Correlation doesn't equal causation. How would parking money in a depreciating asset benefit a foreign investor? They clearly aren't cashflow positive, so some other outside influence is causing this and it is limited to a few specific cities, so it has to be some localized effect.
Some look at the situation, question what's different about SF that might be causing this, and point to the highly restrictive development laws the city has. These prevent new comers from entering the market leaving only those who are primarily playing the long game and looking to build wide moats. If investors who required a much shorter return could compete, it's assumed the situation would normalize
If this isn't the case, then what is the underlying issue? Simply attacking wealthy people for doing something that is a) completely legal and b) obviously providing them some sort of benefit doesn't solve the underlying problem. To look at it another way, SF has clearly been trying to "solve" this problem through increased regulation for many decades now. Where are the success stories we can point to that show the direct approach is working?
38000 empty homes is problematic in a city the size of SF with population size 900k. This isn’t just a problem of supply shortage (regardless of the reason for the shortage).
