What? No, it’s the opposite. Suburban and rural homes have seen major price jumps in the past year while the most expensive cities have stagnated or dropped. For example Western MI has seen more price growth than the city of SF in the past year.

Not in my small Midwest city. Many houses are being sold in hours. Most of the time I see a new realtor, it is already sale pending. I have little doubt houses are being sold without being put on the market. There are realtors asking around my neighborhood if anyone is looking to sell because they have buyers interested in the area.

Here in my city, the rents are decreasing since COVID started and the prices keep skyrocketing. It also supports my hypothesis. Investors are just buying up properties and renting them out, lowering rents everywhere. It may come to a head sooner rather than later, once someone finds the mortgage is way higher than the renter is paying. But even then, I think many owners are willing to take a hair cut on their mortgage because they feel like "the market has performed so well, its worth it". But how long?

This does not seem to be true, most of them have small (< 1%) but positive growth I think.

What were you basing it on? Some of them have negative birth rates, but that isn't the same thing - and to lead to an overall decline in population immigration would have to be reduced by more than the delta.