The pandemic reshuffled luxury real estate geography. The 2026 Christie’s Prime Sentiment Index reading, published last month in the firm’s Global Luxury Perspectives report, shows that reshuffling reversing — partially, selectively, and in ways that matter for anyone tracking where high-net-worth capital is flowing.
Vail Valley and Naples, Florida cooled the most sharply among US markets tracked in the survey. New York City improved on every PSI component. The Hamptons held flat. That pattern — resort markets cooling, urban trophy markets strengthening — follows directly from the logic of what drove the 2020-to-2022 surge in the first place.
The PSI composite came in at 14.4 for 2026, down from 15.6 in 2025. The buyer demand component fell from 37.7 to 29.3 — the largest single-component move in this year’s survey. The price outlook component rose fractionally, from 13.8 to 14.0. Inventory pressure eased. Christie’s is framing the composite’s decline as a soft landing rather than a turn.
The resort-to-urban reversal has a clear structural driver. Between 2020 and 2023, demand for primary and secondary residences in ski markets, coastal Florida, and beach destinations surged on the back of work-from-anywhere flexibility and pandemic-era lifestyle shifts. Developers responded, but construction timelines in those markets run two to four years. The completions are landing now — in Naples, in Vail, in Hawaii — into a demand environment that has normalized. New supply meeting softened demand produces exactly the cooling Christie’s is reporting.
Manhattan Reclaims Its Ground
New York City’s PSI improvement runs opposite to that pattern. The city underperformed during the remote-work migration and is now recovering as professional and financial workers return to hybrid schedules that anchor them to Manhattan four or five days a week. The trophy-condo segment — Park Avenue, 57th Street, Hudson Yards — showed the most pronounced price gains in Christie’s data. These are equity-funded transactions by buyers for whom mortgage rates are irrelevant; what matters is the asset’s liquidity, prestige, and price relative to comparable international trophy markets.
On that last point: Dubai and Singapore are competing directly with Manhattan and the Hamptons for cross-border capital above $10 million, and Christie’s data shows them gaining share. Mexico City and Lisbon posted the strongest international improvement in the survey. London and Paris held flat.
Christie’s affiliate brokers are not adjusting asking prices on trophy inventory. Bid-ask spreads have tightened slightly. Closing pace has steadied. The October PSI will test whether Q3 transaction data confirms the equilibrium reading.
Source: Christie’s Prime Sentiment Index Slips to 14.4 as Luxury Housing Rebalances
