San Francisco recorded 144 'hyper-bidding' home sales in the first half of 2026, a 1,700% surge, with buyers citing impending lockup expirations at OpenAI, Anthropic, and Databricks. Anthropic and OpenAI have both announced confidential S-1 filings, while Databricks has not made such an announcement.

San Francisco recorded 144 home sales in the first half of 2026 in which the buyer paid at least $1 million over the asking price — up from eight such transactions in the same period a year earlier, a 1,700% increase, according to data from real estate brokerage Compass. In June alone, 44 homes crossed that threshold.

The buyers driving those bids are, by agents' accounts, largely tech and finance workers betting on paper wealth they don't yet hold. "They understand the IPO process, how it works, and so I've had a lot of young VCs say, 'I have to get into a house before the Anthropic, OpenAI, and SpaceX lockup periods are over,'" Michael Bellings of Compass told the SF Standard on Monday. Single-family homes in the city averaged roughly 25% over asking in May, up from 10% a year prior; overall SF home prices are up 22.2% year-over-year per Compass — the steepest gain of any Bay Area county, with San Mateo County second at 8.5% and Santa Clara County actually down nearly 5%.

The cap-table reality behind that sentiment is more complicated. Anthropic, PBC confidentially filed a draft S-1 with the SEC on June 1, 2026, as confirmed by the company (https://www.anthropic.com/news/confidential-draft-s1-sec). OpenAI also publicly announced a confidential S-1 filing around June 8-9, 2026, though like Anthropic, no public document is yet visible on EDGAR. Databricks, however, remains private at publication, and a search of SEC EDGAR turns up no publicly announced S-1 from its operating entity. What EDGAR does show is active secondary-market demand: vehicles including "OpenAI-01, a Series of OpenAI Opp Fund LLC" (Form D, filed May 15, 2026, accession 0002134995-26-000001) and "HII Anthropic Series-02, a Series of HII Anthropic LLC" (Form D, filed May 15, 2026, accession 0002134776-26-000001) confirm investors are buying and trading positions ahead of any public offering. Databricks, Inc. (CIK 0001587468, San Francisco) filed multiple Form D amendments through December 2025, with round size undisclosed in the public filing summaries.

SpaceX is the one concrete anchor: it went public June 12, and its largest employee lockup group faces a 180-day restriction, putting the first major sell window around early December. Some early-release provisions could allow limited sales as early as next month, per the SF Standard's reporting.

That's the nearest hard date anyone can point to. "What's happening right now in the city is the liquidity that's out there, just a mind-boggling amount of money," Michelle Balog of Christie's International Sereno told the SF Standard. "Who knows what will happen in the next six months to a year?"

That last question is the one the market hasn't answered. None of the named companies have announced a public offering date for Anthropic, OpenAI, or Databricks. While Anthropic and OpenAI have both publicly announced confidential S-1 filings, Databricks has not made such an announcement. The secondary SPVs on EDGAR confirm demand; they don't confirm valuation or timing. What to watch: The SpaceX early-release window in August is the nearest hard calendar date that could trigger the cascade of liquidity that SF buyers are already pricing in. Beyond that, the timing of the eventual public S-1 filings for Anthropic and OpenAI, and any S-1 announcement from Databricks, will be key.