You could buy houses in cash in half the cities in Ohio for 6 months unemployment + 3 stimulus checks. There are plenty of places like this in the US - Alabama, Mississippi, etc.

Sure - that is not the reason house prices in Marin are up 30%.

That's probably got more to do with central banks pushing up equities >30%. And probably because when you cut mortgage interest rates by 1 percentage point (which they did), you can afford ~15% more house.

In real terms - monthly payments for new housing purchases are down.