Exclusive | San Frans priciest listing of 2026 debuts for $35M as investors rush in ahead of a massive AI boom

For no fewer than 37 years, nobody could buy 2770 Broadway.Now, finally for sale, it’s the most expensive home for sale on San Francisco’s Multiple Listings Service this year.The Gilded Age mansion on the city’s Gold Coast landed on the market this week for a cool $34.95 million, nearly nine times the $3.95 million the late David Chamberlain paid when he bought it in 1989.

It hadn’t been listed since.Chamberlain, who led both the San Francisco Opera and the city’s Chamber of Commerce, held onto the house for the rest of his life.His children are now selling, with Compass agent Neal Ward handling the listing.The timing, most of all, is ideal.

Buyers who left the city during the pandemic are piling back in, and locals are scrambling to lock down homes before a fresh wave of AI fortunes hits.“The fear of competition in the future is making these people pay over asking right now so they don’t have to compete with crazy amounts of liquid cash that’s about to hit the market,” Roh Habibi, a star of “Million Dollar Listing San Francisco,” told The Post.Habibi said the frenzy isn’t being fueled by AI paydays — yet.Those, he said, are still on the way, likely within the next six to 18 months.

For now, he said, much of the buying comes from executives and founders who borrow against their stock and from returnees who fled to Texas, Tahoe and beyond, and quickly regretted it.2770 Broadway is exactly the kind of home that sets off a stampede.Architects Reid & Reid, the firm behind the Fairmont Hotel, designed it in 1894, decades before the Golden Gate Bridge it now overlooks was built.

The four-story manor spans more than 9,000 square feet on a rare 50-foot-wide lot, with an elevator, a private sport court and a bookcase concealing a secret door.A 2007 overhaul by architect Jim Jennings added a seismic retrofit.Habibi said most of today’s supply comes from families who have held their homes for decades and are finally cashing out.

On blocks l...