The hottest luxury neighborhoods in the U.S. housing market right now
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The hottest luxury neighborhoods in the U.S. housing market right now
Luxury home shoppers are running into a serious supply crunch this year. Redfin found the fiercest competition concentrated in unexpected ZIP codes
Daniel Abadia / Unsplash
Mortgage rates sitting near multi-year highs have pushed much of the U.S. housing market into buyers' territory this year, with inventory piling up and sellers cutting prices to close deals. Luxury buyers are moving through that same market in the opposite direction. In dozens of ZIP codes with median sale prices well above their metro's typical home, competition for available inventory hasn't eased at all. Bidding wars are still common, homes are selling in weeks rather than months, and prices keep climbing even as the broader market cools around them.
The numbers behind that split are stark. In some of these high-end ZIP codes, three-quarters of home sales are closing above the asking price, a rate that would be unheard of in a typical buyer's market. Elsewhere, median sale prices in luxury ZIP codes have climbed more than 30% in a single year, even as home sales volume in those same areas has fallen by double digits, a sign that fewer homes are changing hands but for much more money. Days on market in several of these pockets have dropped into the teens, while listing views have jumped by triple digits year over year, evidence that demand for a shrinking pool of listings keeps intensifying.
Redfin tracked this divide across ZIP codes in the country's 100 most populous metro areas, ranking them by year-over-year growth in listing views and by Redfin Compete Score, a measure of how difficult it is to win a bid on a home. Every neighborhood that made the cut had a median sale price in the 65th percentile or above for its metro and at least 50 home sales recorded during the first two months of the year. The following neighborhoods posted the sharpest jumps in buyer demand even as the housing market around them tilted toward buyers.
Ashe Walker / Unsplash
Park Slope's median sale price hit $1,770,000 in early 2026, more than double the $795,000 median across the broader New York City market, and it's still climbing. Prices in the neighborhood rose 10.6% year over year even as the number of homes sold there dropped 17.9%, a combination that points to fewer sellers testing a market that keeps rewarding them anyway. Listing views jumped 34.4% year over year, and homes are moving in a median of 44 days, fast for a market with prices this high. Only 6.3% of sales closed above the asking price, a modest figure next to some of the other neighborhoods on this list, suggesting sellers here are already pricing in the demand rather than waiting for a bidding war to push them higher.
The draw comes down to a mix that's hard to find elsewhere in the city. Park Slope's brownstone-lined blocks sit next to Prospect Park, Brooklyn's second-largest park, giving residents easy green space without leaving a dense, walkable neighborhood. Redfin agents say the schools rank among the best in the city, which matters most to the young families increasingly choosing Park Slope over Manhattan's Upper West Side and Upper East Side.
Remote work has widened that pool further, letting professionals who no longer need a Manhattan commute settle in Brooklyn instead. Local agents describe a wave of buyers actively avoiding Manhattan altogether, drawn to a neighborhood where the amenities of the city sit alongside the feel of a residential block rather than a dense commercial corridor. That shift, accelerated since the pandemic, has turned what was once considered an alternative to Manhattan into a first choice for many house hunters with young families. That preference shows up directly in the price data. Buyers who once treated Park Slope as a fallback for those priced out of Manhattan now compete for it on its own terms, which helps explain why prices keep rising even as fewer homes change hands each year. With Prospect Park, strong schools and brownstone housing stock all........
