Brokers hoping for a spring rebound in luxury home sales are in for a disappointment.
The first half of 2019 saw 614 homes in the city trade hands for $1 million or more, a nearly 15 percent drop over the first half of 2018, according to Midwest Real Estate Data report cited in Crain’s.
Luxury home sales registered an equally steep year-over decline across the 10-county metro area, where 1,204 transactions closed above $1 million as of June 30, compared to 1,416 last year.
Higher-end sales are declining faster than the market as a whole, where monthly home sales are notching year-over-year declines between 3 and 12 percent.
Still, luxury home sales did bounce back somewhat as the year went on. Sales over $1 million were down 22 percent year-over-year during the first quarter of 2019, then down by 11 percent during the second-quarter, according to Re/Max Premier.
And buyers remain busy at the tip-top of the local luxury market. The first half of 2019 saw three more homes trade above $4 million than had done a year earlier, thanks in part to uber-luxury condo sales at One Bennett Park.
[Crain’s] — Alex Nitkin