A tech boom has pushed San Francisco home prices from expensive to stratospheric — leaving locals wondering when the AI-crazed madness will end, and whether there’s any hope left for ordinary folks to buy in.

Median sale prices in the red-hot market hit $1.7 million last month, according to Homes.com, while the prices of single-family homes exceed $2.1 million, far out of reach for many local buyers.

That’s because of a tsunami of AI wealth concentrated in the city, coupled with a lack of inventory — leading wealthy and desperate home buyers to bid up some properties by $1 million or more and even dangle shares of leading firms like Anthropic in exchange for scarce homes.

To underscore the insanity, one relatively shabby 2,400-square-foot home along a noisy street in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood sold for $3.1 million, seven figures over its original asking price.

The city of roughly 900,000 people at the center of the AI boom is now flooded with housing horror stories as even modest rental units aren’t spared.

One North Beach landlord listed a 64-square-foot cell with a shared bathroom and no kitchen access for $750 per month. And regular families say they’re being booted from longtime rentals as landlords jack up rates to milk the newfound tech riches.

“There’s very little product to find if you’re a renter or buyer, and that’s why prices are shooting up,’ explained Nigel Hughes, an analyst with Homes.com.

San Francisco’s priciest known home listing is the $67 million Pacific Heights manse of Oracle heiress Nicole Miner and her author hubby Robert Mailer Anderson, built on a plot of land they bought for just $5 million in 1999.

Demand is concentrated in luxury homes in San Francisco’s most desirable neighborhoods — often located within an easy commute to downtown. Below the $2 million range, sale prices aren’t quite as “exorbitant,” Hughes added.

Download The California Post App, follow us on social, and subscribe to our newsletters

With a slew of AI IPOs expected as soon as this year, Hughes believes there’s “no end in sight” to the elevated prices.

But there may be glimmers of hope yet for the non-billionaire San Francisco buyer.

Prices are a function of supply and demand and there are relatively few homes on the market, and even fewer single-family homes in fashionable neighborhoods, analysts have noted.

That may be partly because sellers are holding onto properties in the hopes that even more buyers will emerge with blockbuster IPOs, according to Real Estate News.

Summer is slow for real estate sales and a new surge in supply could arrive in the fall, Coldwell Banker agent Jeremy Rushton told the outlet, though there are no guarantees.

“We might see some pullback this year if inventory reaches a more normal level,” Rushton said. “There’s often a glut after Labor Day, but time will tell if that happens this year.” 

There are still many ways for buyers without tech riches to own a piece of San Francisco as long as your expectations are realistic, said longtime realtor Bonnie Spindler, who specializes in the city’s quintessential Victorian homes.

Tech-driven real estate frenzies are nothing new in a city that’s known for boom-and-bust cycles dating “back to the Gold Rush,” she noted.

Condos or homes in less-hot neighborhoods may be more accessible to the average buyer, she said, and some put as little as 5% to 10% down on a property or even borrow against retirement savings in order to purchase a property.

“If you can afford rent, you can afford to buy,” she added. “There are lots of ways to get into this market that doesn’t involve being a billionaire.”