San Francisco has recorded six home sales above $20 million so far this year. In all of 2025, it recorded one.
Yet when The Agency asked its agents across 180 locations whether artificial intelligence money was lifting their business or their clients’ budgets, 84 percent said it was too early to tell.
That tension runs through The Agency’s 2027 Red Paper, the luxury brokerage’s annual outlook, which Inman obtained ahead of its Nov. 10 release. The report argues that AI-generated wealth is already reshaping select ultra-luxury markets, but only a handful. So far, the effect is mostly in one place.
“We’re already seeing AI-generated wealth influence the luxury market in San Francisco, where tech founders and executives are making some significant purchases. But it’s still early, and I don’t think we’ve seen the full impact across the country just yet,” Mauricio Umansky, founder and CEO of The Agency, told Inman.
Umansky added that as these buyers build wealth, whether now through AI or after a big IPO, they’ll look beyond the Bay Area for a second home, an investment property, or a lifestyle change.
“San Francisco is where we’re seeing it first, but I expect other luxury markets will benefit as well,” he said.
Where AI money is landing first
The report cites Goldman Sachs projections that total AI investment will top $1 trillion by the end of 2026. A slice of that is landing with a short list of founders and early employees getting rich fast through IPOs, acquisitions, and new equity stakes.
Much of what happens with the big, expected IPOs, such as Anthropic and OpenAI, is still an open question, though.
Major investors are growing skeptical that Anthropic’s IPO can hit its expected $1.5 trillion valuation after a steep market selloff driven by the unwinding of AI bets, according to The Wall Street Journal. The company aims to go public the week before Thanksgiving and is expected to raise up to $100 billion.
Meanwhile, OpenAI co-founder and president Greg Brockman said last week that the company would be ready to go public in 2027, pointing to growth in its enterprise business. Speaking at a Wall Street Journal tech conference, Brockman said OpenAI has been gaining ground with business customers, a market where rival Anthropic got an early lead.
Laura Pallin
In its new report, The Agency said AI wealth is already hitting the Bay Area, and the numbers back that up.
The report cites MLS data from early August showing San Francisco on a record pace at nearly every luxury tier. The city had six sales over $20 million, 20 over $10 million and 129 over $5 million. Across all of 2025, those totals were one, 21 and 113.
Buyers are also bringing more cash. According to Realtor.com, Bay Area luxury buyers put down a median 35 percent in 2025, up 6.6 percentage points from before 2023. On a $3 million home, that works out to roughly $198,000 more at closing.
Realtor.com attributes the gap to AI workers liquidating equity and putting it straight into real estate. Down payments in Miami, Austin and New York have eased since the 2023 rate spike. In the Bay Area, they haven’t.
“We were already dealing with such low inventory anyway in single-family homes,” said Laura Pallin, an agent with The Agency NorCal who primarily covers San Francisco. “It used to be easier to get into the higher-end homes, but anyone remotely interested in selling could not have picked a better time.”
Just north of the city, Tracy McLaughlin, an agent with The Agency Marin, said her pipeline is full of clients waiting on liquidity events. “In the next couple of years, I think we’re going to have a great run,” McLaughlin said. “We are working with a lot of people that have pending IPOs.”
Sleepy in Seattle
Not every tech hub is seeing the same effect. Seattle is moving the other way.
Jen Cameron
Jen Cameron, managing partner of The Agency Seattle, said the region’s top earners are concentrated on the Eastside, home to Microsoft and Amazon. Even so, she said, “The market feels frozen, with several listings above $10 million not moving.”
Cameron said many wealthy residents have paused their transaction plans while they work out what a wealth tax measure Washington state passed in March means for living in the state long term.
Washington’s new tax on high earners, formally Senate Bill 6346 and widely known as the “millionaires tax,” survived its first major test when voters rejected Initiative 645, a measure that would have repealed it. The law, signed in March, imposes a 9.9 percent tax on household income above $1 million.
The fight isn’t over. Opponents are expected to challenge the tax in court, arguing it conflicts with the state constitution’s long-standing limits on taxing income.
‘We want to be the ones they call’
Outside Northern California, the report says, most markets are seeing a trickle of this AI money rather than a wave. That’s largely because so much of the new wealth is still locked up.
Rick Teed
Rick Teed, an agent with The Agency South Florida, said many of the buyers he’s talking to can’t act on their gains until at least the end of the year.
“What’s happening now is you have a lot of AI money circling, but they’re waiting for an exit in and around the end of December,” Teed said. “The biggest players were able to cash in or borrow against positions.”
Teed expects that money to add pressure in Miami’s most desirable neighborhoods and coastal communities. Buyers leaving higher-tax states like California and New York could push in the same direction.
Umansky expects more activity at the very top of the market as the wealth becomes liquid, but he was careful about timing. “A lot will depend on when those deals happen and how quickly buyers decide to put that money into real estate,” he told Inman.
In the meantime, Umansky said, The Agency is pushing its agents to build relationships with these buyers now and to track inventory, including off-market listings.
“When these buyers are ready, we want to be the ones they call,” he said.
Faster, richer, pickier
Umansky argues that this wave differs from the dot-com era and the social media IPOs of the 2010s in two ways. Wealth is being created faster, and it’s going to a relatively small group of founders, executives and early investors.
Mauricio Umansky
“Many of these buyers have the cash to move quickly when they find something they love, but they’re also very particular about what they’re buying,” Umansky said. “Privacy, security, great design and location are all important to them.”
Umansky added, “We’ve seen tech wealth influence luxury real estate before, but I believe this next wave could have an even bigger impact, especially at the very high end of the market.”
That shapes where the report expects the money to go next.
Some buyers are already looking at the Florida Keys, according to Lisa Swanson, managing partner of The Agency Florida Keys. The appeal is a lower profile, while staying within boating distance of Miami. A renovation at Florida Keys Marathon International Airport is also making private aviation easier.
“They’re getting tired of Miami’s traffic and congestion and are willing to pay a premium for larger, turnkey properties,” Swanson said.
Swanson added that the money arriving in the Keys is a mix of new wealth and legacy wealth, and it comes from a range of industries, not just tech.
The report also points to three lifestyle markets reachable nonstop from San Francisco: Steamboat Springs, Colorado; Los Cabos, Mexico; and Oahu, Hawaii. It pitches all three on relative value and easy access for founders with little free time.
Records at the top, strain at the bottom
The report places the AI wealth story inside what has often been called a “K-shaped housing reality.” Ultra-luxury sales are setting records while first-time buyers face some of the worst affordability on record.
“The reality is that we’re seeing two very different housing markets right now,” Umansky said. “At the high end, buyers have the means to make major purchases, while many Americans are struggling just to afford their first home. We can celebrate record-breaking sales, but we can’t ignore the affordability challenges facing so many people.
“I’ve always believed that real estate is about helping people achieve their dreams, whether that’s buying their first home or a $50 million estate,” he said. “Both matter, and as an industry, we need to be paying attention to both.”
What does today’s luxury buyer want, and how are top agents meeting the moment? Drawing on The Agency’s latest Red Paper report, this three-story series breaks down the trends reshaping the high-end market and the strategies agents can use to compete for it. Other articles cover the K-shaped economy and the trend of legacy property stewardship.
