View of luxury luxury front houses and boats along the intracoastal navigable track near Jupiter inlet in Jupiter, Florida in the county of Palm Beach
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A version of this article appeared for the first time in Inside Wealth Newsletter of CNBC with Robert Frank, a weekly guide to the investor and consumer with high shuttle. Register To receive future editions, directly in your reception box.
Economic uncertainty creates a fracture on the luxury real estate market between ultra-rich buyers and simple rich, according to a new report by Coldwell Banker.
A survey of some 200 agents specializing in luxury ownership has revealed that ultra-rich buyers, defined as individuals worth at least $ 30 million, are still making big ticket purchases despite fears of the trade war and the recession. They also lead a substantial increase in cash offers. Meanwhile, rich but less rich buyers are more sensitive to interest rates and act more carefully, depending on the report.
A little more than half of the agents interviewed said they had seen a slight or substantial increase in cash purchases by customers in 2025. Only 3.9% declared a drop in buyers in the first five months of 2025, while 45.4% said that cash purchases were stable, according to the report.
Jason Waugh, president of Coldwell Banker’s subsidiaries, told Inside Wealth that high interest rates are a major factor behind the push.
“Cash provides a buyer with control. It offers a lever effect, speed and security,” he said. “But it is really the high borrowing costs that continue to stay so high. Why absorb these costs if you have the money to close a real estate purchase, right?”
Waugh, which obtained its broker license almost 32 years ago, said that real estate can be more attractive in times of economic uncertainty. A little more than two -thirds of the agents questioned said that wealthy customers maintained or increased their exposure to real estate, while only 11.3% said that customer interests had decreased in favor of shares and other financial assets. The remaining 20.6% of the agents said that customers had been waiting for plans due to economic or stock market uncertainty.
“It was a roller coaster, and the company is cyclical. I think that in the end, real estate is a hard asset which can preserve wealth and is a coverage against inflation,” he said. “I think that the data really confirm that the story that people see real estate as an excellent way to accumulate wealth even in the most uncertain and most volatile economic environment that we have traveled much more than a decade.”
That said, while sales of luxury houses increased overall in the first five months of 2025, they took a blow in May, the first full month after the drop in the April stock market. The report, quoting data from the Institute for Luxury Home Marketing, said that sales of luxury unified houses fell by 4.7% from one year to the next while sales of attached goods dropped by 21.1%.
Agents also see that more customers reduce the prices of the list in 2025 compared to recent years, according to Waugh. The median prices sold for unifamilial and luxury properties are currently $ 1.7 million and $ 1.25 million, respectively, according to the Institute for Luxury Home Marketing.
Wash added that buyers at all prices are more demanding than they were a few years ago. They now require high-end devices such as smart refrigerators, SPA level equipment and interior-exterior life characteristics, from a fireplace to a whole kitchen.
The first luxury buyers are particularly demanding, he said.
“They can stretch, given the current rate environment, so they will be much more demanding in terms of evaluation where they live, amenities, the state of the property to move,” he said. “It’s a whole new environment this year that the previous two years.”