All of us have three major choices to revenue from AI:
1) Spend money on the appropriate AI firms.
2) Work for the appropriate AI firms.
3) Spend money on actual property that may profit from the AI increase.
Investing in the appropriate AI firms is simpler mentioned than finished. The gorillas like Google, Tesla, Nvidia have finished effectively. However timing can be essential. For instance, you could possibly have purchased Nvidia at $197 a share on Feb 25, 2026 earlier than reporting file outcomes, solely to lose 10% one week later. Whereas companies like Meta and Tesla misplaced over 60% of its worth in 2022 alone.
Then there are the dominant non-public AI firms, which often can solely be invested in by enterprise capital or connections. And all the high conventional enterprise capital companies are invite solely, therefore the novel concept of getting an open ended venture fund or a closed end listed venture fund to democratize entry. However most individuals do not learn Monetary Samurai or investing websites religiously to know of them.
Working for the appropriate AI firms is extraordinarily arduous for most individuals. You not solely should work for the appropriate AI firm, you additionally should get in. Even if you’re extremely gifted, the competitors is fierce. So that is the toughest choice to revenue from AI.
The ultimate, and what I believe is the simplest strategy to revenue from AI is to purchase actual property the place the highest AI firms are situated and the place essentially the most funding is occurring. When you’ve got the cash and are moderately competent, you and your agent ought to be capable to put collectively a suggestion on a property at an inexpensive value.
The Actual Property Possibility Is The Picks And Shovels Technique
In case you purchase actual property in an AI boomtown, then you don’t actually care which AI firm grows essentially the most. All you care about is that all the trade grows and makes hundreds of staff wealthy and liquid.
Inevitably, a few of that liquidity will move by to housing, given shopping for a house is often one of many high two issues each newly minted millionaire desires to purchase.
We spend, on common, 18 hours a day at dwelling, which implies it’s one among our most utilized property. To have the ability to take pleasure in a pleasant dwelling after getting “made it” is the American dream. In fact, you’ll be able to take pleasure in a pleasant dwelling by renting as effectively. However it’s higher to personal a house the place you have got the potential to revenue from it, too.
Could not Be part of Tech, So Invested As an alternative
As a consequence of my lack of tech pedigree, it’s nearly unattainable for me to interrupt into the AI house. That is fairly unhappy since I’ve lived in San Francisco since 2001. Finance, no downside. However tech is out of my wheelhouse.
Therefore, all I may do was put money into the principle tech firms everyone knows at this time. Since I couldn’t get a job provide at these firms, I purchased their inventory and made the tech staff work for me and my household.
Nonetheless, as a real estate fanatic, I’ve persistently been shopping for San Francisco actual property since 2003.
In 2005, I grew to become a landlord for the primary time and began assembly many potential tenants who labored in tech. As I received to see their funds of their functions, I spotted there was an incredible amount of cash being unleashed within the Bay Space due to the IPOs of firms like Fb and Google, which my agency labored on, together with a number of others.
In case you a comparatively younger, beneath 40, I recommend you observe this plan if you wish to construct extra wealth. As a result of after 40, your time shrinks and your power fades.
San Francisco Bay Space Actual Property And AI
One of many aggressive benefits of San Francisco Bay Space actual property, moreover the pure magnificence, year-round temperate climate, and big wealth creation alternatives, is the dearth of provide. For some motive or one other, native metropolis governments make it excruciatingly tough to construct.
I attempted constructing an ADU in my yard as soon as, and I used to be confronted with a lot pink tape after six months that I gave up. In consequence, there’s one much less unit available on the market at this time. I’ve additionally remodeled multiple properties over my 23 years. Every one was extremely painful. In consequence, I swear I’ll by no means do one other intestine rework once more.
With perpetual structural undersupply, a booming expertise area, and Proposition 13, which limits property tax will increase, I made a decision San Francisco was an apparent space to put money into actual property.
People assume San Francisco is pricey. Nonetheless, San Francisco is among the cheapest international cities in the world in case you truly check out different areas. Please go and discover the world.
Right now, with the upcoming IPOs of OpenAI, Anthropic, Superhuman, Harvey, Databricks, and so many extra, it’s clear there can be a brand new slew of multimillionaires within the Bay Space. And with massive tech firms having a fantastic run since 2023 particularly, the quantity of wealth creation has been stupendous.
Not Overly Pressured Who Wins The AI Race
As a shareholder of each Anthropic and OpenAI by Fundrise Venture (quickly on pause till the itemizing of VCX by finish of March), a long-time sponsor, the entire debacle with the Division of Conflict is fascinating.
