WRE NEWS
The typical luxury home sold for $1.26 million in September, up 4.8% from one year earlier to set a new record high for the month.
According to data from Redfin, the sales of luxury homes is occurring at more than twice the pace of price growth for non-luxury homes, which rose 1.8% year over year to a median of $371,583. Prices of luxury homes have been rising faster than prices of non-luxury homes for most of the past two years – the typical luxury home price rose by about 11% since September 2023 while non-luxury homes only achieved a roughly 6% growth.
Among the nation’s major metros, luxury prices rose most in West Palm Beach, Florida (+14.8% to $4.13 million), Newark, New Jersey (+12.3% to $2.05 million), and Virginia Beach, Virginia (+11.2% to $1.07 million). The only two metros where prices dropped were Tampa, Florida (-3.3% to $1.45 million) and Oakland, California (-2.2% to $2.9 million).
Sales on both luxury and non-luxury homes were mostly flat from September 2024, inching up by a mild 0.3% for the luxury residences and dipping by 0.3% for the non-luxury counterpart. Pending sales rose 1.6% for luxury homes and 1% for non-luxury homes from a year earlier.
“Luxury prices are outpacing the rest of the market because the people buying at the top end are playing by different rules,” said Redfin Senior Economist Sheharyar Bokhari. “They’re not waiting for rates to drop or prices to fall—they have the cash, stock gains, and long-term confidence to act when they see a home they want. Some high-end buyers are also using real estate as a safe place to park their money amid economic uncertainty. That demand, even at a smaller scale, is enough to keep pushing luxury prices up faster than the broader market.”