It’s no secret that Florida has been experiencing a massive residential boom, the housing market is in high demand and shows no signs of slowing. According to the May 2018 Luxury Home Index from realtor.com®, interest from potential home buyers in Northern states have pushed two Florida counties – Sarasota and Collier – to the top of the nations fastest growing housing markets.
This May, the top 5 percent of expensive home prices in Sarasota (North Port) and Collier (East Naples) counties grew by 19 and 14 percent. But not only are Sarasota and Collier seeing expansion, Broward County – home to Fort Lauderdale – grew 9 percent year over year. These numbers are huge, and a large amount of this growth can be credited to heightened interest from buyers located in New York, Chicago, and Boston, where according to realtor.com® search data, luxury prices have slowed.
May 2018 Top 10 Fastest Growing Luxury Markets
|
Market (Local County Seat) |
Luxury Price (Top 5%) |
% Change Year- |
|
Sarasota County (Sarasota) |
$ 993,000 |
19.1% |
|
Queens County (Queens, N.Y.) |
$ 1,240,000 |
15.1% |
|
Collier, County (East Naples) |
$ 1,651,000 |
13.7% |
|
Douglas County (Castle Rock, Colo.) |
$ 919,000 |
13.1% |
|
San Mateo County (Redwood City, Calif.) |
$ 3,496,000 |
13.0% |
|
King County (Seattle) |
$ 1,486,000 |
12.8% |
|
Marin County (San Rafael, Calif.) |
$ 3,220,000 |
12.5% |
|
Snohomish County (Everett, Wash.) |
$ 790,000 |
12.4% |
|
Hudson County (Jersey City, N.J.) |
$ 1,306,000 |
12.1% |
|
Santa Clara County (San Jose, Calif.) |
$ 2,744,000 |
11.9% |
Source: Realtor.com® Luxury Home Index with data as of March 2018. The realtor.com® luxury home index is based on a 12-month moving average of sales prices and measures price growth using January 2011 as the base.
“Luxury prices in the Sunshine State are rising quickly as buyers from places like New York, Boston, and Chicago get wind that there is a better bang for their buck available down South,” said Javier Vivas, director of economic research for realtor.com®. “Meanwhile, we are seeing signs of a luxury market glut in many established markets, which is in some cases leading to spillover demand for their less pricey neighbors.”
Lowering Luxury: Home Prices in Boston, Chicago, and New York Continue to Slow
Florida’s luxury market may be taking off, but the same cannot be said for Northern states such as Chicago, Boston, and New York. While buyers from these areas contribute to Florida’s expanding residential growth, their own states aren’t fairing quite so well. Boston’s Suffolk County, Chicago’s Cook County, and New York’s Manhattan and Suffolk counties luxury home prices have decreased 2.7, 2.2, and 2.1 and 1.3 percent over the past year. But it doesn’t stop there, in the past month alone Middlesex County (Cambridge, Mass.) and Kings County (Brooklyn, N.Y.), prices have decreased by 1.4 and 2.4 percent. While Florida’s market continues to thrive, the North and Northeastern regions are struggling to keep up.
According to search data obtained by realtor.com®, the demand for luxury homes in the Manhattan and Brooklyn area, where the prices have halted around $4.6 and $2.2 million, appears to be moving in towards the lower-priced adjacent markets of Queens, N.Y. and Hudson County (Jersey City, N.J.). Unlike the aforementioned counties of Manhattan and Brooklyn, the Queen’s and Hudson counties luxury market’s have, in fact, grown at 15 and 12 percent in the past year, reaching $1.2 and $1.3 million. Is the Northern luxury market changing directions?
Methodology
Realtor.com analyzed 89 primary and secondary luxury counties, looking at yearly movement in the entry level luxury price boundary, defined as the top 5 percent of all residential home sales in a given market per the realtor.com sales database with full data up until March 2018. The following markets were excluded from rankings this month as we review their data: Honolulu, Hawaii; Fairfield, Conn.; Nassau, N.Y.; Washoe, Nev.; St. Louis; and Dallas.
About realtor.com®
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