Priced out by the AI boom, Belton keeps bidding

priced out – Alexandria Belton, 33, and her fiancé started buying a home around October 2025 with a roughly $1.2 million budget. They say escalating prices—linked in their telling to the AI boom—have repeatedly pushed bids well above list prices, including in Marin, where

When Alexandria Belton and her fiancé finally sat down to make a plan for their first home, it felt clear enough: start looking in October 2025, buy a single-family house, and keep life close to the city without living in the city.

They live now in a two-bedroom, two-bath apartment in the Marina District—an area Belton calls sought-after and expensive. She moved there in 2020 after learning rents were dropping. At the time, the rent was $3,695. In fall 2025, she received a letter saying the rent would be raised retroactively. Her rent is now $4,378.

That rent jump landed while she and her fiancé were shopping seriously. Belton, 33, says their goal for a home wasn’t just ownership—it was a yard, and a suburb-adjacent feel. Condos were appealing to many buyers. she says. partly because single-family homes are so expensive and partly because city life can be mirrored with condo living. But for her, the apartment already served the “city life” piece. If she was going to buy, she wanted space.

Her fiancé works in construction, which shaped their strategy. They wanted a heavy fixer-upper. Their starting budget was around $1.2 million—an amount they already knew was “kind of unattainable” in the city even before the AI boom. as Belton describes it. Still, they said they believed they’d find enough fixers.

“We thought that would be a good strategy for us,” she said, describing how quickly the numbers became punishing.

One fixer they saw became a turning point in their thinking. Belton says the last fixer they viewed was their “final straw.” After that. they expanded out of the city and found a fixer listed for around $700. 000 or $800. 000. It was only 800 square feet and, in her words, looked horrible. The vision was the point.

But the property they were watching sold for $1.3 million “or so,” and that was before any work was done. Belton said she was shocked because she felt the result wasn’t reflective of what was happening the previous year.

Soon, she says, they learned not to trust list prices. Her expectation became blunt: at minimum, a home would go for $300,000 over asking. She also says she has seen a house sell for over $1 million over the asking price. Even with that knowledge, her budget kept climbing—because the market wasn’t waiting.

Now she is at $1.5 million, after expanding their search outside the city. They started looking at Marin, north of the Bay. Belton described it as still part of the Bay Area—about a 15-minute drive from the city—but with its own “charm. ” including downtown restaurants and shops. That was her target again: not to be too far from the places she’s used to.

A new agent, experienced in Marin, told her they wouldn’t see the same bidding chaos they’d been seeing in San Francisco. She said she was told that in Marin, homes “usually go for about asking, sometimes even below.”

Then, Belton says, the first house they put a bid on showed how fragile that expectation was. The home was listed for what she remembers as about $1.1 million and sold for $1.9 million. She said it was around 1,200 square feet and needed a lot of work done.

Her agent warned them that what was happening in the city was beginning to spill into Marin. Belton says she heard the explanation directly: people were having the same idea as her—expanding their search.

Belton connects that shift to the AI boom in the broad way buyers in her orbit have described it. She says she’s spoken to people who describe something similar during the AI boom. and she also believes these cycles can eventually burst—whether the driver is a tech boom or specifically an AI boom. In her telling. home buyers are able to spend an “insane amount of money” because they have to live in the city.

She doesn’t know what to make of it, but she wants an end point. “I’m hopeful that there’s an end in sight,” she said. “I hope it’s a phase.”

By the time she spoke, she said they had put in about 10 bids. She also said they got close on a house in Marin—but that in her gut it already felt like they were overpaying for what the house was “on paper.” She didn’t want to make an irresponsible decision just to get the home.

After running the numbers again and again, Belton tried to set boundaries that protect the rest of her life, not just the deal. She said they crunched so many figures that they could find a budget where they wouldn’t feel “house poor,” and where they could still do other things.

Even her borrowing math has a ceiling. She said $1.5 million is the maximum they can reach. They can afford the 20% down payment. she said. and “all of our ducks are in a row.” But she also described how even small changes become steep when you’re at the edge. “We can’t just add another $50,000,” she said. That extra amount. she explained. translates to “another couple of hundred dollars to the mortgage” when they’re already at their absolute most.

Belton’s exhaustion isn’t abstract. She calls it mentally exhausting and very discouraging. With her and her fiancé each earning enough on paper, she says the competition still feels unfair—like they “don’t really stand a chance.”

She believes they may have “missed the boat,” but she hasn’t fully stepped away. “Still, I don’t think it’s over for me,” she said.

She admits the irony: she and her fiancé used AI to help with their budgeting. But the core problem—bids clearing far above asking and homes moving beyond what a workable mortgage can support—doesn’t disappear with better spreadsheets. It shows up again in every house they want. every time they try to bid within a ceiling they’ve already tested.

The sequence is the one Belton can’t ignore: a rent that rose retroactively while they were shopping. a fixer strategy that collapsed under sales far above list price. a move to Marin with expectations that homes would stay near asking. and then a first bid that sold for $1.9 million after listing around $1.1 million. Each step changed the math. Each step tightened the margin.

For now, Belton plans to hold tight to her budget and keep watching for correction—because even if she can tolerate one more bid, she can’t keep buying her way into a mortgage she knows will take over the rest of her life.

San Francisco housing market Bay Area home prices AI boom Marin real estate housing affordability mortgage budgeting fixer-upper bidding wars rent increase