Meh, it's what I've said here and elsewhere for years: California has always been expensive, always will be. (Where definition of CA == "SF/LA/San Diego, not Stockton".) The only difference I've seen lately versus historically is that during the most recent housing crash Bay Area housing didn't seem to get hit much, if at all. OTOH, there was a considerable dip in CA housing prices in the 70s that didn't seem to affect the rest of the country.
The CA housing market, if nothing else, gives newspapers something to chat about on slow news days.
Prices in San Francisco were rock bottom in 2008-2009. I saw some insanely low listing prices at the time. I'm talking stuff listing for less than $400,000 that's listing for over $1.5 million today. Unfortunately I had _just_ begun graduate school on the East coast. I spent many nights trawling Trulia with my jaw agape, pleading with my S.O. (comfortable in her rent controlled apartment) to consider buying something.
Those prices don't show up on most historical charts because there were very few sales overall, and of course most sales were at the very high-end which are typically much more inelastic price-wise.
Most of the market was exceptionally illiquid, which is why many of those listings were so slow. Alot of renovations and new construction that had just come onto the market were discounted to fire sale prices, dragging other listings with them, and _still_ didn't sell until a year or two later. Banks simply weren't making loans, and the all-cash buyers weren't around either because the stock market had tanked.
The market rebounded much faster here than elsewhere. But, still, if you actually had hard cash at the time, and an appetite for risk (nobody knew if and when things would rebound) you could have made a killing. Some people did.
The CA housing market, if nothing else, gives newspapers something to chat about on slow news days.