Real Estate Agents Lining Up As Tech Companies Prepare To IPO
1455 MARKET STREET, SAN FRANCISCO — On a Wednesday night at 5 PM, a group of men and women dressed in suits began to set up folding tables in front of Uber’s 1455 Market Street headquarters. As Uber employees began to trickle out onto the street, the suited men and women stood up and began to sell their services. “You like mansions? If you ever want to buy shit in Pac Heights, we got you,” said one agent as she handed a branded thermos to a befuddled Uberite.
They were real estate agents. And they were outside of Uber’s office to advertise their services to the masses of employees who are about to become much richer when their companies IPO. Uber, Lyft, Slack, Pinterest, Airbnb, and many other unicorn tech companies are expected to go public this year with valuations in the tens of billions of dollars.
The leafleteer with the thermos, Priya Chandra of Excelsior Realty, says that many tech employees at soon-to-IPO companies have already shown interest in owning real estate now their assets are becoming liquid. “Historically, the most popular investments for tech employees have been crypto and real estate. And the last time I checked, Ethereum isn’t doing so hot right now and a normal house in Palo Alto costs $3 million dollars. So it’s pretty clear where tech money is going.”
Real estate agents are already rushing to attract techie clients by giving out free snacks and swag at open houses. One agent reportedly held a Burning Man themed open house that advertised ample room in the house’s garage for building art pieces and startups alike.
We talked to one unicorn employee who worried that despite their IPO money, they would still be priced out of San Francisco. “It’s only the investors and early employees who are going to benefit from this. For employees who joined later like me, we’re going to get screwed when you have to be a millionaire to be middle class in San Francisco.”
“My landlord wants to raise my rent by $1000 a month because she knows I work at Slack. It costs $14 to get a slice of avocado toast at the cafe down the street from me. Hell, it costs $900 a month to rent tent space under a freeway these days! I’m moving to Austin to wait until my blackout period ends.”
However, some outside observers believe that the expectations of tremendous wealth flooding the Valley are overblown. We caught up with Rick Mahoney, an analyst for Bloomberg described as “a total buzzkill” by a Lyft spokesperson, at a neighborhood bar. “The last time this type of thing happened was 2000. These companies have completely unprofitable unit economics, they’re losing money every quarter, and yet we’re expecting them to live up to ridiculous sky-high valuations,” he said as he grimly threw back a shot of tequila.
“Really, the approach that these companies are taking is: you have to spend money to make less money. We’ll see how long that lasts.”
