Why does the price of an asset go up or down? There’s always a reason, but it’s usually not out in the open. San Francisco housing prices jumped 12% in a year, the highest among major metro areas in the U.S. The money? It’s from employees at two AI companies. OpenAI and Anthropic opened up secondary trading channels for their employees to sell some of their pre-IPO shares for cash, which they then turned around and used to buy houses. And it’s mostly luxury homes that are going up. Median price for luxury homes: $6.8M, up 9% YoY. Median price for non-luxury homes: $1.49M, up just 0.1% YoY—basically flat. In March, 85% of homes in San Francisco sold above asking price, with an average premium of 23%. Housing inventory is down 28% compared to a year ago. Well, here’s a prime example of how one industry’s success can drive a regional economy.