San Francisco homeowners are willing to trade their mansions for AI stock as median home prices hit $2.2M

I’ll trade my mansion for Anthropic stock.

That’s the deal San Francisco-area banker Storm Duncan was ready to make in April. Duncan runs Ignatious, an investment bank that specializes in Silicon Valley deals (1).

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His motivation? To snap up Anthropic shares ahead of its looming IPO (2). Duncan was so keen on getting the stock that he boosted his luxury listing — a 4,400-square-foot spread (3), with panoramic views of San Francisco Bay and the iconic Golden Gate Bridge — on LinkedIn. He then direct-messaged Anthropic employees in the hopes of trading his house for stock.

“There’s definitely been some interest in it,” Duncan told the New York Post (4). “But it’s not your typical deal.”

It certainly attracted media interest, if not enough interest to sell. Duncan has since taken down his LinkedIn post and according to Realtor.com, his house is now off the market.

But as the New Times reports, he’s not the only San Francisco homeowner ready to trade their homes for AI stock (5), and that’s adding pressure to what is already a steaming hot housing market in San Francisco.

AI tilts San Francisco housing market

When it comes to San Francisco housing, AI is tilting what was already an unlevel playing field.

The New York Times recently featured the story of Katrine Razniak and Adam Woodbury, a San Francisco couple who work in software and together bring in $365,000 a year. They shared their struggle to find a one-bedroom apartment for under $5,000 a month (6).

“I feel a little bit like I’m not good enough to live here anymore because I don’t work at an AI company,” Woodbury told the Times, alluding to his better-paid peers at OpenAI and Anthropic.

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The AI industry — and the multimillionaires it’s minting — is also skewing the price of San Francisco homes, according to a June report from Compass, the real estate firm. The median home price is now $2.2 million, up from 1.7 million — a 17% hike (7).

Compass’s chief economist Mike Simonson described the situation as “Absolutely BANANAS” on X (8), noting that 44 homes sold for $1 million above asking in June.

Even AI workers are struggling

Compass agent Peter Rodway told the New York Times of a client who worked at Open AI who feared competition from “a thousand other people that are going to have a budget of $30 million (5).”

As moneyed AI workers drive prices higher, the San Francisco housing market is becoming increasingly exclusive. And it will only become more exclusive if homeowners refuse to sell their homes for anything but AI stock.

Nima Gabbay already sold his San Francisco home to a tech worker after announcing he’d be willing to accept Anthropic or OpenAI shares as payment (5).

Gabbay — who signed a non-disclosure agreement about the sale — told the Times it was “an avenue for me to potentially pick up some of this stock and be a part of the excitement of the companies going public.”

If the San Francisco real estate market gets any hotter, more people may be left in the cold.

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Article Sources

We rely only on vetted sources and credible third-party reporting. For details, see our ethics and guidelines.

Ignatious (1); ThinkMarkets (2); Realtor.com (3); NY Post (4); New York Times (5), (6); Compass (7); X (8).

This article originally appeared on Moneywise.com under the title: San Francisco homeowners are willing to trade their mansions for AI stock as median home prices hit $2.2M

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