- Compass CEO Robert Reffkin says U.S. housing market is splitting: low-end sales down 10% while luxury homes above $1 million rise 4%
- AI wealth creation from potential OpenAI and Anthropic IPOs is spreading luxury demand beyond San Francisco to Miami, the Hamptons, and New York
- Existing-home sales fell 2% month-over-month in August as mortgage rates climbed to 6.76%, with median home price rising 1.6% year-over-year
Compass CEO Robert Reffkin told CNBC the U.S. housing market is increasingly divided by price, with low-end homes more mortgage-rate sensitive while luxury properties benefit from wealth creation. Sales of homes priced between $100,000 and $250,000 have dropped 10%, while sales of homes above $1 million have risen 4%.
The AI boom is fueling this divergence, with potential IPOs from OpenAI and Anthropic spreading wealth beyond San Francisco. Reffkin highlighted Miami, the Hamptons, and high-end New York properties as key markets benefiting from this trend.
“The low end is more mortgage-rate sensitive, the high end is more wealth-effect sensitive,” Reffkin said, noting that wealthier buyers are using all cash and benefiting from record stock-market gains. He added that competition for expensive homes has reached levels “that we’ve never seen.”
Meanwhile, existing-home sales fell 2% month-on-month in August to an annual rate of 3.98 million, the lowest since June 2025. Housing inventory rose 3.2% from July to 1.62 million homes, according to data from the National Association of Realtors.
The median home price increased 1.6% year-over-year to $429,100, marking the 38th consecutive month of annual price gains. Mortgage rates rose this week, with the 30-year rate climbing to 6.76% from 6.71%.
Compass stock (COMP) was down over 3% at the time of writing. Retail sentiment on Stockwits turned bullish from neutral, though the stock has declined around 1.7% so far in 2026.
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