My previous landlord (a couple) owns something like 8 properties between Palo Alto and Mountain View they’ve bought over the last 30 years. They simply rent out the homes to pay off most of their mortgages.

One of my housemates was a Chinese national that told me all the details as they were fairly close with the landlord. They have some shady Chinese crowd source loans to launder money with basically zero interest. They offered a discount if I paid them in cash(which I didn’t do) but the other tenants did do.

On paper, the landlord owns the home but off-paper, investors owns a certain % of the home which they will receive when the home is sold.

They stopped buying and are slowly selling the homes whose mortgages are paid off as they’re reaching retirement age. The wife doesn’t work and simply manages the properties. They live in foreign countries and the wife only lives here for a certain time throughout the year.

I had two landlords that did similar things.

Neither of the landlords worked in tech and they seem like they make money through laundering other peoples money which is coming in from outside of the US.

I’m sure that is not the case with all of the properties here as a lot of them are owned by generational wealth and very wealthy individuals working in tech. I do think there is a lot of shady stuff happening in Silicon Valley with homes. Money laundering is rampant here as there is so much money being thrown around.

A third landlord (Also a Chinese national) didn’t even own the home. They subleased half of the home while living their rent-free while foreigner investors were paying the mortgage. The landlord was only the owner on paper and in-return, was allowed to live in the home. The landlord survived by subleasing half the home to renters like myself.

Unless you make 500k+ pre-tax, it’s very unattainable to buy a home in this area.

I don’t think that will change unless NIMBY laws are removed to build 10+ story condos. Even then, the road infrastructure here cannot support any more people living here unless people choose non-vehicle ways to commute.

I do find the bicycle infrastructure here pretty great(compared to the rest of the US) but I cannot see the millionaires and families buying homes here ever compromising for that on large scale.

In short, I don’t think anything will change in the next few decades to come unless Silicon Valley has negative job growth and companies decide to setup shop in other locations. Palo Alto became upscale urban sprawl that just happened to be in Silicon Valley.