Housing affordability in San Francisco is about to get even tighter, as several tech companies intend to launch their initial public offering (IPO) this year, and their newly enriched employees look to the Bay for new homes.
On paper, the metro may have hundreds or thousands more millionaires to count among its residents, and it may lead to what New York Times reporter Nellie Bowles calls "housing madness." Bowles writes that Deniz Kahramaner, a Compass real estate agent specializing in data analytics, recently said at an investor gathering that San Francisco will have no more one-bedroom condos for less than $1 million before 2025, and single-family homes will reach an average $5 million in value, MarketWatch reports.
San Francisco-based tech unicorns planning to go public in the near future include Uber Technologies, Lyft, Slack, Postmates, Pinterest and Airbnb. While the San Francisco Bay Area has been no stranger to tech IPO riches in recent years, as Bowles pointed out, previous big tech IPOs — think Google and Facebook — have been largely based outside San Francisco and had workers spread out around the area. This new crop are based in the city itself, and many of their employees live there as well — or want to.
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