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The 12 cities selling the most $10 million homes in the world

Ultra-wealthy buyers keep crowding into the same handful of cities. Knight Frank tracked every $10 million-plus home sale across 12 global markets

Buying a home at $10 million or more puts a buyer in a very small group, and that group tends to shop in the same places. Money at this level crosses borders quickly, and residential property has become one of the main places it lands. Owners treat these homes as a hedge against currency swings and as a working base in a city where they already do business, and they pick those cities around tax rules, visa regimes, and political stability. Those conditions change fast enough that a market can swell one year and thin out the next. The result is a global trade in trophy homes that moves like one pool of capital circling the same familiar cities.

In the second quarter of 2026, buyers closed 572 sales of $10 million or more across the international markets where this kind of wealth concentrates, spending $10.5 billion in total. The average deal came in at $18.4 million, up from about $17.9 million three months earlier, so the typical buyer paid more even as the overall number of sales shrank. Transaction counts slipped 7% from the opening three months of the year and 6% from the same quarter of 2025, reversing the momentum of a busy first quarter. Buyers still closed 2,228 sales worth a combined $40.6 billion in those markets over the 12 months to June, and the annual count has risen every year since 2022.

Knight Frank counts every publicly recorded residential sale of $10 million or more in 12 international markets for its Global Super-Prime Intelligence report, with U.S. numbers supplied by the appraisal firm Miller Samuel. Researchers log the number of sales and their combined value each quarter, then roll the quarters into 12-month totals so one soft or hot stretch can be read against the longer trend. Liam Bailey, the global head of research behind the report, said the quarter was defined by momentum shifting from one market to another, with activity picking up in cities that had been quiet while the biggest markets cooled. Quarterly sales count sets the order, and the gaps between the busiest and quietest markets run wide.

Dubai closed 131 sales of $10 million or more in the second quarter of 2026, worth $2.17 billion together, keeping it ahead of every other market on both counts. The quarter still marked a turn, as sales dropped 21% from the 165 recorded in the first quarter and the combined value fell 27% from $2.97 billion. Set against the same three months of 2025, transactions came in 8% lower and value 17% lower, the first quarter in which the slowdown has shown up plainly after an opening to the year that ran far above normal. Knight Frank ties the pullback to political instability across the region, which is now turning up in the sales record without changing where Dubai sits among global markets.

Over the 12 months to June, buyers in Dubai closed 541 deals at $10 million or more worth $9.66 billion, far clear of the 324 sales recorded in Hong Kong, the next busiest market. The longer arc is steeper still. Annual volume ran at 227 sales in 2022, jumped to 429 the following year, held near that level through 2024 at 426, then climbed to 499 in 2025 before reaching the current 541. Value followed the same path, rising from $3.98 billion in 2022 to $9.66 billion in the year to June, nearly two and a half times the 2022 total, so one soft quarter barely dents the trajectory.

The shape of the market explains why a weak quarter changes so little. Dubai's second-quarter deals averaged roughly $16.5 million apiece, below the $18.4 million average across all 12 markets, so the city's lead rests on sheer transaction volume rather than a handful of record-breaking trophy sales. Even after shedding a fifth of its quarterly activity, Dubai sold more homes at $10 million or more between April and June than New York and Miami managed together. The slowdown trims a peak that was always going to be hard to repeat, and Dubai's buyer pool at the $10 million mark remains larger than anywhere else tracked.

Buyers in Hong Kong closed 93 sales of $10 million or more in the second quarter, worth a combined $1.67 billion, enough to keep the city second on both deal count and total spending. Volume barely moved from the 94 deals recorded in the first quarter, while combined value fell 9% from $1.84 billion. Set against the same quarter of 2025, when 53 homes traded at that price for $997 million, the second quarter ran 75% ahead on deals and 67% ahead on money spent. Hong Kong held near its recent highs even as the 12-market total slipped 7% from the first quarter.

Over a longer window, Hong Kong looks like a market rebuilding from a thin base. Sales above $10 million came in at 124 in 2022 and 166 in 2023, then 223 in 2024 and 232 across 2025. Over the 12 months to June 2026, the count reached 324, more than two and a half times the 2022 total. Annual value climbed along the same path, rising from $2.75 billion in 2022 to $6.11 billion over the past four quarters, so the money changing hands at this level has more than doubled in four years. Each quarter through the recovery landed heavier than the last, moving from 56 sales in the third quarter of 2025 to 81 in the fourth and into the 90s in each of the two quarters since.

The dip in value came from smaller tickets rather than any shortage of buyers. The average Hong Kong deal worked out to about $18 million in the second quarter, down from roughly $19.6 million in the first, so nearly identical volume brought in less money. Liam Bailey, Knight Frank's global head of research, describes the city's recovery as increasingly well established, and the annual totals support that........

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