patrick.net

Also, if you look at the income distribution of the Bay Area, it peaks at the 100k – 150k level with 18% of the population at that range. Then it dips to 7% at the 150k to 200k range with another 7% at 200k or more. So that’s 32% of households earning 100k or more. I’d imagine many with the means to do so buy multiple properties in highly desirable. Finally, the Bay Area still has lots of high paying jobs left and many people with ample savings accounts.

SF vs US Income

Bobby,

There's a nuanced symantic in that reference about household income. In my working class neighborhood, the households can have as many as four or even more adults working in the same household. parking their vehicles all over the place.

In the richer neighborhoods there is a preponderance of those households with two working parents, childcare bills, and other expenses they feel they need to keep up appearances, they may have a high income but that doesn't mean they're not strapped.

Read "The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Mothers and Fathers Are Going Broke", by Elizabeth Warren, she discusses the Beautiful People mainly on the other coast who may have high household income but on the balance sheet appear to be the working poor.

thomas.wong89 says

Much of this wealth came from the stock bubble of the late 90s.
There was very little talk of ‘wealth’ before that.

exaccoly. The IPO bubble was essentially minting millionaires by the hundreds if not thousands. Not that many houses in Atherton for all these millionaire types, LOL.

Doesn't matter if the dotcom was a bubble since all the smart money cashed out.

thomas.wong89 says

Troy, who do you define as ’smart money’?

Industry professionals who took the dotcom money and ran. I personally know many semi-retired MSFT and GOOG millionaires living the good life in the MP->LG corridor. How much valuation did the dotcom stocks have on Jan 1, 2000? A trillion? Ignoring the VC contingent, how much of this valuation did the worker bees cash out? 5% maybe?

Thats $50 billion dollars, 100,000 dotcom winners @ $500,000 each. Seems about right, if anything a bit low. Anyhoo, this money flow can be directly measured by the California state budget surpluses of the time. The smart money banked the money into their house and is now living off the interest like good capitalists.