144 San Francisco homes sold for at least $1 million over their asking price in the first half of 2026, up from just 8 during the same stretch of 2025, according to data reported by Moneywise and Yahoo Finance, both citing figures from the SF Standard and The Real Deal. The homes that cleared that bar carried an average listing price of $3.8 million before the bidding started.
Key Points
- 144 San Francisco homes sold $1M+ over asking in H1 2026, versus 8 in H1 2025
- Average listing price on those homes: $3.8 million
- Only 590 single-family homes and condos were listed citywide as of late June
- 26% of July sales were paid entirely in cash
- OpenAI and Anthropic both filed confidentially for IPOs in June 2026
The timing lines up with a wave of private wealth moving out of AI startups and into real estate. Moneywise reports that OpenAI filed confidentially for an IPO in June, with Anthropic following about a week later, and that employees at both companies and other AI startups have increasingly been converting paper equity into cash through private share sales and loans ahead of those public offerings. That cash is landing directly in the local housing market, where citywide inventory sat at just 590 single-family homes and condos by the end of June.
Compass agent Ronda Priestner has described Broadway, one of the city’s most prized streets, as a stretch where housing scarcity has become effectively permanent. Fellow Compass agent Paul Kitchen has pointed to listings that drew as many as 50 competing bids in a single round. Roughly a quarter of July sales, 26%, closed as all-cash deals, a sign that financing contingencies are no longer much of an obstacle for the buyers driving the top of the market.
The effect is not confined to modest bidding-war premiums. A 12-acre estate in Hillsborough, just south of the city, recently sold for $70 million, more than double the town’s previous sale record of $35 million set in 2022, according to Moneywise, which cites listing agent Jenn Gilson confirming the buyer works in artificial intelligence.
The spillover beyond the Bay Area
Nationally, the median home price sat at $434,100 in the same period, up just 2.0% year over year, and California home prices overall rose only 0.2% from July 2025, underscoring how concentrated this surge is in San Francisco specifically rather than the state as a whole. Priced-out buyers are increasingly relocating to Texas, according to Moneywise’s reporting on comments from Compass leadership, while Tampa has seen its own smaller version of the pattern: luxury home prices there climbed 15.6% between March and May even as prices on regular homes slipped 0.5% over the same window.
For a market that was widely described as being in a “doom loop” of office vacancies and outmigration just a couple of years ago, a $1-million-over-asking bidding war has become almost routine at the top end of San Francisco’s housing stock, one now measured less by mortgage approvals and more by how quickly a startup’s cap table converts to cash.
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