On June 12, 2026, SpaceX listed on Nasdaq at $135 per share. The IPO valued the company at roughly $1.77 trillion and is now widely cited as the largest in market history. According to the New York Times, analysis from the investment platform Hill.com estimates that the listing turned more than 4,400 current and former SpaceX employees into millionaires — and roughly 400 of them into nine-figure shareholders.
OpenAI and Anthropic are next. OpenAI's October 2025 tender offer cashed out about $6.6 billion in shares across more than 600 employees at a $400 billion valuation, with both companies now reported to be preparing for public listings as soon as the fourth quarter of 2026. Underwriter conversations involving Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, and Morgan Stanley are already underway.
The aggregate is unprecedented. The Wall Street Journal has described OpenAI and Anthropic alone as potentially the two largest IPOs in history. SpaceX's lockups are 366 days for insiders, but the wealth psychology has already turned. People are already calling advisors. Choreo, a Chicago-based registered investment advisor, has reportedly assembled a collective wealth-management arrangement for more than 100 SpaceX employees and alumni representing between $1 billion and $5 billion in potential client assets.
A predictable share of that wealth is going to be deployed into one specific category: hard, coastal, long-hold real estate.
This piece is for the principal asking — or whose advisor is asking on their behalf — where, exactly?
The shape of the trade
What we are watching is not a primary-residence migration. SpaceX engineers in Hawthorne are not moving to Carmel. OpenAI researchers in San Francisco are not selling their Mission Bay condos. The trade that is forming is a second-home trade.
For a 38-year-old principal sitting on a $20M to $200M liquidity event after a decade of mission-grade output, the playbook is reasonably well-understood:
- Diversify out of single-stock concentration.
- Park a meaningful share of the after-tax proceeds in assets that don't behave like the asset that just made them rich.
- Buy something the family will actually use.
- Buy somewhere the asset compounds quietly, on a generational horizon, without becoming a job.
Coastal California — and specifically the Monterey Peninsula — checks every box on that list. Carmel-by-the-Sea is a market where roughly seventy percent of homes are second residences. The Peninsula has been the West Coast's quiet trophy market for the better part of a century. It is doing again, now, what it always does at the back end of a major wealth cycle.
Why the Monterey Peninsula, specifically
There are four real reasons. None of them are about the view.
1. Structural scarcity. Carmel, Pebble Beach, and Carmel Highlands are effectively built out. The California Coastal Commission and the Big Sur Land Use Plan together cap meaningful new supply at functionally zero. Owners of generational holdings on Scenic Road, in the Pebble Beach gates, and along the Highlands rarely sell — and when they do, the transactions are private, often closing without ever hitting the MLS.
2. Lower drawdown depth. The Peninsula's high-end segment has historically shown lower drawdown depth than primary metro markets in California. Trophy assets clear at or above asking through cycles. The buyer base is older, deeper, and less leveraged than coastal Los Angeles or the San Francisco Bay. The Peninsula does not crash the way primary markets crash. It absorbs.
3. Actual usability. The most common reason a wealthy family sells a second home is that they stopped going. The Peninsula prevents that failure mode. Pebble Beach, Cypress Point, the Monterey Peninsula Country Club, the Carmel Valley wine corridor, Big Sur, and the Highway 1 cycling route all sit inside a thirty-minute radius. The asset becomes a magnet for the extended family, the firm's offsite, the partner's golf trip. Use rate stays high. Maintenance attention stays high. Value stays high.
4. Operational proximity. A one-hour direct flight from SQL or SFO to MRY. A four-hour drive from San Francisco. A ninety-minute flight from Los Angeles. The Peninsula is operationally close enough for a monthly weekend and a seasonal hold. It does not require the same logistical apparatus as Aspen, Sun Valley, or Jackson. For a principal still actively working in tech or AI, that distinction matters.
What the Choreo signal really means
The reason Choreo's collective arrangement with more than 100 SpaceX employees is worth paying attention to is not the fee structure. It is what it tells us about how this cohort is making decisions.
These are not Florida-condo buyers. They are not first-time-money buyers, in the behavioral sense, even if they are first-time-large-liquidity buyers in the financial sense. They are technically literate, they read 10-Ks, they understand correlation and concentration, and they are systematically delegating wealth decisions to institutional advisors rather than running ad hoc searches on Zillow. The decision-making is moving through the trust and advisor channel.
