Nine-Figure Home Sales Are Skyrocketing. ‘Soon $100 Million Will Be $200 Million.’

It has been nearly 20 years since the country’s first $100 million home sale, but in some ways the market is just taking off: Since 2020, at least 24 homes nationwide have traded for $100 million and up, more than the total number of nine-figure sales during the entire prior decade combined.

The 24 homes, and their uber-wealthy owners, also tell the compelling story of massive wealth creation and migration in the U.S. since the onset of the pandemic, with a dramatic surge in nine-figure deals in Florida in recent years. Since 2020, three homes over $100 million have changed hands in New York City compared with six in and around Palm Beach, including a $170 million deal in 2023 that set a Florida sales record.

“People’s wealth has grown so substantially and there’s such limited product,” said Chris Leavitt of Douglas Elliman in Palm Beach. “There are more billionaires than there are oceanfront, sprawling estates.”

Los Angeles and Malibu, Calif., have also notched a string of major transactions, gaining steam as the wealthy sought space and privacy during the pandemic or picked up second homes. Last year, entertainment power couple Beyoncé and Jay-Z paid $190 million for a mansion in Malibu that set a California sales record—and sparked predictions that the $200 million threshold is within reach.

“Soon $100 million will be $200 million, that’s the way it’s going,” said Drew Fenton of Carolwood Estates in Beverly Hills. “We’re inching closer to it.”

Nationwide, the number of mega deals skyrocketed as the ranks of ultra wealthy individuals swelled around the globe. There were 3,194 billionaires in 2023, up from 2,170 in 2013, according to wealth research firm Wealth-X.

Meanwhile, luxury home prices nationwide have soared. In 2023, the median sale price for a luxury home nationwide—defined as homes in the top 5% of the market—was $1.14 million, up 75% compared with 2013, according to real-estate brokerage Redfin.

In the past few years, the values of trophy homes around the country—disconnected as they might be from the rest of the market—also skyrocketed. So did the number of deals. In the 10 years between 2011 and 2020, there were 19 deals at or above $100 million. There were 22 deals over $100 million between 2021 and 2023. Those deals included properties that roughly doubled in value in a short amount of time.

For example, Alibaba Group co-founder and Brooklyn Nets owner Joseph Tsai paid $188 million in 2022 for a penthouse at 220 Central Park South, the Robert A.M. Stern Architects-designed condo tower on Manhattan’s Billionaires’ Row. The seller was billionaire investor Daniel Och, who purchased the property for $95 million in 2019. Also in 2022, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison bought an oceanfront estate near Palm Beach for $173 million. Seller Jim Clark, a co-founder of Netscape, paid just over $94 million for the property in 2021.

Although Ken Griffin’s roughly $240 million penthouse buy in Manhattan in 2019 is still the country’s most expensive sale, nine-figure deals have surged in Malibu and South Florida.

Florida, which had an influx of wealthy residents during Covid, had one deal above $100 million in 2013 and two in 2019. Since 2020, there have been seven—including six in and around Palm Beach, where the city’s sales record was shattered twice in 2023. In March, billionaire William Lauder bought the late Rush Limbaugh’s longtime Palm Beach estate for $155 million. The next month, luxury car dealership owner Michael Cantanucci paid $170 million for an oceanfront estate from Green Mountain Coffee Roasters founder Robert Stiller.

Miami, which courted the tech industry and others during the pandemic, also saw record sales in quick succession. In January 2022, Griffin paid a record $75 million for a mansion on Star Island, besting the prior Miami sales record of $60 million for two penthouses at Miami’s Faena House condominium. (The Citadel founder was also the buyer of those units, which he has since sold.) Then in June 2022, Phillip Ragon, founder of software company InterSystems, purchased three homes in Golden Beach—about 20 miles from downtown Miami—for a combined $93 million. In September 2022, Griffin struck again and handed Miami its first nine-figure deal with his $106.875 million purchase of a 4-acre estate from philanthropist Adrienne Arsht.

“That was a new frontier for Miami, but it was such a stupendous property,” said Jill Hertzberg of the Jills Zeder Group at Coldwell Banker Realty, who represented Griffin in the deal with colleague Jill Eber. Hertzberg said unlike Miami’s last real-estate boom in the early 2000s, which was fuelled by foreign buyers, domestic buyers are driving up prices for luxury properties.

With buyers from America’s 1% focused elsewhere, New York City logged fewer $100 million-plus deals by comparison. In 2023, Manhattan had no nine-figure deals. In 2022, it had two, including Tsai’s $188 million purchase and philanthropist Julia Koch’s purchase of two Upper East Side penthouses from the estate of the late Paul Allen for a combined $101 million. In 2024, real-estate developer Extell inked a deal to sell a penthouse at Central Park Tower for around $115 million. The deal hasn’t yet closed.

