Dave Brown & Courtney Lata Luxury Market Report MARCH 2021

In the US, statistics show that the luxury home prices for single family homes rose on average 8% last year and are expected to continue at this record-breaking rate for the early part of 2021. In Canada, expectations are for the luxury market to rise as much as 8% in 2021 too.

Accordingly to Coldwell Banker’s President and Chief Executive Officer, M. Ryan Gorman, the statistics uncovered in their recent report “point to a promising luxury home market with a strong starting position as we move further into this year.” He also states that, “there were many bright spots around the country and the world, as people adjusted their notions of home and sought fully amenitized retreats where they could live, work, and eventually entertain in place.”

In this report, they identified four markets that stood out amount the top performers in the US, specifically based on comparing high sales ratio percentages. Their choice of parameter to measure performance was guided by the escalating number of luxury property sales and the importance of understanding this impact on the level of inventory available. Increased sales does not always mean that inventory levels drop, especially in the luxury market when properties typically take longer to sell, but in 2020 the swing was dramatic with many markets becoming seller-controlled for the first time in many years.

Northern California’s East Bay region topped the charts as people relocated in large numbers out of San Francisco in search of less dense living. Colorado Springs, already identified in 2019 as a “market to watch,” also saw substantial increase in demand as Denver’s ever-increasing prices and adaptation to working from home allowed for purchasing homes outside the metropolitan area.

Low interest rates gave DC and Arlington-area millennials the unexpected opportunity to trade their condos and move into townhomes in Fairfax County in Virginia, also driven by the ability to work from home. Whereas in King County, WA, the demand for single-family homes soared when the ever-increasing number of employees working for Apple and Amazon in Seattle realized they too could move further afield and leverage these companies’ “long term work from home” guarantee.

Much has been stated in the real estate news about the relocation of homeowners out of the major metropolises, and Coldwell Banker Global Luxury’s report seeks to clarify each of the top seven markets in the US and five in Canada, to understand the true impact of the pandemic.