My friend is a RE agent here in San Francisco, and for the last 12-15 months, he has also seen the incredible trend of all-cash buyers. Specifically, Chinese all-cash buyers. After doing more research, he said the housing market in certain markets is being heavily driven by the new EB-5 Immigrant Investor program. It's a way to buy your Visa into the country so you can send your kids to college here, etc. etc.
Here is a good article on it.
http://money.cnn.com/2013/07/08/real...html?hpt=hp_t5
The more I sit here and think about it, the more I stew...are we kidding ourselves into thinking housing is on the rebound, only because we are selling off our market to other countries? Or is there a healthier perspective out there?
(BTW this is not to negate kudos to Todd...Todd's smart and is doing it for positive cash flow and long term appreciation. I am talking about the rapid short-term appreciations we're seeing).