The median US home now costs more than at any point in the nation’s history — and the people buying them increasingly aren’t the people who need them the most.

Home prices climbed to $408,776 in June, a 2.2% jump from a year earlier, according to new data from Redfin. 

It’s the highest median sale price ever recorded in the United States. But behind the milestone is a housing market being reshaped by the ultra-wealthy, leaving ordinary buyers farther from ownership than at any time in recent memory.

Nowhere is that split more visible than in the Hamptons, where the average home now runs $4.5 million, a 34% surge from last year and the second straight year the figure has topped $4 million, according to a review by appraiser Jonathan Miller. 

Wall Street bonuses, which hit a record average of nearly $247,000 per employee as bank profits jumped more than 30% last year, are increasingly bankrolling those purchases outright, with buyers leaning on stock portfolios and payouts instead of mortgages to close deals. 

Miller’s report noted that the elevated share of bidding wars and tighter marketing times point to a market driven by serious high-end buyers rather than speculation, and homes selling above $5 million made up the largest share on record last quarter.

The sharpest price gains outside of New York came from two unlikely twins on opposite coasts, San Francisco and West Palm Beach. 

Bay Area home values soared 9.2%, the biggest jump of any major metro in the country, as tech fortunes from the artificial intelligence boom flooded into real estate. 

Down in South Florida, prices rose 8.6% as billionaires, executives and other ultra-wealthy Americans kept relocating for the sunshine, the beaches and, of course, the favorable tax treatment. 

Sales in both cities jumped by roughly 23% from a year earlier, the largest increases of any metro area tracked in the Redfin report.

The math simply doesn’t work in most buyers’ favor right now. Homes are getting snapped up fast nationally, with more than one in five selling above their original asking price in June, the highest share in over a year. 

On Long Island, that dynamic is even more extreme, with more than half of homes sold last quarter going above ask. 

Mortgage rates hovering close to 6.5% are tacking on hundreds of dollars to the average monthly payment, while sellers, sensing they have the upper hand, are pulling back too, with new listings sinking to their lowest point since December.

Redfin’s head of economics research, Chen Zhao, said the pool of buyers able to compete has narrowed sharply. 

“High-end buyers are driving demand and prices in much of the country,” Zhao said. “Many of the house hunters who are buying homes are the ones who can afford today’s high prices and elevated mortgage rates without busting their budget.” 

“There’s a pool of higher-income buyers who are purchasing seven-figure homes, but a lot of first-time and average move-up buyers are priced out as mortgage rates stay near 6.5%, making monthly payments challenging.”