San Francisco’s median home sale price has reached $1.7 million, compared with a U.S. median of $440,600 in June, as newly wealthy AI employees and early investors compete with veteran technology workers and institutional buyers. Offers exceeding asking prices by more than $1 million have become routine, including one $6.5 million listing that sold for more than $8 million. Roughly one-third of Bay Area residential transactions between April and June were all-cash purchases, up from below 20% in 2021. Rental costs have also surged: July data from Zumper showed one-bedroom rents up nearly 23% year over year and two-bedroom rents up about 26%, with the latter exceeding New York’s average. The market has rebounded sharply from its pandemic downturn, when San Francisco lost more than 60,000 residents between 2020 and 2022 and its median home price fell to $1.28 million in January 2023 from $1.68 million in April 2022. Potential initial public offerings (IPOs), or first public stock listings, by OpenAI and Anthropic later this year could bring another wave of purchasing power. Redfin estimates that employees of the two companies could theoretically buy nearly 29% of homes in the San Francisco metropolitan area if they invested their IPO proceeds in real estate. The boom is lifting asset values while making housing increasingly unaffordable for residents without AI-related wealth.