Personally I think SF itself, compared to the surrounding region, is a terrible place to live whos downsides must only be barely mitigated by specific positives which appeal to some people-- E.g. nightlife and access to high paying jobs. And right now the pandemic has killed the positives: destinations are closed and businesses have cut back and/or accepted remote work in large numbers.
Not everyone sees it my way, of course, but you don't need a large drop in demand to create a large drop in price.
Having living here for about 5 years I originally had the same thought but I've realized that this is an overstatement.
San Francisco is actually quite a beautiful city in many respects, especially in the more northern parts of the city. The weather is usually quite nice. There is (was?) a really good restaurant scene with pretty good cuisine in pretty much any category you could want. There's great nightlife, with a strong music scene, good theater and some great museums. It's also proximate to a bunch of really cool areas (Tahoe, Napa/Sonoma, Marin). I think there are genuinely a lot of people who really enjoy living here.
That said, there are also a ton of folks that are effectively forced to be here for work and would leave if they could. I think there are enough of these folks that want to leave that if they could, it could have a pretty sizeable impact on the rental market and the whole economy. Remember that not everyone has to leave. Even a 10% outflow could potentially tip the balance back towards a real estate market crash (or at least a correction).
I think you missed an important part: the people. There’s LGBTQ+ culture, Latino culture, startup culture, etc. People like being around people like them. Unless other cities can recreate these agglomerations, SF will still be a destination for a lot of people.
It is manifestly the case that enough people disagree with you to keep San Francisco rents among the highest in the world under normal circumstances. Not only do we have nightlife and good jobs, we also have world-class restaurants (seven three-star Michelin restaurants in the Bay area and an accompanying halo of lower-tier options), theatre, opera, ballet, good weather most of the time, redwood forests, beaches, sailing, surfing, kite-boarding, and a culture of weirdness and innovation that keeps the street life very interesting. Oh, they make some decent wine nearby too. Show me a place with affordable real estate and I'll show you a place that not many people want to move to.
I think it's telling that a number of your examples are things found outside of San Francisco.
It's SF proper seeing these drops-- not surrounding areas in the bay (at least not to anywhere near the same degree).
And just like you see the benefit of being able to travel out to those things it's also possible to travel in to SF for the things that are there-- from my perspective the things that are good about SF (like a performing arts event or a fancy restaurant) are things which I'd only partake occasionally and not every day.
Some of it is just subjective: I think the SF weather is pretty terrible compared to anywhere else in the bay-- continually cold and foggy. I can't stand the constant mind numbing noise. I can't stand the traffic, the lack of parking, and the public transit necessary to deal with it but which stops running early and poorly connects significant parts of the city.
But I don't see a reason to argue it with you: Different people have different preferences and I don't doubt that SF is great in all kinds of ways that matter to you. For me not living in SF was a trivial decision that had nothing to do with real-estate prices, and so it's easy to me to imagine how things are for people who decided otherwise but with the pandemic are finding that the trade-off they made doesn't make sense.
My point was only that there were are many people who find it generally awful and only counterbalanced by factors that, at least temporarily, now don't apply.
> Show me a place with affordable real estate and I'll show you a place that not many people want to move to.
That is a misrepresentation of the economics. Prices can shoot to the sky based on relatively modest differences between supply and demand. Some places have affordable real-estate because they're a lot less attractive, but others have more affordable real-estate because they're only slightly less attractive or because they have slightly less constrained supply, which can just be a product of geography or differences in public policy.
I'll hold up the twin cities as a more affordable place with lots of people. In summer, it's very bike friendly. There's a bunch of lakes throughout Minneapolis and St. Paul. Mill City Museum is one of the best I've ever been too, and there's a ton of theatre all around.
Sure, winter gets cold, but it's easier to handle on the cities where downtowns have pedestrian subways, and the city clears the snow. Plus there are events like Luminary Loppet.
Sure, the summer is humid, but lots of folks have basements. And offices have AC. And the lakes are still cold once you get more than two feet down.
The only things it really needs are mountains and ocean nearby. Even then, it's got some excellent areas nearby
Not everyone sees it my way, of course, but you don't need a large drop in demand to create a large drop in price.