SAN FRANCISCO — After years of failed zoning reforms, housing subsidies and interest-rate debates, artificial intelligence has finally begun solving the Bay Area housing affordability crisis by making a small number of people rich enough that affordability no longer applies to them.
Luxury home sales in the San Francisco area have surged as highly compensated AI employees and founders use soaring equity values to purchase multimillion-dollar properties, often with large cash down payments.
The broader U.S. housing market remains sluggish, with high mortgage rates and limited inventory keeping many ordinary buyers sidelined.
“This is a major breakthrough,” said housing economist Daniel Mercer. “For decades we kept asking how to make homes cheaper. AI has shown us it may be considerably easier to make selected buyers much richer.”
San Francisco luxury transactions have reportedly risen sharply, particularly in neighborhoods favored by technology executives and startup employees whose compensation packages now include increasingly valuable private-company shares.
Housing advocates welcomed the development while noting that the program currently appears limited to households possessing substantial exposure to artificial intelligence.
Officials said they are studying whether the model can be expanded nationally.
Early proposals include teaching nurses Python, issuing teachers Nvidia options and allowing first-time homebuyers to satisfy mortgage underwriting requirements by founding a foundation-model startup.
Inspired by:
