When people hear about luxury housing, glitzy cities like New York, Miami and Los Angeles usually come to mind. But that narrative is being flipped upside down with Detroit hustling its way to the top of the Fall 2025 Wall Street Journal/Realtor.com® Luxury Housing Market Ranking, released last Thursday.
Motor City knocked St. Louis from its former throne on the quarterly rankings, proving that Detroit’s comeback story isn’t just hype. It’s also a sign that the luxury housing market playbook is being rewritten as high-end homebuyers stoke greater demand for luxe homes in places you wouldn’t expect.
The best part? Buyers can break into Detroit’s top 10% of high-end homes for just $721,625, compared to $1.24 million nationally. In another surprising twist, Detroit’s affluent homes are moving from listed to sold in just 57 days—nearly three weeks faster than the 78-day national average.
Even at the ultra-luxury tier (99th percentile of listings), Detroit is playing by different rules. In this part of the market, home prices start at around $2.84 million, or half of the national $5.41 million benchmark, the study found. That means your clients get the upscale lifestyle for a lot less.
While most of Detroit’s luxury-home shoppers (about half) already live in the metro area, the other half are coming from Indianapolis, Washington, D.C., and New York City. In other words, if you work with clients in these feeder markets, Detroit’s resurgence—in tech, healthcare and automotive logistics—offers a compelling reason to relocate.
Here’s a look at the top 10 luxury markets on WSJ/Realtor.com’s Luxury Housing Market Ranking:
| Ranking | Metro Area | 90th Percentile Listing Price | Population | Unemployment Rate |
| 1 | Detroit-Warren-Dearborn, MI | $721,625 | 4,400,578 | 4.6% |
| 2 | St. Louis, MO-IL | $662,863 | 2,811,927 | 4.0% |
| 3 | Charlottesville, VA | $954,866 | 227,336 | 3.1% |
| 4 | Santa Fe, NM | $2,786,250 | 157,765 | 3.6% |
| 5 | Salt Lake City, UT | $1,231,940 | 1,300,762 | 3.4% |
| 6 | Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI | $999,767 | 3,757,952 | 3.4% |
| 7 | San Diego-Carlsbad, CA | $2,880,567 | 3,298,799 | 4.6% |
| 8 | Hilton Head Island-Bluffton-Beaufort, SC | $1,799,000 | 237,393 | 4.1% |
| 9 | Portland-South Portland, ME | $1,775,000 | 571,534 | 2.7% |
| 10 | Santa Maria-Santa Barbara, CA | $8,950,000 | 444,500 | 4.7% |
Source: Fall 2025 Wall Street Journal/Realtor.com Luxury Housing Market Ranking
San Diego and Hilton Head Island, North Carolina, are the new kids on the block to the quarterly ranking, replacing Prescott, Arizona, and Providence-Warick, Rhode Island. Both coastal hotspots bring traditional luxury stories with some plot twists. For instance, San Diego’s 90th-percentile listings fell 4% year-over-year to $2.88 million.
Hilton Head Island’s ascent comes from a boost in inventory and small-business strength, scoring especially high on amenities. At $1.79 million for top-tier homes, it’s attractively positioned as a coastal luxury homebase that’s (slightly) more affordable.
But not all the luxury market rankings have an affordable entry. Case in point: Santa Maria-Santa Barbara, California, at No. 10 with an eye-watering $8.95 million entry point for the 10% of listings, according to the study.
Home to celebrities like Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, Oprah Winfrey and Ariana Grande (to name a few), the Montecito and Santa Barbara zip codes remain among the nation’s priciest.
Beyond the top 10, several luxury markets are showing high potential worth watching. Metros such as Atlanta and Chicago posted steady high-end housing demand, while mountain destinations like Boulder, Colorado, and Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, remain perennial favorites for buyers seeking a mix of sophistication and (literal) million-dollar views.
The rankings, released quarterly, score 60 total markets—30 of the most populous, core-based statistical areas and 30 markets with the most homes listed at $1 million or more. The study scores the markets based on eight indicators across two categories: real estate market (60%) and economic health and quality of life (40%).
