Hat tip to daytrip for sending in this latimes.com article about the surge of high-end home sales across the Southland:

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-luxury-home-sales-20141124-story.html#page=1

An excerpt:

Luxury home sales in Southern California are hitting levels not seen in decades. The number of homes bought for $2 million or more in recent months is the highest on record. Sales worth $10 million or more are on pace this year to double their number from the heights of the housing bubble.

“It’s pretty mind-blowing, to be honest,” said Cindy Ambuehl, an agent with the Partners Trust in Brentwood. “The luxury market has been completely on fire.”

Low interest rates, a strong stock market and waves of cash sloshing in from overseas are boosting demand for high-dollar homes. A record 1,436 homes worth $2 million or more were sold in the six-county Southland in the second quarter, according to CoreLogic DataQuick.

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How are we doing locally?  It’s worth noting that the supply of higher-end homes has been surging too (assuming the ‘refreshing’ of listings has been fairly constant over the years).

Below you can see how the market has been shifting upward:

NSDCC Detached Homes Listed/Sold By Price Range

These are 12-month stats so you need to extrapolate to compare 2014 accurately (add about 10% to these current counts). You can see how the Under-$1M folks have been left shaking their head – they have about a third fewer homes to consider since 2011!