Luxury Real Estate's Booming, Busting Markets

Home price changes in luxury real estate can be an important indicator for overall market health. Two new rankings measure 10 luxury markets with the fastest-appreciating home prices, and 10 markets with the biggest price drops.

Many of the most high-end markets have become overbuilt, and as real estate appraiser Jonathan Miller points out, the luxury “footprint [is expanding] into nearby or adjacent neighborhoods, that [until recently] weren’t thought of as luxury markets." While Seattle, Palo Alto, California, and Aspen, Colorado home prices are surging, Realtor.com found that Beverly Hills, California, Denver, and New York’s 10004 ZIP code’s luxury prices dropped the most.

Whether you're an active participant in the nosebleed section of the housing business or just a bystander, luxury matters. Because the strengths or weaknesses of the upper reaches trickle down to us commoners: Higher home prices at the top pull up prices in the middle and bottom. And vice versa. So the data team at realtor.com set out to find the luxury neighborhoods where prices are growing—and falling—the fastest. We found some big changes afoot in some of America's highest-profile bellwether markets.

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