Even in the pre-crash era, when real estate prices were surging, nine-figure deals for properties seemed outlandish. Then beginning in 2015, with ultra-luxury sales on the decline (see: international market volatility and more scrutiny of cash buys) and homes in the seven and eight figures languishing on the market for twice as long as the year before, as well as undergoing price cuts, their existence seemed futile.

Yet, today there are 23 homes on the market priced over $100 million.

“It used to be that nothing was in this $100 million price range, and now we have more than a dozen properties across the country,” says Suzanne Perkins, a Santa Barbara County, California-based real estate agent who is handling several properties above the $100 million mark.

Just before new year 2015, a condo at New York’s One57 sold for a reported $100.5 million. Later, a single-family home in Hong Kong’s The Peak neighborhood sold for HK$1.5 billion ($194 million), allegedly to Alibaba’s Jack Ma. This year another home in that same neighborhood sold for HK$830 million. And let’s not forget the Playboy Mansion, which had a $200 million price tag and has now been sold, according to numerous reports.

There are at least nine more properties—including massive undeveloped residential lots and private islands—asking $100 million or more on the market than last year’s 19, according to Christie’s, which scoured public listings and media reports, and probed insider contacts to develop an internal list, which it shared with Bloomberg.

But don’t call it a glut. Call it the price of doing $100 million dollar business.

Waiting Game

According to Dan Conn, CEO of Christie’s International Real Estate, homes in this price range tend to stay on the market for three to five years. Over the last handful of years, including 2015, he says, the peak number sold was five; three have sold this year. “This feels like a reasonably healthy year,” he says.

The long life of such listings comes in part from the size of the buyer (and seller) pool, or rather, lack of size.

“It’s a really limited universe of buyers and sellers and properties,” says Conn. Of the world’s richest 200 people, many already have several spectacular, high-priced homes. “Not every year will a top hedge fund manager buy a $100 million home. They can stay on the market for a really long time because you don’t have a seller that has to sell, and you don’t have a buyer that has to buy.”

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