What is the magic formula that can turn a city with a traditional economy into a tech hub? Certainly municipalities have been trying to crack this code, given the high salaries and stronger economic growth these companies tend to bring. Likewise developers, drawn by the higher rents tenants are willing to pay for just the right building in just the right part of town.

Different prognosticators use different measurements as they place their bets on which cities will be the next Silicon Valley. RealtyMogul CEO Jilliene Helman, for her part, tracks the cities where tech companies are going on hiring sprees.

As one example, in Austin, Texas, Tesla and Google alone are hiring 15,000 new workers in the coming quarters, with wages between $200,000 and $1 million per year. In a market with limited supply already, that will likely translate to extraordinary price increases for residential and multifamily, she says.