Cooling Soon

It was only a matter of time. The stock market tailspin has affected venture capital: [bold added]

Investors, eyeing collapsing tech stocks and economic sloth, are culling their portfolios and forcing cash-starved companies to retrench or shut down.

Investors funded fewer U.S. startups in the fourth quarter than any period in more than four years. Since November, at least a dozen tech companies, which combined raised well over $2 billion in venture funding, have announced layoffs, letting go hundreds of people that in most cases represented at least 15% of their staffs. Other companies are closing money-losing projects and raising debt to tide them over.

Everyone talks about the escalation in home prices, but
renters are being squeezed, too (Mercury News)

Layoffs and business cutbacks will have a delayed effect on the red-hot Bay Area real estate market, which should be cooling soon. However, home prices and rents should soften only a few percentage points. No established analyst has (yet) predicted a stock-market collapse on the order of 2000, when the dot-com bubble burst.

SF Chronicle: How a tech slowdown could affect Bay Area housing