There is no time from the 2000s on where the SF rental market crashed; median rents dropped slightly after the 2008 financial crisis as they did nationally, but bounced back faster than the national trend.
Ah, my recollection is definitely different. It was absolute madness for a while. You'd show up and there would be a line of 30+ people all waiting to see the same place. You'd also need to be armed with a "rental resume" along with the dreaded application fee to even be a contender.
When things burst, that all went away.
This was pretty interesting:
https://medium.com/@mccannatron/1979-to-2015-average-rent-in...