in Cupertino.
I'm going to temporarily ignore the "superexpensive" properties, which I'll arbitrarily define as over $4M in SV. That's a different market... for the "global jet-set." Or the people who were the first X employees at a startup with a real liquidity event (and their founders treated them fairly).
Down on the valley floor, $1-3M is within reach of a lot of people in tech, especially double techies. (If you've been here since before the last 2 booms, you've got even more going for you.) Most big tech companies (FANG) stock is way up... Take that as a downpayment... multiple it 2,3, or 4 times and voila.
Markets that have really been hit by foreign money are Vancouver [1] and certain neighborhoods in Los Angeles [2].
Having been to those places (for extended periods of time), I can say SV doesn't feel like those to me.
One last bit of anecdata: I know of one house in SV that received at least 7 offers in the past month. Only 1 of those 7 was all cash foreign money... but they weren't the high bid. 5 other "locals" with loans had higher offers.
[1] https://betterdwelling.com/city/vancouver/foreign-buyers-45-...
[2] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-10-15/chinese-h...
The margins. The actual numbers of homes turning over at such prices is miniscule.
But this home was estimated north of $6M
"The total cost would be $6,562,500."