San Francisco home prices hit new heights in March, fueled by the vast wealth being generated by the AI industry, according to a report Monday from Compass.
House prices in the city hit a record median sale price of $2.15 million last month, up 18% year over year. The new benchmark comes four years after the previous peak of $2.05 million was reached in April 2022 during the height of the pandemic housing market boom, the real estate firm said.
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The median condo sale price was about $1.36 million in March, up 27% year over year and just shy of the record $1.375 million, which was also set in April 2022.
San Francisco and the wider Bay Area has long been a hotbed of tech money, but its housing market had slumped post Covid. Now, its renaissance is “being fueled by the new employment and wealth generated by the AI startup boom,” Patrick Carlisle, the chief market analyst for the San Francisco Bay Area at Compass, wrote in the report.
The market is also unperturbed by the war in the Middle East.
“The economic changes created by the Iran war—such as rising interest rates and financial market volatility—have not affected the extremely heated market dynamics,” according to Carlisle.
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Not only did property prices soar in San Francisco last month, but demand also hit new highs.
There were 22 luxury house sales—defined as those sold for over $5 million—reported in March, that’s up 83% annually and one more than the previous peak of 21 luxury sales logged in June 2021. The actual number of sales may even be higher once any late-reported sales are counted.
On the condo side, there were 24 luxury sales—defined as those sold for over $3 million—up a whopping 380% from the same time last year. The previous peak was 17 sales in August 2021.
The total sales volume in March rose approximately 5% to 6% year over year, but the number of homes listed for sale dropped 28%, the report said.
“The inadequate supply of listings, especially houses, has been severely constraining sales volume,” Carlisle wrote. “The disconnect between demand and supply continues to pressurize the market as buyers compete for scarce listings.”