All of us have three major choices to revenue from AI:
1) Spend money on the proper AI firms.
2) Work for the proper AI firms.
3) Spend money on actual property that can profit from the AI increase.
Investing in the proper AI firms is simpler stated than finished. The gorillas like Google, Tesla, Nvidia have finished nicely. However timing can be vital. For instance, you possibly can 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 personal AI firms, which normally can solely be invested in by means of enterprise capital or connections. And all the prime conventional enterprise capital companies are invite solely, therefore the novel thought 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 proper AI firms is extraordinarily for most individuals. You not solely must work for the proper AI firm, you additionally must get in. Even if you’re extremely proficient, the competitors is fierce. So that is the toughest choice to revenue from AI.
The ultimate, and what I feel is the simplest approach to revenue from AI is to purchase actual property the place the highest AI firms are situated and the place probably the most funding is occurring. When you have the cash and are fairly competent, you and your agent ought to be capable to put collectively a suggestion on a property at an affordable value.
The Actual Property Possibility Is The Picks And Shovels Technique
When you purchase actual property in an AI boomtown, then you don’t actually care which AI firm grows probably the most. All you care about is that the whole trade grows and makes 1000’s of staff wealthy and liquid.
Inevitably, a few of that liquidity will stream by means of to housing, given shopping for a house is normally one of many prime two issues each newly minted millionaire desires to purchase.
We spend, on common, 18 hours a day at house, which suggests it’s considered one of our most utilized belongings. To have the ability to take pleasure in a pleasant house after getting “made it” is the American dream. In fact, you may take pleasure in a pleasant house by renting as nicely. However it’s higher to personal a house the place you will have 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 not possible for me to interrupt into the expertise house. That is fairly unhappy since I’ve lived in San Francisco since 2001. Finance, no drawback. However tech is out of my wheelhouse.
Therefore, all I may do was put money into the primary tech firms everyone knows right now. Since I couldn’t get a job supply 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 purposes, I noticed there was an amazing 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 many others.
When you a comparatively younger, below 40, I counsel 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 beauties of San Francisco Bay Space actual property, apart from the pure magnificence, year-round temperate climate, and large wealth creation alternatives, is the shortage of provide. For some cause 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 crimson tape after six months that I gave up. In consequence, there’s one much less unit available on the market right now. 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 transform once more.
With perpetual structural undersupply, a booming expertise discipline, 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.
Individuals suppose San Francisco is dear. Nonetheless, San Francisco is without doubt one of the cheapest international cities in the world when you truly check out different areas. Please go and discover the world.
At present, with the upcoming IPOs of OpenAI, Anthropic, Superhuman, Harvey, Databricks, and so many extra, it’s clear there might be a brand new hoard of multimillionaires within the Bay Space. And with huge tech firms having a fantastic run since 2023 particularly, the quantity of wealth creation has been stupendous.
Not Overly Careworn Who Wins The AI Race
As a shareholder of each Anthropic and OpenAI by means of Fundrise Venture, a long-time sponsor, the entire debacle with the Division of Battle is fascinating.
Anthropic standing as much as the federal government over offering it a “kill change” for surveillance and autonomous weapons seems like an excellent 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 crafty. That’s some good Sport of Thrones, Little Finger drama proper there!
A number of Anthropic staff took to X to proclaim their pleasure for Anthropic, whereas no person did for OpenAI. Though staff at each companies need to make some huge cash, they can not publicly have fun cash or enterprise wins, solely virtues.
Brief-term, OpenAI wins the $200 million authorities contract. Possibly long run too with heaps extra authorities gravy sooner or later, particularly if the management continues to donate cash to the administration. Brief time period, Anthropic loses the federal government contract price 0.36% of this yr’s estimated income, however long run, Anthropic in all probability wins too because of good publicity and higher branding based mostly on rules.
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 would like each firms to win.
Each firms are GPU constrained because of extraordinary demand, so actually, Anthropic’s misplaced authorities contract will simply get replaced by doubtlessly simpler and extra worthwhile clients.
Within the struggle of enterprise, there might be loads of future battles between these two giants. No matter who’s pulling forward for the time being, Bay Space householders and landlords get wealthier both manner. The whole AI LLM pie is rising.
Firsthand Expertise Of AI Firms Boosting Rents
I see the impression of AI development with my latest tenant working at one of many two AI LLM firms. They’re so rich that the couple is pleased to pay $10,000 a month in hire for a five-bedroom home.
As a frugal individual, I initially couldn’t imagine this younger couple wished to pay a lot. They’re good folks and advised me they wished two house places of work and a house health club. I checked out their funds, and I made a decision that if that is what they wished, that is good by me.
When his AI firm goes public, I assume there’s a 70% likelihood 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 pattern for the time being.
The AI monetary increase is probably going going to be a 10-plus-year pattern. And as an investor, you will need to invest in trends and maintain on for long-term wealth creation. When you correctly establish a pattern, there is no such thing as a 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 all the time 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 probably the most.
1) San Francisco / San Jose (The Bay Space)
Let’s begin with the plain.
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 not too long ago raised at roughly a $380 billion valuation. Scale AI, Databricks, Perplexity, and dozens of well-funded AI infrastructure and application-layer startups are based mostly right here.
Then you definately transfer 50 minutes south to the San Jose space.
NVIDIA, headquartered in Santa Clara, is price nicely 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 taking a look at 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 means of IPOs, secondary gross sales, or inventory compensation, that cash has to go someplace.
Quite a lot 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 best.
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 good points.
Amazon can be headquartered in Seattle and continues to construct AI infrastructure by means of AWS. Cloud computing is the spine of AI deployment.
When Azure and AWS promote extra AI compute, income rise. When income rise, stock-based compensation rises. And when stock-based compensation rises, folks improve properties.
Seattle might not get the flashy startup headlines like San Francisco, but it surely has the steadiness 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.
Decrease taxes. Decrease value of dwelling. 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 places of work 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, price doubtlessly $1.75 trillion is predicated 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 an enormous pandemic increase. Now actual property costs are falling given the glut of provide constructed when curiosity rats have been low. Nonetheless, by the tip of 2026, the availability must be mopped up as town experiences hire and property value strain once more.
If AI compensation accelerates, it gives one other layer of assist. You do not want headquarters dominance if in case you have 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 anticipate 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 in a different way. 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. Yr-end bonuses subsequently get greater. Ah, the nice outdated days of banking!
Wall Road 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 device, it adopts it at scale. And scale creates wealth.
Please At Least Get Impartial Actual Property
When you dwell in considered one of these cities, I extremely counsel you get impartial actual property by owning your primary residence. The demand for actual property is about to warmth up once more.
I not too long ago 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 offer 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 stated patrons are getting off the sidelines to purchase properties earlier than the large AI companies go public. Additional, they talked about their shoppers who work at these personal AI firms getting some liquidity by means of worker share gross sales in secondary choices.
When you plan to dwell within the metropolis for no less than 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 possibly can let emotion make you pay greater than you comfortably ought to. Attempt to search for properties with an ocean view or a big lot, or each. Location is all the time paramount.
With actual property, you do not want to resolve 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 observe. Luxurious remodels observe.
That’s the reason shopping for actual property in AI boomtowns is the final word picks-and-shovels technique.
Let the engineers struggle it out.
You personal the land.
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 true property market shaping up in your metropolis? When you dwell in an AI boomtown, how are rents going?
If you wish to obtain monetary freedom, you may be part of 60,000 others and join my free weekly newsletter. All the things I write is predicated on firsthand expertise and data. Fundrise is a long-time sponsor of Monetary Samurai as our funding philosophies are aligned.
