Luxury home sales are booming in America’s secondary cities—in places like Seattle, Nashville and San Diego, California, according to inventory data from Realtor.com.
In March, Seattle was the fastest moving high-end market in the country, with homes flying off the market in about a month and a half. In sunny San Diego, which was fifth on the list, the typical high-end home sold in about 75 days; and in the home of country music, mansions in the Nashville-area, which ranked ninth, sold in a little over three months, according to the data released Wednesday.
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These secondary cities are defying the general luxury market slowdown seen in hubs like New York City and second-home hotspots in South Florida.
Other metro areas where high-end homes are selling quickly include Silicon Valley cities San Jose and Santa Clara, inventory-strapped San Francisco, Chicago, Houston and St. Louis.
Luxury is defined in the data as the top 5% of listings. Across the 49 metro areas Realtor looked at, the average luxury home was on the market for 139 days in March.
Strong economic growth in Seattle, driven mainly by tech, has fueled demand for luxury housing there. As a result, asking prices have skyrocketed in the city. In March, the average asking price for a luxury property was around $2.5 million—up 18.5% from March last year.
The tech industry also explains the high-end housing boom in California’s Silicon Valley, where it took the average property only 54 days to sell.
Luxury asking prices there have jumped by a third over the past year, and now average about $5.5 million.
Nashville and its surrounding environs have also seen an uptick in its high-end market. Luxury homes in the southern city are selling in less time and for more money than a year ago. In January, the average luxury home in Davidson County—which encompasses Nashville—sold for $760,000, a 10.4% rise over the prior year, according to Realtor.
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Forbes recently ranked Nashville as the No.3 boom town in the country, citing the influx of well-educated migrants, and a vibrant arts and cultural scene.
Luxury sales are also speeding up in St. Louis, Missouri, and in the Los Angeles-Orange County area, the data show.
Among the slowest moving luxury markets in the U.S. was the very expensive Santa Barbara, California, which got hit by catastrophic wildfires over the past year. It’s now taking homes there about nine months to sell and average listing prices have dropped about 10%.
The slowest market is Edwards, Colorado, where multimillion-dollar ski retreats are taking over a year to move.