And yet, here we are. A massive luxury estate just sold for $21.5 million, marking one of the priciest residential transactions the East Bay has ever seen. Details on the property are still emerging, but the price tag alone tells a story worth paying attention to.

Let's state the obvious: this is not a housing market data point that matters to most of us. Nobody scrolling apartments on Craigslist at 1 a.m. is competing with whoever wrote this check. But it does reflect something real about where Bay Area wealth is flowing — and it's not all staying in San Francisco.

For years, the East Bay has been quietly absorbing the spillover from San Francisco and the Peninsula. Remote work accelerated it. Lower property taxes (relatively speaking) sweetened the deal. And for ultra-high-net-worth buyers, the East Bay hills offer something San Francisco genuinely can't: space. Lots of it. With views that rival anything west of the bay.

The libertarian in us says: great, someone spent their money how they wanted, on a property someone else wanted to sell. That's the market working. No subsidy required, no affordable housing mandate attached, no board of supervisors approval needed.

But the fiscal realist in us also notes the irony. San Francisco continues to hemorrhage residents and tax revenue while making it nearly impossible to build new housing or run a business without navigating a Kafka-esque permitting process. Meanwhile, the East Bay collects a $21.5 million property tax windfall.

Maybe — just maybe — if San Francisco spent less energy regulating lemonade stands and more energy being a place people actually want to invest in, that check gets written on this side of the bridge.

Just a thought, City Hall.