The price of “luxury homes” in the United States rose 0.7 percent in fourth-quarter 2016 compared with the year-earlier quarter, reaching an average of $1.6 million. That’s according to Redfin, an online real estate company based in Seattle.
Redfin defines luxury homes as those among the top 5 percent most expensive homes sold in a city in each quarter.
“The bottom 95 percent of the market performed far better than the luxury market in fourth quarter,” Redfin said. “This marks the eighth consecutive quarter where non-luxury properties outperformed their luxury counterparts in price growth. An average non-luxury home sold for $312,000, up 6.1 percent compared to a year earlier, the largest such gain since the first quarter of 2014.”
Redfin said the supply of homes priced above $5 million rose 15.1 percent in the fourth quarter of 2016 compared with a year earlier, far outpacing the rise in the number of homes for sale above $1 million, which increased just 0.6 percent in the fourth quarter.