[tristanm]

Two points I forgot to add:

One, there seem to be a lot of people who commute via car / bart / caltrain from places in the south peninsula, san jose, or south-east bay (fremont area roughly). In these places, rent is lower than SF but not notably lower, especially in the peninsula. And traffic / commute times are notoriously horrible coming from there.

Two, if people are rational about real estate values, it suggests that people truly don't expect any expansion at all to happen in the greater bay area. Not only that, but they don't expect work-from-home or telecommute to become more commonplace. Either of those things would substantially lower the cost of distant living, either by increasing the (future) value of potential real estate investments made now, or by reducing the current cost via reducing lost hours. I can think of arguments why we should expect more WFH, and to a lesser degree more expansion, but that is a whole other debate.