SAN FRANCISCO — Storm Duncan, founder of the investment bank Ignatious, listed an $8 million property in Marin County in April. The listing, posted on LinkedIn, included an offer to accept Anthropic stock as payment. Duncan removed the listing after it received widespread attention online.
Duncan has owned the Marin County property since 2019, which includes a 4,372-square-foot house and an adjacent 11-acre parcel. He currently rents the property to a venture capitalist. Duncan stated that Anthropic employees face challenges with stock liquidity.
Duncan said, "Anthropic employees don't really have liquidity with their shares to sell it." "You're an Anthropic employee, you're worth 50 or 100 million bucks, but you're making $300,000 a year, like you can't buy a house in San Francisco." OpenAI and Anthropic company policies require company approval for transactions involving employee stock transfers.
Rachel Swann, the listing agent, proposed accepting Anthropic or OpenAI stock to the home seller. The owner then listed the Noe Valley home for $2,995,000, stating that the stock would be accepted.
The seller is a developer who owns commercial real estate in California. Swann said, "The seller, he loves those two companies, he thinks they’re a big part of the future of San Francisco." "He’s like, ‘I’d be happy to hold stock with them and see if that opens up a pathway for people to be able to buy in San Francisco,’ and I think it’s really, you know, resonated with people."
Employees at AI companies typically wait four to five years for their stock grants to vest. OpenAI provides employees with an average of $1.5 million in stock-based compensation. Tim Tully, a Partner at Menlo Ventures, said research scientists at Series D startups receive stock grants ranging from $2 million to $4 million.
The median home sale price in the metropolitan area reached $1.7 million in April, a more than 10 percent increase from the previous year. Bay Area home prices valued between $3.1 million and $7.6 million increased by 13.4 percent between November 2022 and April. The city Office of the Controller reported increasing local rental prices. Over the past year, the San Francisco Planning Department recorded 26 new single-family home constructions in the city. A 1,475-square-foot residence originally listed for nearly $2 million sold for $3 million.
In March, Fannie Mae announced it would allow mortgage applicants to use cryptocurrency holdings instead of cash for a down payment. In 2021, approximately 3.4 million households used direct seller-financing arrangements for property purchases. These arrangements were primarily used for low-cost homes, rural properties, manufactured homes, and multifamily buildings. Duncan also noted the use of artificial intelligence in his operations. He said his bank is a Claude-based bank and that they have used it extensively, seeing its value in reducing costs and time while increasing the probability of success.