Anthropic standing as much as the federal government over offering it a “kill change” for surveillance and autonomous weapons seems like a very good factor. Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI saying he stands with Anthropic’s guardrails, after which swooping in to switch Anthropic as soon as Anthropic received booted sounds duplicitous, but shrewd. That’s some good Sport of Thrones, Little Finger drama proper there!
Plenty of Anthropic staff took to X to proclaim their satisfaction for Anthropic, whereas no one did for OpenAI. Though staff at each companies need to make some huge cash, they can’t publicly have a good time cash or enterprise wins, solely virtues.
Quick-term, OpenAI wins the $200 million authorities contract. The agency most likely long run too with tons extra authorities gravy sooner or later, particularly if the management continues to donate cash to the administration. Quick time period, Anthropic loses the federal government contract value solely 0.36% of this yr’s estimated income, however long run, Anthropic most likely wins too on account of good publicity and larger branding primarily based on ideas.
I believe Anthropic involves some type of compromise with the federal government for development. The federal government would not need to lose the worldwide AI race by handcuffing one among its high gamers.
After getting over the truth that each firms freely took the work of authors and publishers to coach their fashions with out attribution, I made a decision the one methods to deal with AI’s theft have been to put money into them and learn to use the instruments. In order a shareholder for the previous a number of years, I need each firms to win.
Each firms are GPU constrained on account of extraordinary demand, so actually, Anthropic’s misplaced authorities contract will simply get replaced by probably simpler and extra worthwhile clients.
Within the warfare of enterprise, there can be loads of future battles between these two giants. No matter who’s pulling forward in the mean time, Bay Space householders and landlords get wealthier. The whole AI LLM pie is rising.
Firsthand Expertise Of AI Corporations Boosting Rents
I see the influence of AI development with my latest tenant working at one of many two AI LLM firms. They’re so rich that the couple is completely happy to pay $10,000 a month in lease for a five-bedroom home.
As a frugal particular person, I initially couldn’t imagine this younger couple wished to pay a lot. They’re good folks and instructed me they wished two dwelling workplaces and a house fitness center. I checked out their funds, and I made a decision that if that is what they wished, that sounds good to me.
When his AI firm goes public, I assume there’s a 70% probability that inside two years the couple will need to improve to one thing even nicer or purchase a spot of their very own. Their newfound liquid wealth will drive actual property competitors larger.
I see it as clear as day, and there’s no stopping the development in the mean time.
The AI monetary increase is probably going going to be a 10-plus-year development. And as an investor, you will need to invest in trends and maintain on for long-term wealth creation. In case you correctly establish a development, there isn’t any have to commerce out and in of positions. Simply preserve investing.
The Cities That Ought to Profit From AI The Most
If AI is a 10-plus-year wealth creation cycle, then geography issues. Wealth at all times clusters.
Oil clustered in Houston. Finance clustered in New York. The web clustered within the Bay Space.
AI will do the identical.
If you wish to run the picks-and-shovels actual property technique, these are the cities that ought to profit essentially the most.
1) San Francisco / San Jose (The Bay Space)
Let’s begin with the apparent.
OpenAI is headquartered in San Francisco and is now valued round $760 billion after its newest funding spherical. Anthropic can be headquartered in San Francisco and lately raised at roughly a $380 billion valuation. Scale AI, Databricks, Perplexity, and dozens of well-funded AI infrastructure and application-layer startups are primarily based right here.
You then transfer 50 minutes south to the San Jose space.
NVIDIA, headquartered in Santa Clara, is value effectively over $1 trillion. It’s the picks-and-shovels supplier of the AI gold rush. With out NVIDIA chips, none of this works.
Google and Meta sit within the broader Bay Space ecosystem. Between public market caps and personal valuations, you’re simply a number of trillions of {dollars} of AI-related enterprise worth concentrated in a single area.
When even 5% – 10% of that worth turns into liquid by IPOs, secondary gross sales, or inventory compensation, that cash has to go someplace.
Lots of it goes into housing.
The Bay Space has the expertise density, the venture capital base, the IPO pipeline, and the structural housing scarcity. That mixture is extremely highly effective.
That is nonetheless the epicenter. If you wish to enhance your possibilities of getting wealthy or meet somebody who’s wealthy, transfer to the place the alternatives are biggest.
2) Seattle, WA
Seattle is quieter, however don’t underestimate it.
Microsoft is headquartered there and has invested tens of billions into OpenAI. Microsoft’s market cap is north of $3 trillion. Even modest AI-driven earnings development interprets into monumental greenback beneficial properties.
