(TNS)– The deluge of wealth the artificial intelligence boom has brought into San Francisco has already pushed luxury home prices to record heights. Now, with Anthropic’s initial public offering poised to bring even more money into the city, could things get even worse?
Real estate professionals say yes—but that a lot of the growth is already baked in.
Let’s take stock of what’s already happened. San Francisco’s home prices have risen most sharply in neighborhoods that were already exclusive, such as Pacific Heights or the Marina. The median home price for luxury homes in the San Francisco metropolitan area—properties sold in San Francisco and San Mateo counties at or above the 95th percentile price—was nearly $7.5 million from July to September 2026, Redfin data shows. That was up a whopping 23% from the same period in 2025, and up more than 60% from 2019.
Now, some experts suggest that AI IPOs could cause demand to spill even further, raising prices for the few home types—or communities—in the Bay Area where middle-income families might still afford a property.
Already, some data indicates that even non-luxury homes in the city have seen strong appreciation over the past year.
“Typical” San Francisco area homes—those in the 35th-to-65th percentile sale price range — saw a record median sale price of $1.6 million in September 2026, an increase of 6.5% from 2025. While that’s a much lower jump compared to the San Francisco area’s luxury market, it still diverges sharply from that of the rest of the United States, where high mortgage rates and economic woes have caused prices to dip.
Redfin economist Daryl Fairweather believes the heat in San Francisco will spread to other parts of the region. In some ways, it already has; the city’s surging rents have caused many tenants to seek refuge in relatively more affordable cities like Oakland, pushing up prices there.
“This has been the story for at least … 15 years: San Francisco prices and rents going up and people being displaced,” Fairweather said.
Demand for fancy homes will likely keep surging
Some real estate agents say that the AI workers and investors fighting bidding wars in San Francisco often don’t want to give up on their dream house, even as prices rise. That’s part of the reason demand has flowed into other expensive cities in Marin County or the Peninsula, where there are more fancy homes for the buying. Phil Chen, a real estate broker at Christie’s International Real Estate Sereno, said that demand for Hillsborough has soared, with buyers citing a desire for strong schools — and security.
“It’s my first time hearing, ‘Is the glass bulletproof and are there panic rooms?’” Chen said.
Zillow data indicates that home values in Hillsborough, Menlo Park and Piedmont have risen faster over the past year than any other Bay Area city with at least 10,000 people except San Francisco, suggesting that some wealthy buyers are expanding their search radius. In some cities, such as in Piedmont, starter home values—those in the 5th to 35th percentile—have actually climbed more than top-tier values. Still, a “starter home” in Piedmont still costs more than a mid-tier property in San Francisco.
It’s unclear how much demand could rise for homes that aren’t luxury properties or in expensive neighborhoods. One 2019 study found that IPOs increase demand for high-priced homes near the company’s headquarters, but not for low-priced properties. The study’s results also indicated IPOs increased the probability low-income residents moved to lower-income neighborhoods.
But Fairweather said that junior tech workers with smaller windfalls than their senior peers could start to make offers in parts of the Bay Area where their money will go further. Vanessa Hatvany Kitchen, a real estate agent with Compass’ Team Hatvany Kitchen, said her team has seen more people buying condos and smaller single-family homes in San Francisco, fearing they won’t be able to get a foothold after companies like Anthropic go public.
But much of the demand increase is baked in
If there’s any silver lining for buyers, though, it’s that a lot of those companies’ impact on the Bay Area real estate market is already here. Arrian Binnings, a San Francisco real estate agent at Christie’s International Real Estate Sereno, said many AI workers have been able to get cash by borrowing against their stocks or selling their shares via company-approved tender offers, while investors have benefitted from the strength of the public equity market. That’s consistent with some research showing that merely filing for IPOs can raise home prices near a company’s headquarters.
“I don’t see the IPO as the starting gun of a new race. I see it as … we’re probably already at the 50-yard line,” Binnings said. “But I do still see plenty of room to run.”
IPOs don’t always result in an explosion of wealth. In the months after Uber went public in 2019, the company’s stock price plummeted, erasing billions of dollars in value. A similar fate for a public Anthropic or OpenAI would send a chill through the real estate market, some real estate agents say.
But many buyers are optimistic. Chen said some of his clients plan to sell their newly purchased homes in five years, expecting to increase their budgets from $10 million to $25 million. after the IPO. Those buyers, he added, are relatively junior-level employees.
“It’s like Facebook again, but 10x,” Chen said.
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