This realtor is betting big on the AI IPO boom, but buying a house with stock will have to go through the OpenAI’s and Anthropic’s boards first

Finding housing in San Francisco, the country’s most expensive housing market, can be a nightmare. Finding a buyer willing to part ways with unreleased AI stock might be even harder. In April, Storm Duncan took a direct approach to reaching tech workers and posted his $8 million Marin County property on Linked In, offering an exchange for Anthropic stock. While Linked In may not be the most conventional real estate marketplace, it did provide a direct line to Anthropic employees. The sale includes a 4,372-sqft house and an 11-acre parcel next door. The property sits on top of a hill offering 360-degree views of the city and Mount Hamilton across the bay. Duncan, founder of the tech investment bank Ignatious, splits his time between Jackson, Wyo. and Miami. He’s owned the California property since 2019 and currently rents it out to a venture capitalist. Anthropic employees “don’t really have liquidity with their shares to sell it,” Duncan told Fortune. “You’re an Anthropic employee, you’re worth 50 or 100 million bucks, but you’re making $300,000 a year, like you can’t buy a house in San Francisco. And you certainly can’t buy one that’s befitting of your net worth.” The employee would still keep some of the upside, he shared. Duncan joins a few other realtors in the area willing to accept the lucrative AI companies’ stocks in lieu of liquid cash. But just because the seller agreed to a sale doesn’t necessarily mean the two companies in question do. Both OpenAI and Anthropic will need to approve any transaction involving stock transfers, according to the companies’ policies. More so, some financial planners and experts warn parting ways with something potentially so valuable may in fact hurt employees in the long term, trading a potential high return for a physical asset that likely will not appreciate as much in value. A potential for a new marketplace Duncan already owns Anthropic stock but said the stock is much m