San Francisco home prices hit eye-popping highs thanks to AI gold rush experts unpack when the madness could end

A tech boom has pushed San Francisco home prices from expensive to stratospheric — leaving locals wondering when the AI-crazed madness will end, and whether there’s any hope left for ordinary folks to buy in.Median sale prices in the red-hot market hit $1.7 million last month, according to Homes.com, while the prices of single-family homes exceed $2.1 million, far out of reach for many local buyers.

That’s because of a tsunami of AI wealth concentrated in the city, coupled with a lack of inventory — leading wealthy and desperate home buyers to bid up some properties by $1 million or more and even dangle shares of leading firms like Anthropic in exchange for scarce homes.To underscore the insanity, one relatively shabby 2,400-square-foot home along a noisy street in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood sold for $3.1 million, seven figures over its original asking price.

The city of roughly 900,000 people at the center of the AI boom is now flooded with housing horror stories as even modest rental units aren’t spared.One North Beach landlord listed a 64-square-foot cell with a shared bathroom and no kitchen access for $750 per month.

And regular families say they’re being booted from longtime rentals as landlords jack up rates to milk the newfound tech riches.“There’s very little product to find if you’re a renter or buyer, and that’s why prices are shooting up,’ explained Nigel Hughes, an analyst with Homes.com.San Francisco’s priciest known home listing is the $67 million Pacific Heights manse of Oracle heiress Nicole Miner and her author hubby Robert Mailer Anderson, built on a plot of land they bought for just $5 million in 1999.

Demand is concentrated in luxury homes in San Francisco’s most desirable neighborhoods — often located within an easy commute to downtown.Below the $2 million range, sale prices aren’t quite as “exorbitant,” Hughes added.

With a slew of AI IPOs expected as soon as this year, Hughes believes there’s “...