While luxury asking-price thresholds have been slipping nationally for 31 consecutive months, Sarasota and Manatee counties are moving in the opposite direction, posting the second-largest annual increase among 43 major metropolitan markets examined in a new Realtor.com report.

The entry price for the most expensive 10 percent of homes listed in the North Port-Bradenton-Sarasota metropolitan area reached $1,796,850 in October, up 7.7 percent from a year earlier, according to the numbers released this week. Only Naples-Marco Island posted a larger increase, at 9 percent, with the most expensive 10 percent of homes listed for sale starting at roughly $3.75 million.

Nationally, the picture is less rosy. The luxury threshold fell 2.3 percent, to roughly $1.2 million, in October, marking its 31st consecutive month of annual declines. Sarasota and Manatee's threshold now sits roughly $600,000 above that national benchmark.

And while the area's luxury listings aren't flying off the shelves, they're spending less time on the market than they were a year ago.

The most expensive 10 percent of listings in the Sarasota-Bradenton area spent a median of 118 days on the market in October, nine days fewer than in October 2025. Nationally, the median was 73 days, five days fewer than a year earlier.

Florida, it seems, is enjoying something of a luxury exception.

The state accounted for five of the 12 metropolitan areas where luxury asking-price thresholds rose at least 1 percent over the past year. In addition to Naples and Sarasota-Bradenton, Cape Coral-Fort Myers and Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach each recorded increases of 4.1 percent, while Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater rose 2.1 percent.

The national downturn has been especially pronounced at the very top. Realtor.com found that the asking-price threshold for the most expensive 5 percent of listings fell 4.1 percent over the past year, while the threshold for the top 1 percent dropped 6.2 percent.

One possible explanation for Florida's resilience is shrinking inventory. Realtor.com found that the number of million-dollar listings declined in all five Florida markets with rising luxury thresholds, even as the national count increased 3 percent.

The findings follow earlier signs of strength in Sarasota and Manatee's upper-end housing market.

As reported in August, nearly one in nine homes sold across the two counties during the second quarter of 2026 fetched at least $1 million. Those 799 seven-figure transactions represented 11.6 percent of all residential sales, and their number increased 24.3 percent from a year earlier, more than twice the 10.2 percent growth in overall sales.

Unlike the latest Realtor.com findings, those figures reflect completed transactions rather than asking prices. Together, the reports point to strength in both high-dollar sales activity earlier this year and luxury listing-price thresholds this fall, although they measure different aspects of the market.

Still, against a national luxury market that has been retreating for more than two and a half years, Sarasota and Manatee stand out. The rich may not be getting richer from these figures alone. But judging by the asking prices, local luxury homeowners aren't lowering their expectations.