“I recently sold a 1,000-square-foot condo in a really wonderful San Francisco neighborhood. We had 10 offers and we asked $1.3 million. So that's $1,300 a foot. And it sold for $1.8 million. … I think it's the fault of AI. There's a lot of wealth being generated, so that's fueling it.”
Marketplace (APM) · Money & Markets · November 2026
Context
In a segment on the housing market, a San Francisco real estate agent describes what a hot sale looks like right now and blames AI wealth for the price run-up.
Transcript
And if investors start worrying about getting paid back, they'll demand even higher interest rates as a result. I'm Justin Ho for Marketplace.
…Mac. Discouraging, to say the least. Inventory is the other challenge. We are short, give or take, for maybe 5 million housing units. And that scarcity is felt all up and down the price curve. Cynthia Cummins is the owner of Kindred SF Homes in San Francisco, where she is seeing some things.
…You know, trying to find properties for buyers right now is like. You know, being at a candy store, being a little kid at a candy store with a quarter to spend, and finding out that the price of a bit of honey has gone up to like, you know, $3.50. Nationally, inventory was up a little bit year over year, 6%. And inventory in San Francisco for single-family homes year over year was 33% down. I recently sold a 1,000-square-foot condo in a really wonderful San Francisco neighborhood. We had 10 offers and we asked $1.3 million. So that's $1,300 a foot. And it sold for $1.8 million. Right now, some of our buyers are saying, you know, I've just had it. I have to take a break. I don't know. I can't do this. I think it is all, it's the fault of AI. You know, there's a lot of wealth being generated. So that's fueling it. There's that, and then there's the, I don't know, the golden handcuff effect of a lot of people in the city who've been there for a long time who have these…
Cynthia Cummins, she is the founder, also the owner of Kindred SF Homes in San Francisco. This final note on the way out today, an update from Anthropic, which is expected to go public sometime in the next couple of weeks. The company said today that as of the end of last month, it is under…
I'm Lee Hawkins, host of Must Be the Money, a podcast for Marketplace. Each week, I speak with inspiring entrepreneurs and business leaders about their lived experiences, and they share tangible insights to help guide your path to success. Hear from icons like Angelica Nwandu, Van Lathan, Angela…
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