Wealthy AI workers send San Francisco house prices soaring

From the article:

In March, San Francisco regained its title as the most expensive city for homebuyers in the US, overtaking rival San Jose 50 miles to the south in the heart of traditional Silicon Valley.

That month, the median house price in San Francisco rose 19% on the year before, and that trend has continued, up 14.5% and 14.1% in April and May respectively, according to data provided by Redfin.

The median sale price in the city as of May 2026 is a record high of $1.76m, compared with nearly $400,000 for the US as a whole, where prices rose by just 1.4% in March, and 2% in both April and May.

The prevailing view of pretty much everyone is that AI money is the driver of the red-hot San Francisco property market. "We have come to that conclusion based on what we're seeing in the data, and what we've heard from our agents," says Fairweather.

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Last October, more than 600 current and former OpenAI employees sold combined shares worth $6.6bn, an average of $11m per participant, it was recently reported.

At Anthropic, whose main product is Claude, workers were also recently said to have been allowed to sell shares totalling some $6bn.

And with both companies due to have full stock market flotations later this year or next, minting more multi-millionaire employees, many see no end in sight to San Francisco's real estate rises.

"Today's bidding wars are going to be seen as bargains, and they already are," says Rachel Swann, the listing agent for the Duboce Triangle property.

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The upward trend, he says, is not just confined to luxury properties but extends across the market, from single-family homes to one-bedroom flats, and while it is most pronounced in desirable neighbourhoods, it is being felt almost everywhere.

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Danielle Lazier, another experienced San Francisco realtor, describes similar, but adds some perspective. There has long been a tendency in San Francisco for homes to be listed below market value to get an auction effect going, she says.

I can confirm that listing houses for sale at prices below their "true" asking price is routine now, even in the east bay where we were looking. It's what real estate agents recommend. You need to look at the automatic estimates on real estate websites to get a sense of what a house might really go for, or ask your real estate agent to do an estimate.

Typically they have open houses for a few weeks and then there's a day when people should get their offers in, but sometimes would-be buyers will jump the gun with an early offer.