Amazon can be headquartered in Seattle and continues to construct AI infrastructure by AWS. Cloud computing is the spine of AI deployment.
When Azure and AWS promote extra AI compute, earnings rise. When earnings rise, stock-based compensation rises. And when stock-based compensation rises, folks improve houses.
Seattle might not get the flashy startup headlines like San Francisco, but it surely has the stability sheet energy. Massive-cap tech wealth compounds extra steadily and predictably.
That’s nice for actual property.
3) Austin, TX
Austin is the migration play, which I have been writing about since 2016 after I printed my submit on investing within the heartland of America.
Decrease taxes. Decrease price of residing. Enterprise-friendly insurance policies.
Oracle moved its headquarters there. Tesla has main operations there. Enterprise capital has more and more flowed into the area. A number of AI startups have opened satellite tv for pc workplaces to faucet into expertise with out paying Bay Space housing costs.
Austin doesn’t have trillion-dollar AI headquarters focus just like the Bay Space. Though, SpaceX, value probably $1.75 trillion relies in Starbase, Texas, about 300 miles away from Austin.
Austin inbound tech staff. And when high-income tech staff relocate, they purchase homes.
Austin already skilled a large pandemic increase. Now actual property costs are falling given the glut of provide constructed when curiosity rats have been low. Nonetheless, by the top of 2026, the availability needs to be mopped up as town experiences lease and property value strain once more.
If AI compensation accelerates, it offers one other layer of assist. You do not want headquarters dominance when you’ve got expertise migration dominance.
Personally, I am dollar-cost averaging in Fundrise’s real estate product, because it has properties in Austin and different cities within the Sunbelt, the place valuations are decrease and yields are larger. I count on pricing strain to select up on the finish of the yr and undergo a multi-year rebound.
4) New York, NY
New York will profit otherwise. It is not going to essentially dominate foundational AI fashions. However it’ll dominate AI monetization in finance, media, and enterprise companies.
As extra of those AI firms go public, extra charges will go to NYC-based funding banks that take them public. 12 months-end bonuses subsequently get greater. Ah, the great outdated days of banking!
Wall Avenue companies are aggressively adopting AI to extend productiveness and cut back headcount. If banks can lower 10% of employees whereas sustaining income, bonus swimming pools don’t disappear.
They focus. Concentrated bonus swimming pools drive Manhattan and Brooklyn actual property.
As well as, there’s a rising fintech and AI startup ecosystem in NYC, particularly in authorized tech, monetary modeling, and enterprise automation.
When finance adopts a brand new instrument, it adopts it at scale. And scale creates wealth.
Please At Least Get Impartial Actual Property
In case you dwell in one among these cities, I extremely recommend you get impartial actual property by owning your primary residence. The demand for actual property is about to warmth up once more.
I lately visited a dozen open homes and spoke to a number of actual property brokers on the west side of San Francisco. All of them agree that provide is unusually low. Additional, a few brokers talked about they’ve by no means seen this a lot demand earlier than.
They attributed the demand particularly to the AI increase. They mentioned consumers are getting off the sidelines to purchase houses earlier than the large AI companies go public. Additional, they talked about their shoppers who work at these non-public AI firms getting some liquidity by worker share gross sales in secondary choices.
In case you plan to dwell within the metropolis for at the very least 5–10 years, do your finest to search out one thing you take pleasure in. Watch out about getting into a bidding war, as you could possibly let emotion make you pay greater than you comfortably ought to. Attempt to search for houses with an ocean view or a big lot, or each. Location is at all times paramount.
With actual property, you do not want to determine whether or not OpenAI outmaneuvers Anthropic or whether or not NVIDIA maintains dominance. You simply want the general pie to develop.
When trillions of {dollars} in enterprise worth are concentrated in a handful of cities, housing demand follows. Liquidity follows. Non-public college and personal membership waitlists develop. Luxurious remodels skyrocket.
That’s the reason shopping for actual property in AI boomtowns is the last word picks-and-shovels technique.
Let the engineers combat it out.
You personal the land they finally need to purchase.
Readers, do you reside in a metropolis with a rising variety of AI firms? How are you planning to revenue from AI to flee the everlasting underclass? How is the actual property market shaping up in your metropolis? In case you dwell in an AI boomtown, how are rents going?
If you wish to obtain monetary freedom, you’ll be able to be a part of 60,000 others and join my free weekly newsletter. Every thing I write relies on firsthand expertise and data. Fundrise is a long-time sponsor of Monetary Samurai as our funding philosophies are aligned.
