The Five-Year Ledger
The table below shows the island's whole recent history in six lines. The closings column records 685 sales in the 2021 frenzy, a slide to 243 in 2023 after mortgage rates jumped, then a leveling near 287. The price per square foot column never fell. Prices rose through every year of the volume drop because owners who did not need to sell left the market rather than lower their price. We measured the same behavior inside a single tower, on the West Palm waterfront, in our Bristol campaign study. It is the structural fact of the Palm Beach real estate market: when owners withdraw instead of discounting, prices hold and sales volume falls. The thin middle years in the table show exactly that.
Source: BeachesMLS closed residential sales, Town of Palm Beach, through July 31, 2026
Source: BeachesMLS, closed residential sales, Town of Palm Beach
Source: BeachesMLS, closed residential sales, Town of Palm Beach
The Frenzy Accounting
The unusual years in the table are 2021 and 2022, not the recent ones. Together they account for 1,068 of the 2,113 closings in the whole five-year record, roughly half. The frenzy pulled years of future sales forward, cleared the island's standing inventory at every price level, and drove the median time to contract down to 23 days in 2022. The island had never recorded that speed and has not approached it since. The years that followed are best understood as the aftermath. The slow markets of 2023 and 2024 reflected a lack of inventory more than a lack of demand. The owners who wanted to sell already had, at prices that reset every comparable on the island.
The Repricing
From $739 to $1,455 per square foot is a 97 percent increase in four years, and it did not come from one hot segment. The median condominium rose from $875K to $1.5M. The median house rose from $7.6M to $12.5M, counted across both boards, BeachesMLS and the Palm Beach Board of Realtors. What changed is the pace. The median listing went under contract in 23 days in 2022 and now takes around 85, so the higher prices come from longer, harder negotiations rather than momentum. Buyers still pay the island's new prices, but they no longer pay them quickly.
Houses and Apartments
Houses and condominiums behave like two separate markets on the island. Condominiums and co-ops account for roughly seven closings in ten, at medians that finally crossed $1.6M this year. Houses account for most of the dollars, with a median around $12.9M across 90 closings so far in 2026, counted across the town's two listing boards. The two segments move in the same direction but not by the same amount, and the table below shows the split by year. For a buyer the practical point is that the least expensive way onto the island is still a seven-figure apartment. The house side has become a different budget class entirely.
The condominium column carries a fact many buyers miss: the least expensive homes repriced as thoroughly as the most expensive ones. In 2021 the median condominium closed at $875K. So far in 2026 it is $1.6M, nearly double. Nothing on the island still sells at 2021 prices, including the smallest co-ops.
Source: houses from BeachesMLS and PBBOR reconciled, condos from BeachesMLS, Town of Palm Beach
The Trophy Tier
Counted across both island boards, closings at twenty million dollars and above numbered 30 in the 2021 frenzy and fell to 13 in 2023. The count has climbed every year since, reaching 17 in 2024, 18 in 2025 and 26 by the end of July 2026. The year is closing in on the frenzy's full-year mark. The frenzy lifted every price level, but the recovery has been led by the most expensive homes, the same top-heavy pattern our monthly county pulse has been recording all spring. Scarcity explains most of it. The island builds almost nothing new, and the number of estate-section homes that ever reach the market keeps shrinking as families buy them and hold them for decades.
The Year So Far
Through June, 2026 recorded 277 closings against 191 in the same months of 2025, a 45 percent increase, with dollar volume of $1,847.3M against $1,336.5M. For the first time since the frenzy, sales are rising while prices hold. Our 2026 outlook framed the real test as a full season at the new price level with more inventory available. The coming winter will show whether the current pace passes that test.
The largest sales of the year point the same way. The island's three biggest 2026 closings to date came to $55.1M, $43.2M, and $39.2M, all houses in the first seven months. The third of them closed only on the town's second board. Closings at twenty million dollars and above continued through the spring rather than clustering in the winter season the way conventional wisdom says they should. Steady sales at that level from January through July point to genuine depth at the top of the market.
Bottom Line
The island came out of the frenzy selling half as many homes at far higher prices. And 2026 is adding sales back without giving up any of the gains. Prices have held through every test so far. The twenty million dollar tier has already closed more sales than in any full year since 2021. A typical sale now takes months rather than weeks to come together.
For buyers and sellers on the island: Plan around today's prices rather than 2021's. The island's median price per square foot has not fallen below $1,168 in any year since 2022. Owners who do not get their price tend to withdraw the listing rather than reduce it. Negotiate on timing and terms, and expect the island's overall price level to hold.
This analysis covers every residential closing recorded in the Town of Palm Beach from January 1, 2021 through July 31, 2026. That yields 2,113 sales after deduplication by listing id. House-level figures, the twenty-million tier, the largest sales and the first-half comparison are reconciled across the town's two boards. The pass adds 99 closings from the Palm Beach Board of Realtors record that BeachesMLS does not carry. Each is admitted only when no BeachesMLS closing matches it on street number, price and date. Blended island-wide counts and medians read the BeachesMLS record alone and are floors. The set spans single family homes, condominiums, townhouses, and co-operatives. The 2026 line is a partial year through July 31 and is labeled as such wherever it appears. Medians are used throughout. Price per square foot is computed on the living area recorded in the multiple listing service (MLS) for the listings that record one. Days on market measure list date to contract date as recorded in the MLS.
First-half comparisons cover January 1 through June 30 of 2025 and 2026.
BeachesMLS via the Spark API, pulled August 2026, and the Palm Beach Board of Realtors closed-sale record via our two-board union.
