Should You Wait Until After the Mega IPOs to List Your Home?
With a wave of AI IPOs on the horizon, sellers keep asking us the same thing: should we hold off listing until after they happen?
Our answer: probably not. Here's why.
People spend before the money actually arrives
Economists call this the wealth effect — when people feel richer, they spend more, even before that wealth hits their bank account. Just expecting a payday is often enough.
That's why software engineers anticipating a windfall are already buying expensive homes today. You can see it in the numbers: Bay Area luxury inventory is tight, competition is fierce, and San Francisco homes sold for 124% of asking price in May. The IPO winners are likely already shopping.
The IPO itself matters less than you'd think
Employees don't need to wait for an IPO to cash in anymore. Secondary markets let them sell private stock early, and many can borrow against their shares tax-free to fund a home purchase.
History backs this up, too — studies of Google, Salesforce, LinkedIn, and Uber found no major housing spikes around their IPOs. Wealth tends to get created well before the bell rings, or well after.
The broader market matters more than any single IPO
A rising stock market touches far more households than any one IPO. Nvidia's trillion-dollar run, for instance, has created more wealth than most IPOs combined — while AI leaders like Anthropic and OpenAI each employ only a few thousand people locally. Broad market gains simply move more money than one hot debut.
Waiting has its own risks
Betting on future IPOs assumes momentum keeps building. It might. But markets can also turn fast — just look at 2022, when high-flying stocks crashed and luxury buyers pulled back overnight. Confidence can reverse as quickly as it builds.
In short, people spend based on expected wealth, not just realized wealth — and today's financial tools make it easy to act on that early. The buyers you're waiting for may already be house-hunting.
If you’re considering selling your property, contact us. We can help you figure it all out.