San Francisco’s ongoing real estate whirlwind has been fueled by a combination of artificially depressed inventory and tech-driven new buyers. Now observers are noting a round of layoffs at local tech companies and are wondering if one of those two factors driving the real estate prices is abating.
The layoffs are pretty widespread. Twitter, the signature brand brought in to help push renewal of the Mid-Market area, recently laid off 8 percent of its workforce. Microsoft, Snapchat, Hewlett-Packard, Living Social, and others have recently slowed hiring or have had a round of layoffs.
Twitter recently changed its mind and pulled out of an expected expansion of its downtown San Francisco headquarters and slowed down its hiring, the San Francisco Business Times’ Cory Weinberg reported. “A string of managers and engineers have headed for the door. Meanwhile, the company recently signed a big deal to expand in Dublin, Ireland – an overseas hotbed for U.S. technology companies in part because the country offers lower corporate taxes.”
Twitter, the social media company that has struggled unsuccessfully for years to find a profitable business model, might be facing different headwinds than Microsoft and other tech companies. But with the layoffs occurring in so many different types of tech businesses, homesellers hoping to find a paper millionaire tech buyer for their home could be in for a longer time on the market.
