While high mortgage rates are keeping a lot of buyers on the sidelines, that isn’t the case in the upper levels of the market. In fact, we just saw a record for all-cash deals!

Over the past four years, median luxury home prices have risen 47% from around $1.5 million to about $2.2 million, while the median U.S. home list price rose 34% from about $320,000 to about $430,000. That’s from Realtor.com’s study of the most expensive 5% of all home listings from April 2020 to April 2024.

Here are the cities where luxury home prices have spiked the most:

• West Palm Beach, FL – 171%

• Savannah, GA – 137%

• Lake Havasu City, AZ – 111%

• Reno, NV – 101%

• East Hampton, NY – 94%

• Park City, UT – 86%

• Raleigh, NC – 78%

• Sevierville, TN – 78%

• Midland, TX – 77%

• Toms River, NJ – 72%

My take

There are a few interesting takeaways here: a) luxury prices spiked in sunny, warm climates b) even as some markets have seen luxury prices stabilize, these cities continue to attract affluent buyers c) luxury demand is moving south d) since this list only focuses on spikes, it does not include well-established luxury markets such as Malibu and Medina. Those markets are doing just fine, as I’ve discussed.