Seven to eight percent of Marin homes sold each year are considered luxury properties. This chart shows that luxury home prices have surged since 2019 (up 18-20% each year in 2020 and 2021), leveling in 2022 and 2023.
Since statistics can be misleading and misinterpreted, we checked two indicators of sale price:
- Median sale price. The median price peaked at $6.6M in 2021 and decreased by 8% to $5.5M in 2023. We chose to use median here rather than average as it gives less importance to one or two unique sales at very high prices.
- Average price per square foot. This indicates that the value of luxury homes has steadily increased through 2022, leveling in 2023. Increases since 2019 have been 18%, 20%, and 8%, respectively. The increase in 2023 was negligible, at about 1%.
What makes for a luxury home?
Marin luxury home with pool and tennis court, sold in 2022.
These are the attributes that make for a Marin luxury home:
- Large living area square footage. The average for 2022 was 4,300 sq. ft.
- Large lot. The average for 2022 was 1.7 acres for a luxury home. In Marin, one acre or more is considered large.
- Large number of bedrooms and bathrooms (average 4 BR and 4 BA, max. 7 BR and 10 BA in 2022).
- Certain locations are rare and expensive; for example, waterfront, water view, or San Francisco view.
- Some towns bring higher prices; for example, Belvedere, Ross, Kentfield, and Mill Valley
There are other amenities that are common in luxury properties; for example, expensive remodels, pools, sports courts, large garages, and privacy.
How we define the luxury housing market
Seadrift homes at Stinson Beach, Marin County, CA sold for $2,000 to $7,000 per square foot in 2022.
Market analysts use two criteria to define the luxury housing market:
- Homes that sell for more than twice the average sale price in the market (county, city, etc.). In Marin, the average price for all single-family homes in 2022 was $2.26M. Luxury homes would then start at $4.6M. 132 homes (or 7.7%) sold from $4.6M up to $19.5M in the first 11 months of 2022.
- The top 5 or 10% of sales. This agrees with the 7.7% for sales that are twice the average price.
Top priced homes in Marin
Click For Sale to see luxury homes that are now on the market. Please contact Madeline for information on these special homes.