San Francisco's median home sale price has hit a record $1.76 million as of May 2026, driven largely by the influx of highly paid artificial intelligence workers, according to real estate firm Redfin. The city's prices surged 19% year-on-year in March before continuing to climb 14–15% in subsequent months — far outpacing the national average rise of around 2% — pushing San Francisco back ahead of San Jose as the most expensive housing market in the United States. Economists and realtors attribute the spike to the enormous salaries, bonuses, and stock payouts flowing to employees at AI companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic, both headquartered in the city, with some workers selling shares worth millions of dollars in recent limited stock sales; the trend is expected to intensify further when both companies pursue full stock market listings later this year or next, though analysts caution that tech layoffs elsewhere and the eventual maturation of the AI industry could temper future gains.