A record 146 more cities saw their typical home values rise to at least $1 million during 2021, according to new data from Zillow Group Inc. (NASDAQ:Z, ZG)).
What Happened: The U.S. currently has 481 housing markets that qualify as million-dollar cities, with Zillow observing there are now more million-dollar cities than in the past six years combined.
Although three states – Idaho, Montana and Tennessee gained million-dollar cities for the first time in 2021 – 60% of these markets are clustered within eight coastal metros.
The San Francisco and New York metro areas had 76 million-dollar cities each last year, with the Los Angeles metro boasting 57 cities and the San Jose metro with 22. Forty-four percent of the million-dollar cities are in California.
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What Else Happened: Zillow identified Indian Creek, Florida, an exclusive 300-acre island in Miami’s Biscayne Bay, as the most expensive U.S. city in 2021, where a typical home value was roughly $28.3 million.
Perhaps not surprisingly, its population is limited – fewer than 100 residents – and is exclusive to those with more than a few dollars lying around, including Carl Icahn, Tom Brady and Gisele Bündchen, and Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner.
Atherton, a small town on the San Francisco Peninsula, was the nation’s second most expensive housing market thanks to average home values around $7.7 million.
Rounding out the top five were Hunts Point, Washington; Jupiter Island, Florida; and Sagaponack, New York, with each offering typical home values of approximately $6 million.
"The surge in demand for housing last year sent home values skyrocketing, even in places where prices already were sky-high, and that helped tip a record number of cities into the million-dollar club," said Jeff Tucker, Zillow senior economist. "The locations of these newly seven-figure towns bust the myth that everyone fled California and the Northeast last year, as California, Massachusetts and New York led the pack for the most new cities with home values above $1 million."
Photo: Shahid Abdullah from Pixabay
