Compass CEO Robert Reffkin Says Upcoming OpenAI, Anthropic IPOs Are Already Boosting Luxury Housing Beyond San Francisco

Reffkin said the U.S. housing market is increasingly divided by price, with the low-end ‘more mortgage-rate sensitive.’

• Reffkin said sales of homes priced between $100,000 and $250,000 are down 10%, while sales of homes above $1 million are up 4%.
• U.S. existing-home sales, a measure of completed sales of previously owned homes, fell 2% month-on-month in August.
• The median home price increased 1.6% from last year to $429,100.

Potential IPOs from OpenAI and Anthropic could further boost U.S. luxury housing as wealth created by the AI boom spreads beyond San Francisco, according to Compass (COMP) CEO Robert Reffkin.

“The Anthropic IPO in San Francisco and OpenAI in San Francisco, both pending, are not just helping San Francisco. They’re helping all of the key luxury markets,” Reffkin said in an interview with CNBC.

He highlighted Miami, the Hamptons, and high-end New York properties, including penthouses, as markets benefiting from the wealth created by the AI boom.

However, San Francisco remains one of the strongest examples of the AI wealth effect. “It is not stopping,” Reffkin said, adding that competition for expensive homes has reached levels “that we’ve never seen.”

At the time of writing, COMP was down over 3%.

Luxury Homes Defy Housing Slowdown

Reffkin said the U.S. housing market is increasingly divided by price, adding that sales of homes priced between $100,000 and $250,000 are down 10%, while sales of homes above $1 million are up 4%.

“The low end is more mortgage-rate sensitive, the high end is more wealth-effect sensitive,” he said, adding that wealthier buyers are benefiting from record stock-market gains.

“They’re using all cash. And when the stock market’s at all-time highs, they have that purchasing power.”

U.S. Existing Home Sales Down 2%

Meanwhile, existing-home sales, a measure of completed sales of previously owned homes, fell 2% month-on-month in August to an annual rate of 3.98 million, the lowest since June 2025, while housing inventory rose 3.2% from July to 1.62 million homes, according to the National Association of Realtors data released Thursday.

The median home price increased 1.6% from last year to $429,100, marking the 38th straight month of annual price gains.

Mortgage rates rose this week, with the 30-year rate climbing to 6.76% from 6.71% and the 15-year rate rising to 6.09% from 6.04%.

Retail sentiment surrounding COMP on Stockwits turned ‘bullish’ from ‘neutral.’ The stock has declined around 1.7% so far in 2026.

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