(Bloomberg) -- The housing market in Palm Beach is booming. Good luck finding something to buy.
Sales of single-family homes in the tony South Florida market, home to former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago, more than quadrupled in the fourth quarter from a year earlier, the largest increase in more than a decade.
The surge in demand helped lift the median sale price 29% to $4.9 million, appraiser Miller Samuel Inc. and brokerage Douglas Elliman Real Estate said in a report Thursday.
The inventory of condos and single-family homes to buy, meanwhile, is the lowest it’s been in nearly nine years of tracking, according to Jonathan Miller, president of Miller Samuel.
“The pandemic is having a tremendous impact in Florida, where markets like Palm Beach are now competitive with the high-end New York metro area because of where the C-suite wants to live,” Miller said.
Trump left the White House for Palm Beach on Wednesday, joining a flock of wealthy elites who have moved south as Wall Street firms increasingly look to open offices in a state with no income tax. Wealthy buyers fleeing New York are driving a surge in interest in luxury properties, which is also boosting the market in Miami Beach.
In Miami Beach, there were 952 condo sales in the fourth quarter, the most in five years. The average sales price jumped 20% to more than $882,000.
©2021 Bloomberg L.P.
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