Luxury home threshold drops to $1.2 million in August

As post-pandemic home price gains continue to soften, the luxury housing segment has not proven immune, as the entry point to luxury homebuying declined once again in August.

At approximately $1.2 million, the national list price threshold for what Realtor.com considers the least expensive of the nation’s most expensive homes was 4% lower in August than the prior month. That pushed entry-level luxury about 4% below year-ago levels as well, the company said Thursday.

Realtor.com separates luxury segmentation based on local market prices, with the 90th percentile marking entry-level luxury and the 95th percentile representing high-end luxury. The 99th percentile indicates ultraluxury.

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The entry-level and high-end tiers were both down about 4% over the month and the year, while the ultraluxury segment posted a larger slump of 5% over the month to land 4.6% lower than August 2025.

“The data point to a market adjusting in several directions at once,” said Anthony Smith, senior economist at Realtor.com, who was quoted in the report.

Los Angeles claimed the highest entry point for its least expensive luxury tier in August at about $3.92 million, which actually reflected a 1.9% monthly decline. Kahului-Wailuku, Hawaii, trailed at roughly $3.91 million, while Bridgeport, Conn., posted the third-highest luxury entry point at $3.88 million — all within a narrow 1% range.

But only two of the top 10 most expensive luxury markets registered monthly gains in August, led by Naples, Fla., which rose 1.1%, and San Jose, Calif., up 0.8% but down about 5% compared to a year ago.

Declining luxury list prices have nevertheless found demand, with entry-level luxury listings spending four days fewer on the market in August compared to a year ago. That 74-day span on August closings was seven days longer than July, however.

“Listings are moving faster than a year ago, but price thresholds and the share of million-dollar listings are lower, while the market has slowed from midsummer,” explained Smith.

Nationally, Realtor.com says the top 1% of listings started at $5.16 million in August, putting the lower threshold for ultraluxury homes at about 4.3 times the $1.2 million luxury base threshold.

The largest concentrations of $10 million-plus listings were in Los Angeles, Miami and New York, where there were 634, 601 and 554, respectively.