Tampa and Miami lead a luxury surge as affordability keeps squeezing the rest of the housing market
The gap between America's luxury housing market and everything beneath it is widening, and the latest data suggests wealthy buyers are barely noticing today's high mortgage rates.
The median US luxury home sale price climbed 4.7% year over year to $1.37 million during the three months ending May 31, according to a Redfin analysis of multiple listing service data covering the 50 most populous US metros. That is more than triple the 1.5% gain recorded for non-luxury homes over the same period.
Redfin classifies luxury properties as those in the top 5% of a metro's price range, while non-luxury homes fall between the 35th and 65th percentiles.
The divergence reflects a housing market splitting along income lines. Pending sales of luxury homes rose 5.2% year over year, the largest increase since December 2024, compared with a 3.6% gain for non-luxury pending sales, itself a slowdown from the prior month.
Read more: NYC's new pied-à-terre tax won't rattle the luxury market, veteran broker says
Florida and the Bay Area lead the surge
Tampa posted the steepest luxury price growth among major metros, up 15.6% year over year, followed by Miami at 14.2%.
Non-luxury prices in both cities slipped slightly over the same period, underscoring how the migration of wealthy buyers into Florida has bifurcated local markets.
Brokers tracking the trend have noted similar patterns elsewhere, as detailed in Coldwell Banker's report on a looming multitrillion-dollar wealth transfer into US real estate, which projected sustained capital flowing into high-end housing regardless of rate conditions.
San Francisco told a different story, with luxury pending sales up 45.9% year over year, driven largely by tech-sector wealth tied to the artificial intelligence boom. Nashville and San Diego followed, at 24.5% and 22.5%, respectively.
Why affluent buyers keep moving
"Sun Belt metros allow new-construction luxury to proliferate because land is more available," Anthony Smith, senior economist at Realtor.com previously said.
"In these markets, the luxury tier hasn't detached from the median home price. A buyer in San Antonio or Charlotte could achieve a luxury lifestyle for a fraction of what they would pay in coastal hubs, often getting significantly more square footage in the process."
Read more: The US market that house hunters want to move to most in 2026
That dynamic helps explain why luxury new listings rose 1% year over year nationally, even as non-luxury listings fell 0.4%. Wealthy homeowners have less incentive to sell, brokers note, since many are locked into low mortgage rates and face limited tax benefits from cashing out.
The trend echoes broader findings in forecasts describing a gradual two-speed reset across the national housing market for 2026.
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