AI wealth wave threatens to push Bay Area home prices further out of reach

The impending public listings of OpenAI and Anthropic could unleash a wave of employee wealth large enough to buy nearly a third of all homes in San Francisco, according to Redfin, a US  real estate brokerage.
It would add fresh fuel to a housing market where prices are already climbing at their fastest pace in nearly a decade, Redfin added.
“The AI boom is already impacting the Bay Area housing market,” Redfin said in a release, noting that price momentum so far has been driven by AI salaries and signing bonuses alone, before any initial public offering (IPO) cash has landed.
Current and former staff at the two artificial intelligence companies could collectively hold close to US$200 billion in post-tax equity once the IPOs price, according to estimates from Redfin — enough to hypothetically absorb 29 per cent of homes across the San Francisco metropolitan area, valued at US$692 billion in 2024.
San Francisco has struggled with housing affordability for more than a decade, with previous tech listings – including Facebook in 2012 and Uber and Lyft in 2019 — coinciding with price surges that pushed teachers, service workers and long-time residents out of the market.
OpenAI is targeting an IPO valuation of around US$1 trillion, with employee equity accounting for roughly 26 per cent of the company, Redfin said. That works out to about US$135 billion in staff holdings after tax. Anthropic is targeting a listing at US$965 billion to US$1 trillion; Redfin estimates staff hold 10 to 15 per cent of the company, worth roughly US$63 billion post-tax at the midpoint.
Applied against 2024 residential property values, OpenAI staff wealth alone could theoretically buy 20 per cent of San Francisco homes, 15 per cent of San Jose homes, or 15 per cent of Oakland homes. Anthropic staff could cover another 9.0 per cent of San Francisco or 7.0 per cent of the neighbouring metros.
Redfin, which forms part of US-based Rocket Companies, cautioned that the calculations are “purely hypothetical and not a realistic representation of where IPO proceeds will go”, but said they illustrate the scale of wealth being generated in the region ahead of the two listings. Anthropic’s employee equity stake has not been publicly disclosed. 
A separate Redfin report estimated SpaceX staff hold roughly US$120 billion in post-tax equity, enough to hypothetically buy about 40 per cent of homes in San Antonio, Texas — near the rocket company’s Starbase headquarters. Homes in the San Antonio metro were collectively worth US$297 billion in 2024.

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