Local real-estate agents said the city’s biggest sales have taken place within a roughly 1-mile radius, where there are a limited number of properties that can fetch $100 million or more. “Everybody wants the Central Park view,” said Pam Liebman of the Corcoran Group. “There’s only a handful of buildings that could ever warrant that price,” she said. “It’s just a scarcity thing.”

But Jonathan Miller of real-estate appraisal firm Miller Samuel said developers sold off many of their biggest units over the past few years, and new inventory is skewing smaller. “The odds of having a lot more 10,000-square-foot transactions—those are the ones that are going to break the $100 million threshold—seem limited,” he said.

Covid also altered the city’s luxury market permanently. “Everybody needs to be here, it’s still the finance capital of the world, but they’re spending less time here,” said Tal Alexander of real-estate brokerage Official. He said buyers who want a sprawling apartment overlooking Central Park can get one for $40 million to $50 million. For that reason, he thinks buyers are more likely to spend $100 million for oceanfront land with multiple structures in Palm Beach than they are on a condominium in Manhattan, he said.

The reality is that many $100 million-plus properties rarely come to market, said Corcoran’s Tim Davis, who works in the Hamptons. “We’ve got low inventory,” he said. In 2023, a roughly 8-acre Hamptons estate sold for $112.5 million, the priciest Hamptons sale of the year.

Historically, California’s largest trades have also involved a small collection of trophy estates in Los Angeles, and to a certain degree, new spec homes. The size, provenance and location of L.A.’s iconic estates makes them rare commodities, Fenton said.

Among them is Casa Encantada, a roughly 8.5-acre estate owned by late billionaire Gary Winnick and his wife, Karen Winnick. After setting a U.S. sales record when it sold in 1980 and again in 2000, Casa Encantada hit the market in 2023 asking $250 million. It is now listed for $195 million.

Kurt Rappaport of Westside Estate Agency, who is marketing Casa Encantada with Fenton, said the price is justified by how infrequently properties of this caliber come to market. “There are a lot of people who own these properties who don’t want to sell,” he said. He pointed to Bezos’s 2020 purchase of the Warner Estate in Beverly Hills for $165 million, and Lachlan Murdoch’s purchase of Chartwell, an estate in Bel-Air, for roughly $150 million in 2019. (Murdoch is executive chairman of News Corp which owns Dow Jones & Co., publisher of The Wall Street Journal.) “If you look at who owns these great houses, some of them are generational,” Rappaport said.

Given the scarcity of singular trophy homes, savvy buyers have scooped up multiple properties in prime markets in recent years. Griffin, for example, has spent more than $250 million assembling land to build a mansion in Palm Beach over the past few years. In 2023, Bezos paid a combined $147 million for adjacent properties in Miami’s Indian Creek Village. “People have realized how precious land is in cities—there’s not a lot of land so if you find a particular piece that’s gorgeous, and you have the opportunity to buy next to you, why not?” Hertzberg said.

Buyers have also paid a premium for more space and privacy. In Malibu, WhatsApp founder Jan Koum spent a combined $187 million for neighbouring properties that he bought in two transactions in 2019 and 2021. Likewise, venture-capitalist Marc Andreessen and his wife, Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen, paid $177 million for a Malibu compound in 2021; a year later, they paid $44.5 million for another trophy home nearby.

Real-estate agents said there are also some properties that have been built over time that would likely fetch $100 million if they were ever sold. In Manhattan’s Greenwich Village, for instance, Chipotle Mexican Grill founder Steve Ells paid close to $32 million in two transactions in 2014 and 2015 to buy neighbouring townhouses. He later filed for permission from the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission to combine the two buildings—spanning almost 16,000 square feet combined—into a mansion. In recent months, Ells has quietly been shopping the property, according to people familiar with the offer. The asking price? $125 million.

PARIS —Paris has long been a byword for luxurious living. The traditional components of the upscale home, from parquet floors to elaborate moldings, have their origins here. Yet settling down in just the right address in this low-rise, high-density city may be the greatest luxury of all.

Tradition reigns supreme in Paris real estate, where certain conditions seem set in stone—the western half of the city, on either side of the Seine, has long been more expensive than the east. But in the fashion world’s capital, parts of the housing market are also subject to shifting fads. In the trendy, hilly northeast, a roving cool factor can send prices in this year’s hip neighborhood rising, while last year’s might seem like a sudden bargain.

This week, with the opening of the Olympic Games and the eyes of the world turned toward Paris, The Wall Street Journal looks at the most expensive and desirable areas in the City of Light.

