Report: Florida tops list of most expensive houses listed and sold

Everywhere you turn these days the talk seems to be about how bad the housing market is.

Price are too high for one group and dropping too fast for another. The data, which comes out nearly every day, often seems to spin contradicting narratives.

But there is one sector of the housing market that seems to be holding strong: ultra-luxury.

And nowhere is it doing better than in Florida.

A report issued June 25 by the real estate research firm Redfin listed the 10 most expensive sales in the country and the 10 most expensive listings in the month of May.

Properties in Florida made it on the list nine times, with four of the top sales as well as five of the top listings.

California, mostly Los Angeles and Beverly Hills, came close, making up the other big chunk of each of the lists.

In Florida, the communities with the highest sales prices in May were mostly in Palm Beach County, where four houses sold for more than $30 million. The top selling house in the country for the month was a 7 bedroom, 15 bath home in in Los Angeles near the tony addressees of Brentwood, Bel Air and Beverly Hills. It sold for $110 million.

If the report’s authors had gone back a just couple more weeks though and considered sales in April, the LA house would have been eclipsed by the sale of a combined trio of waterfront residential properties in Naples’ Port Royal neighborhood that sold for $225 million in mid-April.

And the second most expensive listed house listed in the country, according to the report, is also in Port Royal. And it is selling for a bit under twice what the Los Angeles house sold. (A bit, of course, is all about perspective.)

The 9-acre waterfront property at 100 Bay Road — with a 22,800-square foot home with 6 bedrooms, 20 full bathrooms and 4 half baths and 1,665 feet of water frontage — is on the market for $210 million.

And just so you don’t think the rich are immune from economic realities, the house was originally listed in February 2024 for $295 million. That's a -28.81% drop in asking price. 

With Southern California, which is prone to fires, and Florida, which is prone to hurricanes, leading both the lists of most expensive sales and most expensive listings, one has to wonder why it is that those buyers continue to come.

The Redfin report’s authors have the answer, and it’s a simple one. Because the people who buy these houses can afford to.

“Despite the increasing risk of climate disasters and skyrocketing insurance costs in those places,” the report says, “mega-wealthy homebuyers have the means to rebuild, repair or take a loss.”