Even before the pandemic kicked off a homebuying boom across the U.S., the city of Anaheim, near Los Angeles, was one of the most expensive real estate markets in America.
More than a quarter of its houses were valued at $1 million or more pre-COVID. By February 2022, according to brokerage firm Redfin, that figure had jumped to 55%—the biggest percentage-point gain of any market in the country.
But Anaheim isn’t exactly an outlier. Over the past couple of years, the total share of million-dollar homes in the U.S. has nearly doubled, from 4.8% to 8.2%. And the market is especially extreme in California. Nearly 90% of houses in San Francisco, for example, are estimated to be worth at least $1 million.
This article appears in the June/July 2022 issue of Fortune with the headline, "The dramatic surge in million-dollar homes"
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