The Most Expensive Arrondissement: the 6th

Known for historic architecture, elegant apartment houses and bohemian street cred, the 6th Arrondissement is Paris’s answer to Manhattan’s West Village. Like its New York counterpart, the 6th’s starving-artist days are long behind it. But the charm that first wooed notable residents like Gertrude Stein and Jean-Paul Sartre is still largely intact, attracting high-minded tourists and deep-pocketed homeowners who can afford its once-edgy, now serene atmosphere.

Le Breton George V Notaires, a Paris notary with an international clientele, says the 6th consistently holds the title of most expensive arrondissement among Paris’s 20 administrative districts, and 2023 was no exception. Last year, average home prices reached $1,428 a square foot—almost 30% higher than the Paris average of $1,100 a square foot.

According to Meilleurs Agents, the Paris real estate appraisal company, the 6th is also home to three of the city’s five most expensive streets. Rue de Furstemberg, a secluded loop between Boulevard Saint-Germain and the Seine, comes in on top, with average prices of $2,454 a square foot as of March 2024.

For more than two decades, Kyle Branum, a 51-year-old attorney, and Kimberly Branum, a 60-year-old retired CEO, have been regular visitors to Paris, opting for apartment rentals and ultimately an ownership interest in an apartment in the city’s 7th Arrondissement, a sedate Left Bank district known for its discreet atmosphere and plutocratic residents.

“The 7th was the only place we stayed,” says Kimberly, “but we spent most of our time in the 6th.”

In 2022, inspired by the strength of the dollar, the Branums decided to fulfil a longstanding dream of buying in Paris. Working with Paris Property Group, they opted for a 1,465-square-foot, three-bedroom in a building dating to the 17th century on a side street in the 6th Arrondissement. They paid $2.7 million for the unit and then spent just over $1 million on the renovation, working with Franco-American visual artist Monte Laster, who also does interiors.

The couple, who live in Santa Barbara, Calif., plan to spend about three months a year in Paris, hosting children and grandchildren, and cooking after forays to local food markets. Their new kitchen, which includes a French stove from luxury appliance brand Lacanche, is Kimberly’s favourite room, she says.

Another American, investor Ashley Maddox, 49, is also considering relocating.

In 2012, the longtime Paris resident bought a dingy, overstuffed 1,765-square-foot apartment in the 6th and started from scratch. She paid $2.5 million and undertook a gut renovation and building improvements for about $800,000. A centrepiece of the home now is the one-time salon, which was turned into an open-plan kitchen and dining area where Maddox and her three children tend to hang out, American-style. Just outside her door are some of the city’s best-known bakeries and cheesemongers, and she is a short walk from the Jardin du Luxembourg, the Left Bank’s premier green space.

“A lot of the majesty of the city is accessible from here,” she says. “It’s so central, it’s bananas.” Now that two of her children are going away to school, she has listed the four-bedroom apartment with Varenne for $5 million.

The Most Expensive Neighbourhoods: Notre-Dame and Invalides

Garrow Kedigian is moving up in the world of Parisian real estate by heading south of the Seine.

During the pandemic, the Canada-born, New York-based interior designer reassessed his life, he says, and decided “I’m not going to wait any longer to have a pied-à-terre in Paris.”

He originally selected a 1,130-square-foot one-bedroom in the trendy 9th Arrondissement, an up-and-coming Right Bank district just below Montmartre. But he soon realised it was too small for his extended stays, not to mention hosting guests from out of town.

After paying about $1.6 million in 2022 and then investing about $55,000 in new decor, he put the unit up for sale in early 2024 and went house-shopping a second time. He ended up in the Invalides quarter of the 7th Arrondissement in the shadow of one Paris’s signature monuments, the golden-domed Hôtel des Invalides, which dates to the 17th century and is fronted by a grand esplanade.

His new neighbourhood vies for Paris’s most expensive with the Notre-Dame quarter in the 4th Arrondissement, centred on a few islands in the Seine behind its namesake cathedral. According to Le Breton, home prices in the Notre-Dame neighbourhood were $1,818 a square foot in 2023, followed by $1,568 a square foot in Invalides.

After breaking even on his Right Bank one-bedroom, Kedigian paid $2.4 million for his new 1,450-square-foot two-bedroom in a late 19th-century building. It has southern exposures, rounded living-room windows and “gorgeous floors,” he says. Kedigian, who bought the new flat through Junot Fine Properties/Knight Frank, plans to spend up to $435,000 on a renovation that will involve restoring the original 12-foot ceiling height in many of the rooms, as well as rescuing the ceilings’ elaborate stucco detailing. He expects to finish in 2025.

Over in the Notre-Dame neighbourhood, Belles demeures de France/Christie’s recently sold a 2,370-square-foot, four-bedroom home for close to the asking price of about $8.6 million, or about $3,630 a square foot. Listing agent Marie-Hélène Lundgreen says this places the unit near the very top of Paris luxury real estate, where prime homes typically sell between $2,530 and $4,040 a square foot.

