Record-smashing home sales of 2024

For most American homebuyers, 2024 was a tough year. The U.S. is on track to record 4 million home sales in 2024 — the lowest volume in nearly 30 years. 

But among the country’s wealthiest homebuyers, the market is booming. Luxury home sales — including properties listed for $1 million or more — were up 5.2% in the first half of 2024. That’s compared to overall home sales volume dropping 12.9% over that same period, according to data from The Agency, a global luxury real estate brokerage. 

Mind-boggling records were broken in 2024 in the luxury home sales market. In Colorado, an Aspen megamansion was the state’s most expensive home sale ever. In New York City, a penthouse unit in the tallest residential building in the world found a deep-pocketed buyer. And a Malibu mansion in California sold for a whopping $210 million, breaking a record once held by Beyoncé and Jay-Z as the priciest home sale in the state’s history.

Economic challenges keeping the average homebuyer out of the market — including higher mortgage rates, fewer available homes and flattening wage growth — aren’t deterring those with more resources at their disposal. In August, ultra luxury home sales — properties listed at $100 million or more — were on pace to break a yearly sales record set in 2021, per Bloomberg. 

Here are some of the priciest deals that closed in the U.S. this year. May they inspire a fair amount of envy, but not too much. Because a home is what you make it, and who says you need an in-house sauna when your apartment comes with in-unit laundry?

Kendrick Lamar's $40M mansion

Before dropping his sixth studio album this year, Kendrick Lamar dropped a cool $40 million on a 16,000-square-foot compound in Brentwood, one of Los Angeles’ most exclusive neighborhoods, according to Mansion Global, a trade magazine covering luxury real estate. A property listing from 2019 describes the Brentwood mansion as an eight-bedroom main house with a gym, wine cellar, pool and separate guest house. Room for a home recording studio, perhaps?

Ellen's high-end swap

A couple hours down the coast, Ellen DeGeneres and mining tycoon Robert Friedland — more specifically, a shell company linked to Friedland — engaged in a high-end home swap in Santa Barbara. In August, Friedland’s company spent $96 million on Degeneres and her wife Portia de Rossi’s former digs: a 10-acre property with an 8,000-square-foot house and guest cottage, per Mansion Global. 

In exchange, DeGeneres and de Rossi paid Friedland $32 million to buy back the home they sold him earlier this year, also in Santa Barbara, Mansion Global reports. Kind of like a secondhand clothing swap, but presumably with more chandeliers. 

California dreamin'

A few hours north, Laurene Powell Jobs — the philanthropist and widow of Steve Jobs — bought a mansion in San Francisco at 2840 Broadway for $70 million, representing the priciest home sale to have ever closed in the city. Powell Jobs’ new block boasts at least a couple tech titan neighbors; Larry Ellison, co-founder of Oracle, owns the property next door, and Johnathan Ive, the prolific Apple designer who worked on the iMac and iPhone, also has a property on the block, The Wall Street Journal reports. 

But those deals pale in comparison to the Malibu mansion that sold for a whopping $210 million in June — the most expensive home to ever sell in California. James Jannard, who founded the sunglasses brand Oakley, sold the property, which Architectural Digest describes as a sprawling, 15,000-square-foot mansion with eight bedrooms and fourteen bathrooms. 

The buyer wasn’t disclosed, and Jannard’s sale broke a statewide record set by Beyoncé and Jay-Z, who spent $200 million on their Malibu compound in 2023. 

Central Park Tower sunset over Central Park (Courtesy of Evan Joseph/M18 PR)

$115M for the nosebleed section

In New York City, an undisclosed buyer shelled out $115 million for the two-story penthouse in Central Park Tower, the tallest residential building in the world. The duplex spans roughly 12,560 square feet and includes seven bedrooms, eight bathrooms, a library, conservatory, home theater, an in-unit elevator and two massive terraces.  (The jury’s still out as to whether the home includes a stock supply of Dramamine — apparently, the tower is so tall that “a high-pitch whistling noise” can be heard near the windows overlooking Central Park, The Daily Mail wrote in 2022.) 

Aman New York Hotel Exterior, Crown Building (Courtesy of Aman)

It wasn’t the city’s priciest deal of the year. That moniker goes to yet another penthouse in the Aman New York Hotel that sold for $135 million. Remarkably, the buyer was none other than the penthouse’s developer, the Russian billionaire and CEO of Aman Resorts Vladislav Doronin, The Wall Street Journal reported in July. (Doronin didn’t respond to a request for comment from the Journal.)

4736 North Bay Road (Courtesy of Luxhunters / Choeff Levy Fischman Architecture + Design)

A "Posh" $80M mansion

Down in south Florida, David and Victoria Beckham bought a Miami Beach mansion that includes nine bedrooms, nine bathrooms (and an additional four half-bathrooms!) for $80 million in October, Page Six reported. It’s a fitting addition to the couple’s ultra-luxe real estate portfolio, which includes a condo in Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, a London townhouse and the five-bedroom penthouse in Miami’s One Thousand Museum tower, according to Mansion Global. 

Bezos' $90M bunker

Also in Florida, billionaire Jeff Bezos snagged a $90 million mansion in Indian Creek, a 300-acre man-made island in Miami-Dade County known as “Billionaire Bunker” that counts the likes of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, Tom Brady and Carl Icahn as residents. 

Bezos has other property in Indian Creek — specifically, two other mansions for a combined $147 million — and he reportedly plans to live in the $90 million home while he demolishes the other two, Bloomberg reported, citing a person close to the deal. 

And about an hour and a half north of Miami, Australian investment magnate Michael Dorrell shelled out $150 million for a two-acre private island in Palm Beach and the megamansion atop it, according to The Wall Street Journal. The property, Tarpon Island, is accessible by bridge and includes an 11-bedroom mansion spanning nearly 29,000 square feet. 

419 Willoughby Way in Aspen (Courtesy of Staslove & Warwick)

Shelling out for snow

In the mountains of Aspen, Colorado, two billionaire buyers paid $108 million for the sprawling compound at 419 Willoughby Way, setting a record for the most expensive home sale ever in the state of Colorado. 

Casino tycoon Steve Wynn and billionaire stock trading executive Thomas Peterffy bought the property, which spans 22,405 square feet and boasts 11 bedrooms and 17 bathrooms. It sits on 4.5 acres in Red Mountain, one of Aspen’s wealthiest neighborhoods that includes Bezos and Michael Dell.