Anthropic's IPO - controversial gold rush in San Francisco

The AI giant Anthropic wants to go public. And that could make thousands of employees and investors millionaires. In San Francisco, the company's headquarters, there are fears that house prices will skyrocket.

Before Anthropic's IPO Controversial gold rush in San Francisco As of: November 10, 2026 • 10:42 a.m

It was originally expected that the AI group Anthropic would start its roadshow before the IPO this week, i.e. present its plans to potential investors. The move to the stock market should then take place by the end of the month. But after the tech stocks crash on the stock markets following the Democrats' victory in the midterms, there is speculation that Anthropic's schedule could be delayed.

Potential investors are now pushing for a significantly lower valuation at Anthropic. Instead of the originally targeted maximum valuation of up to two trillion dollars, insiders “only” expect a valuation of around 1.2 trillion dollars. Either way, the gold rush in San Francisco, where Anthropic is based, is coming. And he is hoped for and feared. Because the prices for houses and rents could be driven up further.

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Anthropic is the first pure AI company that has developed Claude, one of the world's largest language models, and is now daring to go public. Once the company is listed on the stock exchange, employees and investors can turn their previously only paper wealth into real cash.

The chief economist for the city of San Francisco, Ted Egan, sees Anthropic's move to the stock market as a turning point for the local economy, the likes of which the region has not seen since the IPO of the transportation service provider Uber in 2019. In den kommenden Monaten werde in San Francisco und der Bay Area ein enormes Vermögen geschaffen.

And while the city can't directly tax assets or income from stock sales, it will get its money's worth through real estate transactions, Egan explains. Denn bei Immobilienverkäufen fällt eine Transaktionssteuer an, die die Verkäuferin oder der Verkäufer an die Stadt entrichtet. For high-priced properties sold for more than ten million dollars, this rate is 5.5 percent - so it's a significant amount of money.

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The real estate company Red Fin Homes in San Francisco calculated in September that real estate prices there are currently the highest in the entire USA. According to the "San Francisco Association of Realtors", the average price for a single-family home in San Francisco is around three million dollars - with demand increasingly focusing on the higher price segment, says association representative Jay Cheng on ABC. In a comparison between the first quarter of 2025 and 2026, the number of sales of houses worth over five million dollars increased by 69 percent.

Immobilienmakler wie Austin Klar beobachten steigendes Kaufinteresse bei gleichzeitig knappem Angebot. Die Situation sei so extrem wie seit vielen Jahren nicht mehr. Many sellers are currently holding back because they are expecting a real explosion in prices after the Anthropic IPO and are not yet putting their properties on the market. Es gebe weniger Verkäuferinnen und Verkäufer, aber immer mehr Kaufinteressenten.

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With this price spiral, people with normal incomes who don't work in the lucrative tech industry are of course left behind. Because of the high price structure, building in San Francisco is comparatively expensive. According to city guidelines, around 82,000 new apartments would have to be built by 2031, but the city is behind schedule.

Sam Moss, managing director of the non-profit housing association Mission Housing Development Corporation, also fears that the situation for residents with average salaries could become even worse. It is already sad that most people can no longer afford to own their own home.

San Francisco's permitting process is considered the slowest in the country. The local system allows residents to block or significantly downsize construction projects over objections and public debate for years, usually out of concern for the character of the neighborhood.

In this respect, Sam Moss believes that political decision-makers at the local, state and federal levels have a duty: It is probably easier to demonize software developers than to critically question laws that have made it more difficult to build affordable housing in San Francisco for generations.

This topic in the program: tagesschau.de | Ahead of Anthropic's Planned IPO - Gold Rush in San Francisco | November 9, 2026 | 12:43 a.m