This Is the Hottest Luxury Home Market in America

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Mar 16, 1:00PM EDT

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This Is the Hottest Luxury Home Market in America — © Houses on Hilton Head Island b... (CC BY 2.0) by Lee Coursey

The frenzy of activity in the U.S. housing market has gone on for two years. And based on January data, this will likely not end any time soon. The median home price in America has been climbing and now sits at a record $350,000. The figure could move closer to $400,000 by year’s end.

Partly driving the median home price higher is the booming high-end market. The hottest luxury housing market in America is Kahului, Hawaii. (And this is the American city with the most million dollar housing markets.)

Among the reasons for the overall jump in housing prices is the COVID-19 pandemic, which triggered a shuttering of business offices and allowed many workers to be more mobile. Some people have been told they will not need to return to do their offices. Low mortgage rates (which have started to rise) have also encouraged significant housing activity.

Another trigger for the home prices jump in some markets is the move of people from the most expensive markets, particularly those on the coasts. While home prices have reached two to three times the national median in New York and San Francisco, prices in smaller inland cities run well below those levels, and the overall cost of living in those inland cities is also often considerably lower.

But while some people move away from expensive markets, wealthier homebuyers actually are looking for a home in some of the more affluent and beautiful places. Some of these rich enclaves have become vacation destinations, while others are suburbs of large cities. Some are large cities that have had large influxes of populations, in particular cities where buyers are well educated and have high incomes. (This city has the most expensive houses in America.)

Realtor.com just released its Living the Dream: Here Are the Hottest Luxury Real Estate Markets in America Right Now report. In the report, the real estate data site considered just the most expensive 1% of homes in large metro areas. Nationwide, the top 1% of homes for sale had a median listing price of $5.5 million in January. The most expensive 1% of homes in Kahului have a median value of $23.9 million.

Frank Nothaft, chief economist at CoreLogic, pointed out that “Those who have been very successful, who kept their jobs, and [who] saw the stock market go through the roof cashed out their gains to use that as their down payments to buy a second home.”

To find the hottest luxury home markets in America, 24/7 Wall St. reviewed Relator.com’s report. Here are the top 10 markets and the median value of the top 1% of homes there:

Click here to see this is the hottest luxury home market in America

10. Prescott, Arizona
> Median price for top 1% of homes for sale: $5.7 million

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9. Salt Lake City, Utah
> Median price for top 1% of homes for sale: $4.2 million

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8. Portland, Maine
> Median price for top 1% of homes for sale: $4.9 million

7. Austin, Texas
> Median price for top 1% of homes for sale: $5.0 million

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6. Barnstable, Massachusetts
> Median price for top 1% of homes for sale: $15.9 million

5. Wilmington, North Carolina
> Median price for top 1% of homes for sale: $3.8 million

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4. Hilton Head, South Carolina
> Median price for top 1% of homes for sale: $5.5 million

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3. Sebastian, Florida
> Median price for top 1% of homes for sale: $6.2 million

2. San Luis Obispo, California
> Median price for top 1% of homes for sale: $40.0 million

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1. Kahului, Hawaii
> Median price for top 1% of homes for sale: $23.9 million

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.