Let that sink in. People who already own homes in the suburbs, who already built wealth through prior Bay Area real estate cycles, are looking at what's happening with AI money pouring into San Francisco and thinking, I need to get back in now or I never will. If that doesn't tell you something about the trajectory of this market, nothing will.

On one hand, it's a vote of confidence in the city. These aren't wide-eyed 25-year-olds chasing a dream — they're financially sophisticated adults choosing SF over Marin or Walnut Creek. They want walkability, culture, restaurants, and proximity to the economic engine that is downtown tech. That's genuinely good for the city's tax base and neighborhood vitality.

On the other hand, it highlights a deeply broken system. As one local put it, the state "killed a lot of ways to say 'no,' but it didn't create a way to say 'yes, fast.'" SF still drowns developers in insane permitting timelines, design reviews, and procedural appeals that can delay projects for years. Another resident who works in the permits world described it as a process seemingly "designed to discourage developers on purpose."

So what happens when demand surges — from AI workers, from returning empty nesters, from everyone else — but supply can't keep up because City Hall treats every building permit like a hostage negotiation? Prices go up. Way up. And the people who get crushed aren't the wealthy boomers snapping up condos. It's the younger workers, the service employees, the people who make this city actually function.

The empty nesters coming back isn't the problem. The problem is a city that still can't figure out how to build housing at the speed its economy demands. Until San Francisco treats permitting like a service instead of a gauntlet, every new wave of demand — AI boom or otherwise — will just make the affordability crisis worse.

Welcome back, empty nesters. Just know the line at the planning department is longer than anything you'll find at Tartine.