{"id":393802,"date":"2026-07-10T19:45:39","date_gmt":"2026-07-10T19:45:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/393802\/"},"modified":"2026-07-10T19:45:39","modified_gmt":"2026-07-10T19:45:39","slug":"san-franciscos-hype-houses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/393802\/","title":{"rendered":"San Francisco\u2019s hype houses"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is our Friday newsletter. Sign up to get it straight into your inbox<\/a>.<\/p>\n

San Francisco is in the middle of an absolutely out-of-control, AI-induced hype cycle.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not talking about the headlines about the technology that promises to change the ways a tiny group of already wealthy people get wealthier by taking advantage of users\u2019 laziness, loneliness, and occasional loathsomeness. I\u2019m talking about the barrage of news articles about real estate.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Like AI, the headlines about San Francisco\u2019s \u201csoaring,\u201d \u201cbooming,\u201d \u201cabsolutely bananas<\/a>\u201d real estate market are helping to fuel a speculative frenzy. Also like AI, these stories induce smug superiority in some, an acute sense of loss in others. And as with the worst AI models, they\u2019re probably making some people suicidal.<\/p>\n

Didja hear about buyers \u201cbidmaxxing\u201d $1 million over asking price<\/a>? How about $1.5 million<\/a> over? Make that $2 million<\/a> over! (Do I hear a three? Is there a three?)<\/p>\n

What about homeowners selling their houses<\/a> for AI stock<\/a>? Probably not possible<\/a>, but still a canard worth exploring in our most august<\/a> out-of-town publications<\/a>. Why, the frantic bidding has grown so loud, assigning editors across the pond<\/a> are hearing it.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t doubt that these stories are real, but the narrative they promote is what undergrad lit majors used to call hyperreal<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Yes, there\u2019s a cohort of people who are about to become unfathomably wealthy who will pay way too much for a 100-plus-year-old house with no seismic retrofit, decades of lead paint beneath the hastily splashed layer of Farrow & Ball, and a countertop that might\u2019ve sickened the workers who made it<\/a>. I\u2019m also sure there are people who\u2019ve been living in one of those houses (or renting it to tenants) who\u2019d very much like to sell at a huge profit and move to a place near a pickleball court that\u2019s closer to their grandkids.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That\u2019s all real. It\u2019s the press coverage that feels like BS.<\/p>\n

While these articles gesture obliquely at the \u201caverage\u201d San Franciscans whose lives are getting harder thanks to this real estate boom or flick at the \u201cchanges\u201d this new gold rush will bring to the city, what they\u2019re really doing is adding a journalistic imprimatur to what is essentially marketing.<\/p>\n

Read these stories and you\u2019ll see that many of the sources are representatives of real estate companies, Realtors, and the sellers of these houses. They may feign astonishment, but they\u2019re the ones cashing in. It\u2019s a bit like a journalist asking AI founders about how the technology will usher in \u201ccompletely new, exciting, super well-paid<\/a>\u201d jobs in the future or data centers in space<\/a> as if the speakers conjuring these scenarios can have any objectivity about these things.<\/p>\n

The comorbid real estate and the AI hype cycles have another thing in common: They\u2019ll come to an end, and not a minute too soon for most of us.\u00a0<\/p>\n

You better believe that when they do, many of the journalists who helped inflate these industries in the first place will act as if they have no idea who created so much fake value and how it all evaporated so dramatically. As these reporters earnestly point at the hot dog-shaped car that just drove through a window<\/a> and ask how this happened, I for one will be pointing out their hot dog suits and skewering them with relish.<\/p>\n

Only on Gazetteer SF<\/p>\n

\"\"Photo: Olivia Peluso \/ Gazetteer SF<\/p>\n

FLOUR POWER: Olivia Peluso on bagels made without bromated flour<\/a>.<\/p>\n

XXX T: Joshua Bote on the Lurie porno producers\u2019 new merch<\/a>.<\/p>\n

TRIPPING BOTS: Zack Ruskin on Lucy, an LLM that simulates being high<\/a>.<\/p>\n

SAIKAT SPEAKS: Eddie Kim talks with the former congressional candidate<\/a>.<\/p>\n

SPEED KILLS: Joel Rosenblatt on the call for more speeding cameras<\/a>.<\/p>\n

BEST BUDS: Thomas Abbott\u2019s latest City Roots column<\/a>.<\/p>\n

BELGIUM\u2019S UP AND THE DEVILS LAUGH: Watching the World Cup in North Beach<\/a>.<\/p>\n

GHOSTING: What\u2019s it like to write a celebrity memoir<\/a>?<\/p>\n

DEM RECKONING: Politicos are not sure about endorsing Manny Yekutiel<\/a>.<\/p>\n

TRASH TALK: BART is rolling out garbage bins<\/a>.<\/p>\n

ROLLING BLUNDER: Waymos had a rough Fourth, man<\/a>.<\/p>\n

GUT CHECK: Fireworks, Taylor Swift, and gastritis. Just another Manic Monday.<\/a><\/p>\n

Dispatches from the fog<\/p>\n

FOR SALE: DOWNTOWN MALL. NEVER USED: SF Centre loses its buyer. (San Francisco Chronicle<\/a>)<\/p>\n

TINY MUSKIES!: The true story of the ruler of Hiroshima\u2019s land of the walking dead. (San Francisco Standard<\/a>)<\/p>\n

RARIFIED AIR RAGE: A PJ flight attendant is suing Peter Thiel\u2019s husband for allegedly throwing a bag at her. (Wired<\/a>)<\/p>\n

CAN U EVEN REED THIZ?: Has tech ushered in a post-literate age? (The Atlantic<\/a>)<\/p>\n

SEAT THE RICH: SFO wants to build a private terminal for the ultra-wealthy where they can dine on farm-to-table Panda Express. (The Guardian<\/a>)<\/p>\n

As always, thanks for reading, and a special thanks to our paid subscribers<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sign up for our free newsletter here<\/a>.\u00a0You can also be notified when new Gazetteer stories drop by opting in to our text messages and\/or following us on Bluesky<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This is our Friday newsletter. Sign up to get it straight into your inbox. San Francisco is in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":393803,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[101,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":["post-393802","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393802","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=393802"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393802\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/393803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=393802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=393802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=393802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}