Living a luxurious life has become less expensive. According to a new report from national real estate brokerage Redfin, luxury home prices in the nation declined 1.1 percent compared to last year.
On a local level, luxury prices fell 4.2 percent year-over-year in Washington, D.C. For Alexandria and Arlington, they fell 6.9 percent year-over-year and 2.4 percent year-over-year, respectively. In Potomac, Maryland, luxury prices dropped 2.5 percent compared to last year. Northern Virginia in general has been slow all year long.
There were some local markets that increased in price rather than decreased. For Bethesda, Maryland and Falls Church, Virginia, prices escalated 22 percent and 10 percent, respectively.
On why there's been a slowdown for most of the D.C. Metro area, Nela Richardson, chief economist of Redfin, told Curbed, "We think it's the same reason that we're seeing nationally. For high-end buyers, the first three months of the year were really volatile in terms of the stock market ... So, when things start to get a little shaky, they start to hesitate, and we saw that in a lot of cities where there is a big connection between what people do and the global economy."
Richardson said that the public should continue to expect a flatness in luxury home sales and prices due to "global volatility. She said this slow down in prices has not only been seen in the U.S., but also in China and parts of Europe.
In order to compile this data, Redfin looked at the top 5 percent of the most expensive homes sold in each quarter. For more data on luxury home prices in the nation, be sure to check out Redfin's article here.
• Is the Luxury Housing Market in a Slump? [Redfin]