For years, Southern California real estate agents have watched longingly as Bay Area techies turned IPO riches and, more recently, soaring AI valuations into bidding wars for homes. Now, with SpaceX preparing to go public this week in what is expected to be the biggest IPO in history, the coastal neighborhoods around SpaceX's sprawling Hawthorne hub are hoping for their own liftoff.
"This is LA's Google moment," Chris Tourtellotte, managing director at LaTerra Development, a Los Angeles real estate investment management and development company, told Business Insider, referring to Google's 2004 IPO that is estimated to have minted over 900 millionaires.
The long-awaited SpaceX IPO will dwarf Google's, finally turning paper wealth into cash for not hundreds, but thousands of current and former employees in Southern California. "All of a sudden, you will wake up, and there will be thousands of brand-new millionaires," he said. "This is going to be big for LA. We needed it."
Even after SpaceX shifted its headquarters to Texas in 2024, its Hawthorne manufacturing hub remained a major local employer, with 7,661 workers last year, according to city records. With the company's IPO expected to value it at around $1.75 trillion, and many employees having joined early, local realtors are bracing for a potential influx of newly wealthy buyers.
"It's been on everyone's mind," said Los Angeles real estate agent Nina Kubicek. "This has been two decades in the making."
SpaceX's mega offering makes Southern California's last major tech IPO look quaint in comparison: Snap's 2017 debut, which valued the Venice Beach-based social media company at about $24 billion.
Still, anyone looking for a boost for Los Angeles as a whole will be disappointed, according to Paul Habibi, a lecturer of finance and real estate at UCLA's Anderson School of Management.
"I'd expect a real but diffuse effect, concentrated in the South Bay around Hawthorne rather than the citywide jolt a trillion-dollar listing might imply," said Habibi. "Many of its longest-tenured people have already turned equity into cash through years of secondary sales, so the IPO mints fewer brand-new local millionaires than the headline suggests."
Agents offer a special program for SpaceX employees
Agents in the South Bay say they have already been seeing interest from employees whose long-held private stock could soon become life-changing liquidity, as well as from other buyers eager to close before the IPO.
"I just went under contract with buyers on a house in Manhattan Beach, and they specifically articulated they wanted to be sure to get something under contract before all the SpaceX money comes in," said Dave Fratello, the founder of Edge Real Estate Agency, who blogs about local real estate. "There's definitely a hype aspect."
"While we have worked with SpaceX employees for many years, we've seen a significant spike this year in the number of former and current employees we are advising," Stephanie Younger, whose real estate firm has carved out a niche helping SpaceX employees count their restricted stock, known as RSUs, toward their income to qualify for a bigger mortgage, told Business Insider.
Many employees will be constrained by lock-up periods, meaning the real spike in home prices will begin in September, according to Younger. Like any good real estate agent, Younger is advising clients to act fast.
"If you are a SpaceX employee in the Los Angeles area and you have been waiting for the right signal to act — this is it," Younger wrote on a blog post after the S-1 came out. "Start the search with urgency but without panic."
A boom for Manhattan Beach
Gio Altamura, a South Bay residential real estate agent, said Manhattan Beach would likely benefit the most because it is the "epicenter" of the area's luxury housing market, with strong schools, prime oceanfront views, and a commute to SpaceX of just 10 to 15 minutes. The average home is worth $3,260,960, up 5% from a year ago, according to Zillow.
"Everyone is going to be affected positively, but if you're asking me who's going to benefit the most, it's always the highest end," Altamura said. "The floor just gets raised."
Austin, Texas, is also hoping for a boost from Space's IPO, with 1,590 employees working in nearby Bastrop County. Already, Northern California has seen the effect, with one of the priciest home sales in the country this year.
In March, SpaceX board member and early investor Steve Jurvetson shattered Lake Tahoe's home-sale record by buying a $125 million Incline Village mansion, Bloomberg reported. (Jurvetson's VC firm did not respond to a request for comment.)
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I'm a senior correspondent at Business Insider, where I investigate the tech industry with a focus on venture capital and startups.I can also frequently be seen on CNN, NBC News, CBS News, and other channels providing analysis on a range of business and economic topics. Please get in touch if you have a story to tell securely on Signal. Here are some examples of stories I've written:
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Here is a little more about me: Before I joined Insider, I was a senior reporter at dot.LA and produced two investigative documentaries for public television, one of which won first place in the 2020 Los Angeles Press Club investigation category. The judges called it "in-depth and informative reporting at its best."I spent the 2017-2018 academic year at Columbia Business School as a Knight-Bagehot fellow in economic and business journalism taking MBA-level courses in corporate finance, financial accounting, and corporate strategy. After that, I oversaw development of The Journal, a daily podcast produced by The Wall Street Journal and Gimlet Media.Previously, I was a senior reporter and host at KPCC/Southern California Public Radio, where I covered business and economics. I was frequently heard nationally on NPR and Marketplace, and often hosted KPCC's daily two-hour newsmagazine, Take Two, as well as Morning Edition and major breaking news coverage. In addition, I moderated business/economic-focused live events for KPCC, the Milken Institute and RAND Corporation.Before joining KPCC, I was a producer for NPR's Morning Edition based in Washington D.C. and then Culver City, CA. I have also written for The New York Times and Columbia Journalism Review and was a reporting intern at The Times.Originally from Seattle, I graduated cum laude from Occidental College in Los Angeles with a degree in politics.In my free time, I love skiing, tennis, and poker (I competed in the 2024 World Series of Poker Main Event but sadly did not win).