The Most Expensive Suburb: Neuilly-sur-Seine

The Boulevard Périphérique, the 22-mile ring road that surrounds Paris and its 20 arrondissements, was once a line in the sand for Parisians, who regarded the French capital’s numerous suburbs as something to drive through on their way to and from vacation. The past few decades have seen waves of gentrification beyond the city’s borders, upgrading humble or industrial districts to the north and east into prime residential areas. And it has turned Neuilly-sur-Seine, just northwest of the city, into a luxury compound of first resort.

In 2023, Neuilly’s average home price of $1,092 a square foot made the leafy, stately community Paris’s most expensive suburb.

Longtime residents, Alain and Michèle Bigio, decided this year is the right time to list their 7,730-square-foot, four-bedroom townhouse on a gated Neuilly street.

The couple, now in their mid 70s, completed the home in 1990, two years after they purchased a small parcel of garden from the owners next door for an undisclosed amount. Having relocated from a white-marble château outside Paris, the couple echoed their previous home by using white- and cream-coloured stone in the new four-story build. The Bigios, who will relocate just back over the border in the 16th Arrondissement, have listed the property with Emile Garcin Propriétés for $14.7 million.

The couple raised two adult children here and undertook upgrades in their empty-nester years—most recently, an indoor pool in the basement and a new elevator.

The cool, pale interiors give way to dark and sardonic images in the former staff’s quarters in the basement where Alain works on his hobby—surreal and satirical paintings, whose risqué content means that his wife prefers they stay downstairs. “I’m not a painter,” he says. “But I paint.”

The Trendiest Arrondissement: the 9th

French interior designer Julie Hamon is theatre royalty. Her grandfather was playwright Jean Anouilh, a giant of 20th-century French literature, and her sister is actress Gwendoline Hamon. The 52-year-old, who divides her time between Paris and the U.K., still remembers when the city’s 9th Arrondissement, where she and her husband bought their 1,885-square-foot duplex in 2017, was a place to have fun rather than put down roots. Now, the 9th is the place to do both.

The 9th, a largely 19th-century district, is Paris at its most urban. But what it lacks in parks and other green spaces, it makes up with nightlife and a bustling street life. Among Paris’s gentrifying districts, which have been transformed since 2000 from near-slums to the brink of luxury, the 9th has emerged as the clear winner. According to Le Breton, average 2023 home prices here were $1,062 a square foot, while its nearest competitors for the cool crown, the 10th and the 11th, have yet to break $1,011 a square foot.

A co-principal in the Bobo Design Studio, Hamon—whose gut renovation includes a dramatic skylight, a home cinema and air conditioning—still seems surprised at how far her arrondissement has come. “The 9th used to be well known for all the theatres, nightclubs and strip clubs,” she says. “But it was never a place where you wanted to live—now it’s the place to be.”

With their youngest child about to go to college, she and her husband, 52-year-old entrepreneur Guillaume Clignet, decided to list their Paris home for $3.45 million and live in London full-time. Propriétés Parisiennes/Sotheby’s is handling the listing, which has just gone into contract after about six months on the market.

The 9th’s music venues were a draw for 44-year-old American musician and piano dealer, Ronen Segev, who divides his time between Miami and a 1,725-square-foot, two-bedroom in the lower reaches of the arrondissement. Aided by Paris Property Group, Segev purchased the apartment at auction during the pandemic, sight unseen, for $1.69 million. He spent $270,000 on a renovation, knocking down a wall to make a larger salon suitable for home concerts.

During the Olympics, Segev is renting out the space for about $22,850 a week to attendees of the Games. Otherwise, he prefers longer-term sublets to visiting musicians for $32,700 a month.

Most Exclusive Address: Avenue Junot

Hidden in the hilly expanses of the 18th Arrondissement lies a legendary street that, for those in the know, is the city’s most exclusive address. Avenue Junot, a bucolic tree-lined lane, is a fairy-tale version of the city, separate from the gritty bustle that surrounds it.

Homes here rarely come up for sale, and, when they do, they tend to be off-market, or sold before they can be listed. Martine Kuperfis—whose Paris-based Junot Group real-estate company is named for the street—says the most expensive units here are penthouses with views over the whole of the city.

In 2021, her agency sold a 3,230-square-foot triplex apartment, with a 1,400-square-foot terrace, for $8.5 million. At about $2,630 a square foot, that is three times the current average price in the whole of the 18th.

Among its current Junot listings is a 1930s 1,220-square-foot townhouse on the avenue’s cobblestone extension, with an asking price of $2.8 million.