By artificial I was referring to interest rates. Since interest rates are not set by the market, that makes them, as far as they affect the market, artificial.
Interest rates should reflect risk, but with the FED artificially, and to some degree arbitrarily, manipulating them they don’t reflect risk. And artificially low interest rates drive money into areas that it would not normally go.
I’m sure there’s more to it than that, as you said, but I’ve got to believe that was a factor.
On a side note; California property taxes are 1% of the selling price. So the state just had its revenue on this building cut in half. Also; everyone else in SF can claim a drop in property price and demand a reduction in tax as well.