The San Francisco tech housing market is heating up while Seattle’s cools, a divergence between two tech-driven markets that fell together three years ago.
The difference traces back to each city’s tech sector, according to a Redfin analysis. San Francisco’s median sale price rose 6 percent year over year in July, the highest increase among major U.S. metros, while Seattle’s median price fell nearly 4 percent, the second-largest decline among the 50 most populous metros, Redfin reported.
Inventory is moving in opposite directions, too. Active listings in San Francisco fell 18 percent year over year, the largest drop in the country, while Seattle’s listings rose nearly 17 percent, the largest increase, according to Redfin. Home sales climbed 8.5 percent in San Francisco and dropped 9.1 percent in Seattle over the same period.
| San Francisco | Seattle | |
| Median sale price | $1.6 million | $809,000 |
| Price change (year over year) | Up 6 percent | Down 3.6 percent |
| Active listings (year over year) | Down 18.4 percent | Up 16.7 percent |
| Homes sold (year over year) | Up 8.5 percent | Down 9.1 percent |
San Francisco’s rebound is tied to AI compensation flowing into home purchases. The city is home to OpenAI and Anthropic, and workers at both companies have used signing bonuses toward home purchases, Redfin Premier agent Ali Mafi said in a statement included in the report.
Bay Area luxury home prices rose 13.4 percent in the two years following the launch of ChatGPT, more than double the increase in the next-priciest tier, according to a separate Redfin analysis.
Chen Zhao
“AI is reorganizing the tech labor market, with San Francisco and Seattle representing two sides of that transition,” Redfin head of economics research Chen Zhao said in a statement.
San Francisco’s AI investment is generating wealth that some residents are putting toward housing, Zhao said, while Seattle’s established tech companies are simultaneously investing in AI and reassessing their workforce, a shift Zhao said is making some households cautious about buying.
Seattle’s slowdown follows layoffs at Amazon, Microsoft, Meta and Expedia over the past year, according to Redfin. Job security concerns are also curbing the relocation activity that once fed the market, Seattle-area Redfin agent Sheryl Wingate said in a statement.
Migration from the Bay Area to Seattle has nearly stopped. Seattle posted a net inflow of 369 people from the Bay Area in the first quarter, down from 5,166 five years earlier, according to Redfin migration data.
