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San Francisco is in the middle of an absolutely out-of-control, AI-induced hype cycle.
I’m not talking about the headlines about the technology that promises to change the ways a tiny group of already wealthy people get wealthier by taking advantage of users’ laziness, loneliness, and occasional loathsomeness. I’m talking about the barrage of news articles about real estate.
Like AI, the headlines about San Francisco’s “soaring,” “booming,” “absolutely bananas” real estate market are helping to fuel a speculative frenzy. Also like AI, these stories induce smug superiority in some, an acute sense of loss in others. And as with the worst AI models, they’re probably making some people suicidal.
Didja hear about buyers “bidmaxxing” $1 million over asking price? How about $1.5 million over? Make that $2 million over! (Do I hear a three? Is there a three?)
What about homeowners selling their houses for AI stock? Probably not possible, but still a canard worth exploring in our most august out-of-town publications. Why, the frantic bidding has grown so loud, assigning editors across the pond are hearing it.
I don’t doubt that these stories are real, but the narrative they promote is what undergrad lit majors used to call hyperreal.
Yes, there’s a cohort of people who are about to become unfathomably wealthy who will pay way too much for a 100-plus-year-old house with no seismic retrofit, decades of lead paint beneath the hastily splashed layer of Farrow & Ball, and a countertop that might’ve sickened the workers who made it. I’m also sure there are people who’ve been living in one of those houses (or renting it to tenants) who’d very much like to sell at a huge profit and move to a place near a pickleball court that’s closer to their grandkids.
That’s all real. It’s the press coverage that feels like BS.
While these articles gesture obliquely at the “average” San Franciscans whose lives are getting harder thanks to this real estate boom or flick at the “changes” this new gold rush will bring to the city, what they’re really doing is adding a journalistic imprimatur to what is essentially marketing.
Read these stories and you’ll see that many of the sources are representatives of real estate companies, Realtors, and the sellers of these houses. They may feign astonishment, but they’re the ones cashing in. It’s a bit like a journalist asking AI founders about how the technology will usher in “completely new, exciting, super well-paid” jobs in the future or data centers in space as if the speakers conjuring these scenarios can have any objectivity about these things.
The comorbid real estate and the AI hype cycles have another thing in common: They’ll come to an end, and not a minute too soon for most of us.
You better believe that when they do, many of the journalists who helped inflate these industries in the first place will act as if they have no idea who created so much fake value and how it all evaporated so dramatically. As these reporters earnestly point at the hot dog-shaped car that just drove through a window and ask how this happened, I for one will be pointing out their hot dog suits and skewering them with relish.
Only on Gazetteer SF
FLOUR POWER: Olivia Peluso on bagels made without bromated flour.
XXX T: Joshua Bote on the Lurie porno producers’ new merch.
TRIPPING BOTS: Zack Ruskin on Lucy, an LLM that simulates being high.
SAIKAT SPEAKS: Eddie Kim talks with the former congressional candidate.
SPEED KILLS: Joel Rosenblatt on the call for more speeding cameras.
BEST BUDS: Thomas Abbott’s latest City Roots column.
BELGIUM’S UP AND THE DEVILS LAUGH: Watching the World Cup in North Beach.
GHOSTING: What’s it like to write a celebrity memoir?
DEM RECKONING: Politicos are not sure about endorsing Manny Yekutiel.
TRASH TALK: BART is rolling out garbage bins.
ROLLING BLUNDER: Waymos had a rough Fourth, man.
GUT CHECK: Fireworks, Taylor Swift, and gastritis. Just another Manic Monday.
Just a reminder: Your tips can go a long way at Gazetteer HQ. Got a good scoop? A fun bit of tea to spill? A nugget of gossip you’re dying to share? Send it our way. We can assure anonymity.
Dispatches from the fog
FOR SALE: DOWNTOWN MALL. NEVER USED: SF Centre loses its buyer. (San Francisco Chronicle)
TINY MUSKIES!: The true story of the ruler of Hiroshima’s land of the walking dead. (San Francisco Standard)
RARIFIED AIR RAGE: A PJ flight attendant is suing Peter Thiel’s husband for allegedly throwing a bag at her. (Wired)
CAN U EVEN REED THIZ?: Has tech ushered in a post-literate age? (The Atlantic)
SEAT THE RICH: SFO wants to build a private terminal for the ultra-wealthy where they can dine on farm-to-table Panda Express. (The Guardian)
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