Luxury-home sellers are finding a new way to stand out in a sluggish market: telling buyers they’ll accept startup stock.
Listings from Brooklyn to the Bay Area have begun advertising that sellers are willing to consider accepting shares in companies such as Anthropic, OpenAI, and SpaceX in exchange for multimillion-dollar properties.
While few expect many homes to ultimately trade hands this way, some real estate marketers say the strategy can be an effective way to capture the attention of newly wealthy tech workers and investors sitting on hard-to-access private-company equity.
Andrew Rohm, founder of the luxury real estate marketing firm DMR Media, said the tactic works “100%” as a marketing strategy, adding that, while stock-for-home transactions aren’t unheard of, they’re uncommon.
Most buyers with significant stock holdings simply use those assets as collateral for loans rather than trading the shares outright, he said. However, as a marketing tool, IPO stock may be a different story.
Rohm said real estate marketers have long tried to position homes in front of buyers as they approach major liquidity events. In the AI boom, that means employees at companies like Anthropic and OpenAI who could eventually see windfalls from public offerings.
Housing advertisers face restrictions on targeting buyers by profession or demographics, Rohm said. By explicitly mentioning pre-IPO stock in listing descriptions and advertisements, sellers can create marketing that resonates with a specific audience without running afoul of the rules.
“You just have to call someone out through the advertising,” Rohm said, adding that modern algorithms tend to identify and amplify those messages to prospective buyers.
The trend is emerging as luxury homes are taking longer to sell. High home prices and elevated mortgage rates have sidelined many buyers, while homeowners with low-rate mortgages have been reluctant to sell. For luxury properties, which already appeal to a limited audience because the pool of potential buyers is relatively small, standing out has become increasingly important.
“Houses are sitting on the market extremely long right now,” Rohm said.
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One example is a Tribeca apartment owned by Sebastian Sagar, a finance professional and investor. The property has been on the market for about a year and has taken a $1.5 million price cut after being originally listed at $7.8 million.
Sagar said the idea came to him after he learned Anthropic had leased office space a few blocks from his apartment.
He said he had been reviewing his portfolio and realized he wanted less exposure to real estate and more to AI. At the same time, he imagined Anthropic employees sitting on valuable private-company equity that they couldn’t easily sell or borrow against.
Sagar described the arrangement as a potential “win-win” that would allow him to gain early access to a company he believes has significant long-term upside while helping a buyer acquire a home near work.
In Miami, Luis Noguera said his family is open to accepting shares in Anthropic, OpenAI, or SpaceX for a $2.6 million home owned by his father.
Noguera, who previously worked in tech, said his family recently established a family office and views AI companies as potentially attractive long-term investments.
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The house, which was previously a rental, doesn’t really play a strategic long-term role for the family, Noguera said. Owning stock in one of the companies instead, he said, feels like a better investment.
In Brooklyn, the owner of a townhouse at 3 Wythe Lane told Business Insider that mentioning Anthropic shares in the listing was less about a specific company than a broader acknowledgment of where wealth is being created.
“Every generation has its wealth-creation vehicle,” the anonymous seller said in an emailed statement, sent through their listing agent. “For many people today, that’s private technology companies and digital assets.”
The seller said the reference to Anthropic was intended to signal openness to “creative transaction structures” and to appeal to buyers who may be approaching a major liquidity event.
Some of the sellers experimenting with the idea acknowledge that any eventual deal would likely involve a mix of cash and stock rather than an all-equity transaction.
Whether any homes ultimately trade hands for startup shares remains to be seen, but for sellers struggling to attract attention in a difficult luxury market, that may not be the point: The listings generate headlines, spark conversations, and put properties in front of a highly specific group of potential buyers.
In a market where multimillion-dollar homes can sit for months, simply getting noticed may be more valuable.