For sellers and buyers on the Peninsula, that means one practical thing: the next wave of trophy transactions on this coast will close through advisors, not through cold inbound. Representation that operates fluently inside that channel — that can be referred up, that can produce institutional-grade reporting, that can transact inside trusts, LLCs, and family-office vehicles — is the representation that will see the flow.
That is precisely the work we have been doing on the Peninsula for two decades, and the work we have leaned into structurally since transitioning to the Engel & Völkers global network in January 2026.
What to actually do, if you are the principal
A short checklist for the principal — or the advisor reading this on the principal's behalf:
- Do not buy the first thing you see. The Peninsula is opaque. There is more inventory than the MLS shows. The best representation on this coast will brief you on off-market and pre-market assets you cannot find online.
- Buy through a structure. A revocable trust, single-member LLC, or single-purpose entity. The privacy, estate-planning, and asset-protection benefits are not optional at this wealth level.
- Underwrite the carry, not the headline. Property tax under Proposition 13 stays low if you hold; insurance, especially in the Highlands and the coastal-fire envelope, is the variable to model carefully. Build a real ten-year carry model before you bid.
- Match the asset to actual use. A $20M oceanfront house that the family visits twice a year is a worse asset than a $7M Carmel Point cottage that the family visits eight times a year. The Peninsula rewards use rate.
- Get the advisor on the line before the lender. Estate counsel and the family office come before the loan officer at this wealth level. Our practice operates inside that sequence, not around it.
Frequently asked questions
Is the Monterey Peninsula a second-home market or a primary-residence market?
Predominantly a second-home market. Roughly seventy percent of homes in Carmel-by-the-Sea are second residences. Pebble Beach and Carmel Highlands skew even more heavily toward second-home ownership.
What is the price range for a Carmel or Pebble Beach second home?
Entry into the Carmel cottage market starts around $2.5M. Carmel Point, Carmel Highlands, and the inner Pebble Beach gates typically begin in the $4M to $8M range. Oceanfront and trophy properties on the 17-Mile Drive, Scenic Road, and the Highlands clear between $15M and $50M+.
How far is Carmel from San Francisco and Los Angeles?
Approximately 120 miles south of San Francisco — a four-hour drive or a one-hour direct flight from SFO, SJC, or OAK to Monterey Regional Airport (MRY). From Los Angeles, approximately a ninety-minute direct flight or a five-hour drive.
Who is Truszkowski Freedman & Associates?
Truszkowski Freedman & Associates is a luxury real estate practice operating as a license partner of Engel & Völkers Carmel on the Monterey Peninsula. The team is co-led by Nicole Truszkowski and Zak Freedman and has closed more than $1B in career sales volume, including buyer representation of the $40M DL James House in Carmel Highlands and the listing and sale of the Betty White Estate.
Does Truszkowski Freedman & Associates work with trusts, family offices, and wealth advisors?
Yes. A meaningful share of the practice originates inside the trust and estate channel. The team operates inside revocable and irrevocable trusts, single-purpose entities, single-member LLCs, and cross-jurisdiction vehicles, and provides fiduciary-grade reporting to advisor partners.
Is the SpaceX IPO already affecting California real estate prices?
Real estate professionals in Southern California have publicly reported a measurable uptick in inquiries from SpaceX employees in the days following the June 12, 2026 IPO, particularly in the South Bay markets of Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach, Redondo Beach, and Palos Verdes. Historical precedent — for example, the home-price acceleration around Facebook's Menlo Park headquarters following its 2012 IPO — suggests that second-home markets adjacent to these wealth centers typically see flow within six to eighteen months of a major liquidity event.
If you are reading this on behalf of a client
We work directly with trust officers, family offices, and wealth advisors representing principals at this wealth level. The engagement begins with a private call. References are available upon request.
Request a private consultation: [private.truszkowskifreedman.com](https://truszkowskifreedman.com)
Zak Freedman is co-principal of Truszkowski Freedman & Associates, a Monterey Peninsula luxury real estate practice operating as a license partner of Engel & Völkers Carmel. He holds a CA DRE Salesperson license, multi-state NMLS licenses, and an FAA commercial drone certification. He is a Carmel native and a graduate of UC Santa Cruz.
