Meanwhile, as the new AI boom takes hold, its residents tell the story of who stays in San Francisco and who doesn’t.

Two San Francisco families with school-age children, who requested anonymity to protect their privacy, recently managed to purchase move-in-ready single-family homes to meet their desperate needs for more space, but only one was able to do so in the city.

That family was able to purchase in the desirable family neighborhood where they had been long-term tenants after a parent, who works at OpenAI, sold some shares in the company last October, giving the family the financial boost needed to purchase in an all-cash offer.

The couple say they feel “conflicted and self-conscious” because AI money has made it possible. “We are not ostentatious people,” they add. “We’ve just done what we could with the opportunity.”

In contrast, the other family, who does not make their income from AI or the technology world, had to move to a more suburban city in the Bay Area, to the north.

Their new home, purchased in part with a mortgage, includes a pool and additional land.

It’s a different kind of life, the mother notes, and they have largely adapted now, although it involves a long trip for her husband, who has a high government job in San Francisco, and they still have “what if” moments.

“We wouldn’t have left if we could have afforded to stay,” he reflects. “It kind of sucks and I get a little salty seeing all this extra AI money squeezed out of everyone else.”

The Duboce Triangle condo, for the record, and according to its real estate agent, sold for $3.2 million, $200,000 more than the asking price. Whether the deal included AI shares is confidential.