[littlexsparkee]

That says more about affordability than desirability since rents have gone up over the decade but there's been a steady trickle out to cheaper locales

[wallst07]

You are reversing cause/effect though.

SF rents have gone up, that didn't decrease demand. Why did SD rents drop, not because people left because it was too expensive, that doesn't make sense.

[littlexsparkee]

That's not what I'm saying. While they dropped recently due to the supply surge, looking at the last decade SD rents had been climbing:

https://www.costar.com/article/1297403833/san-diego-apartmen...

This suggests that San Diego has been getting more desirable over time (denser, more jobs, more culture, etc). The people who'd been around for some time that could hack the old SD rents couldn't deal with those rising costs and had been spilling over to Temecula, Phoenix, etc.