To be sure, the influx of highly paid workers will continue to drive up rents and force people with more moderate incomes to move out.
“It does mean that if you’re not getting paid really well, you might be squeezed out of San Francisco,” Rosen said. “It’s a ‘have-have not’ situation. Overall, it’s good for the city, but some people will lose out in this process.”
San Francisco had the fastest job growth from 2011 to 2012 among U.S. counties with a labor force of more than 250,000, driven by a 12 percent increase in the information sector, according to the controller’s office. The national average for all industries was 1.9 percent, it reported.
Asking rates for office rents in the city have increased 77 percent to an average of $53.84 a square foot per year, from $30.50 in the first quarter of 2010, according to CBRE data. The office vacancy rate has fallen to 8.2 percent from 16.2 percent in that time, the data shows.
Remember Facebook?
The Twitter IPO is unlikely to make the splash of Facebook’s share auction, said Jason Sisney, state and local finance analyst in the California Legislative Analyst’s Office. A report it issued in May 2012 said Facebook’s IPO would probably bring the Golden State about $2.1 billion in taxes.
The state won’t issue a tax revenue estimate on Twitter’s sale since it’s “more modestly sized” than Facebook’s, Sisney said by e-mail.
For Twitter, “the way that states like California estimate revenue, collections from IPOs of this size and type are already ‘cooked into the model,’” Sisney said.
IPOs prompt more technology investment in the Bay Area, SPUR’s Metcalf said.
“In the long run, successful IPOs are the seedbed for further rounds of innovation and startup activity because people reinvest the money in new companies,” he said.