Ultra wealthy homebuyers are willingly shelling out more than $1 million for a 1,000-square-foot apartment on Rome's Via Veneto, spending more than $2 million for two-bedroom village homes in Mallorca, Spain and continuing to splurge on Upper East Side residences in New York City, according to Knight Frank’s most recent wealth report.
Villa Dozzio, a 19th-century villa on Lake Como.
LightRocket via Getty Images
The annual report highlights the 10 hottest housing markets set to outperform in the coming year, including two in the United States: the Upper East Side of Manhattan and Hollywood’s Pacific Palisades neighborhood.
Brokers on New York’s Upper East Side, where new condos and pre-war residences can cost upwards of $7,000 per square foot, reported their busiest months on record at the start of 2026 and Pacific Palisades, where legendary film director Steven Spielberg owns a $97 million estate, is surging as the area rebuilds following last year’s devastating wildfires.
Italy, with its flat income tax on foreign earnings meant to attract high-net-worth individuals, is shaping into a hot European destination for the wealthy with Rome's famous Via Veneto and Lake Como, where three-bedroom apartments can cost up to $5 million, expected to surge, per Knight Frank.
Interest in London's affluent Chelsea neighborhood is growing among domestic and international buyers, particularly Americans, Knight Frank reports, but at a high cost—two-bedroom apartments easily top $2 million and larger family homes list for between $7 million and $13 million.
Second-home owners are reportedly eyeing Mallorca, a Spanish island in the Mediterranean where two-bedroom homes cost more than $2 million, and St-Martin-de-Belleville in the French Alps, where buyers can score a four-bedroom ski chalet for $1.8 million.
So-called "lifestyle-led" buyers and families are eyeing the prestigious suburb of Dalefield outside of Queenstown, New Zealand, where $3 million buys a modern home and Geelong, a port city in Victoria, Australia, is attracting investors to its $2 million homes close to the bay.
The residential area of Silberküste along the western shore of Lake Zurich in Switzerland—where two-bedroom apartments run about $1.9 million and prime waterfront villas start at $25 million—is hot with domestic executives and business owners, as well as U.S., U.K. and northern European buyers relocating as Swiss residents, per Knight Frank.
Other key markets are also experiencing unprecedented change in their luxury appeal, according to Knight Frank, like Miami, Abu Dhabi, Mumbai and Brisbane, Australia. In the United Arab Emirates, Dubai has seen a super-prime real estate boom for years but Abu Dhabi has recently emerged as a hot alternative for those still wanting to take advantage of UAE's economic opportunity, but at a slower pace. In India, Mumbai has seen a 38% rise in GDP in the last five years and with it has come a surge in new-build sales worth $5 million or more. Australia has seen a 30% surge in its number of millionaire-or-richer residents in the last 10 years, and Brisbane saw rapid growth in 2025 spurred by the upcoming 2032 Olympic Games and significant government infrastructure investment. In the last 12 months, top-end apartment prices in Brisbane soared from $7 million to $11 million, Knight Frank reported, and prime real estate is exceeding $3,000 per square foot.
Tax law changes have driven a migration of wealthy residents. In the United States, a proposed billionaires tax in California has led founders like Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page, Peter Thiel and Sergey Brin to leave the state in favor of Miami, where they’ve all bought homes costing between $18 and $170 million. In the United Kingdom, the abolishment of non-domicile tax status (which previously allowed non-citizen residents to only pay British taxes on the money they earned in the country) has driven out billionaires like shipping magnate John Fredriksen, Christian Angermayer and Nassef Sawiris, who owns Aston Villa. According to residency firm Henley & Partners, the U.K., China, India, South Korea, Russia and Brazil are losing wealthy residents faster than any other countries for a variety of reasons including tax law, political instability, war and the search for a higher quality of life.
The ultra wealthy are putting their extra spending money toward luxury watches and ultra-collectable artworks—mostly from impressionist, modern and post-war painters—and spending less on rare whiskey, fine wine and contemporary art, according to Knight Frank’s report. Knight Frank’s Luxury Investment Index showed the collectables market stabilized in 2025 after two years of losses, and a revival of luxury art sales was driven largely by the sale of Gustav Klimt's "Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer," which was expected to sell for $150 million according to Sotheby's estimates but instead fetched a staggering $236.3 million. While investors splurged on paintings by Klimt, Vincent Van Gogh, Claude Monet and Edvard Munch, they stopped spending on expensive whiskey, fine wine and antique cars. The Historic Automobile Group International (HAGI) Top 50 Index recorded a 3.7% decline in 2025 as the global classic car market sank and the London International Vintners Exchange declined 2.5% last year, down more than 24.7% since 2022.
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CORRECTION (April 30): This article has been updated with a revised list of billionaires who have left California.
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