🏠 Charted: Luxury home prices in decline
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Austin saw the biggest decline nationally in the sales price of luxury homes, according to the latest Redfin data.
Why it matters: Just as the giddy highs of the pandemic housing market touched everyone in town, apparently the decline is, too.
Zoom in: The typical Austin-area luxury home sold for $1.69 million in the fourth quarter of 2023, an 8.6% year-over-year drop, per Redfin.
Worth mentioning: The Redfin report defined luxury homes as those estimated to be in the top 5% of their respective metro area based on market value.
Also: Nationally, the total number of luxury listings increased most in Austin — 44.5% year over year — as a glut of houses stuck around the buyers' market.
The big picture: Wealthy home shoppers, especially those paying with cash, are making up a growing share of the U.S. housing market, Axios' Sami Sparber reports.
Meanwhile: Higher mortgage rates hit first-time and middle-income homebuyers hardest, according to Redfin.
- With more of them shut out from homeownership, price jumps for non-luxury U.S. homes moderated.
State of play: Luxury prices rose nearly twice as much nationally (+8.8%) as non-luxury prices (+4.6%) at the end of 2023, according to Redfin.
- That's partly because many high-end homebuyers are coming in with cash and not worried about mortgage rates, per Redfin.