The Q3 2025 Global Super-Prime Intelligence report recently came out. This is a unique tracker of residential sales above $10 million across the world’s 12 leading global luxury markets. The headline is simple enough: 474 sales, with a combined value of $8.5 billion, took place in Q3. That’s a vast sum – but it is also a 21% fall in volume and 29% fall in value compared with Q2.
Is this the start of a more persistent slowdown, or merely the market catching its breath after several extraordinary years?
Viewed in isolation, a quarter-on-quarter drop can look dramatic. But super-prime markets do not behave like the mainstream. They are thinner, more volatile and they move with global wealth creation rather than domestic wage growth. Our tracking shows that, even with the Q3 slowdown, activity remains well above pre-pandemic norms. More importantly, the cooling is uneven. Some cities are clearly in consolidation mode; others are still firmly in expansion.
New York’s resilience
New York sits right at the center of this story. In Q3, New York recorded 74 sales above $10 million, placing it second only to Dubai in our global ranking. But, that is down from the 120 deals we saw in Q2, one of the strongest quarters on record, but still an exceptionally high level of activity.
From my vantage point looking across markets, three things are clear about New York. First, this is not a demand problem. The buyer pool for high-quality, well-located New York stock remains remarkably deep. Wall Street, not City Hall, sets the tone.
Compensation in the financial industry has been running at or near record levels, and that income flows directly into the super-prime market. Policy risk is being watched, but not yet biting. The new mayor’s campaign rhetoric around real estate and wealth has certainly been noticed, but so too have the pro-development measures that were articulated during the campaign.
On a recent episode of Knight Frank’s Intelligence Talks podcast, I took the opportunity to speak to the leading commentator on the New York market, Jonathan Miller, President and CEO of Miller Samuel. Jonathan’s on-the-ground read broadly aligns with my view.
While New York sales may have dipped in Q3 the outlook was strong. As he put it to me: “Wall Street looks set to surpass last year’s compensation levels, which were already among the highest on record.” On the Q3 pullback specifically: “I do think it’s a blip. We often see the very high end outperform the rest of the market in the fourth quarter.”
London’s cautionary tale
If New York is a case study in financial-market-driven resilience, London is the mirror image: a reminder of how quickly policy uncertainty can sap momentum at the top end.
Our Q3 figures show 36 sales above $10 million in London, down from 52 in the previous quarter and 62 a year earlier. Go back to 2022 and London was the world’s second-busiest super-prime market; it now sits in sixth place.
What has changed is not the city’s global appeal, that remains intact, but the perceived stability of the tax environment for globally mobile wealth. Threatened wealth taxes, changes to the treatment of non-domiciled residents, and a steady drumbeat of anti-wealth rhetoric have all combined to encourage a “wait and see” mindset among high-value buyers.
For New York’s policymakers – where over half of city tax revenues are tied to real estate – London’s experience is likely to be read as a warning, not a blueprint.
Looking to 2026
So where does this leave us? Q3 marks a cooling, not a collapse. Globally, volumes are down from exceptional recent highs but still remain elevated by historical standards. New York is well placed. Stable inventory, strong financial-sector compensation and a relatively pragmatic policy backdrop give it a credible claim to lead any next upswing.
Policy risk is the key differentiator. Markets that are seen to welcome capital, rather than merely tax it, will be the ones that gain share in the super-prime league table.
If financial markets stay positive, 2026 has the potential to see a tremendous uptick in transactions at the very top of the U.S. market and other global markets. The interplay between politics, policy and private wealth is now the central storyline in global real estate.
Super-prime markets are no longer simply a mirror of global growth; they are a live test of how cities treat success. New York, for now, is giving every indication it intends to stay on the right side of that equation.
Liam Bailey is the Global Head of Research at Knight Frank.
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of HousingWire’s editorial department and its owners.
To contact the editor responsible for this piece: tracey@hwmedia.com
