A Permanent Address: Trophy Real Estate That Will Outlive Generations

The best lens for understanding "trophy" status is to examine where $ 10 million+ transactions become the norm. According to analysts, in the first quarter of 2025, 527 super-prime deals totaling $ 9.43 billion were closed in 12 key global cities—a 6% increase compared to the previous year. In the U.S., Miami and Palm Beach act as magnets, where the five-year price trend resembles a "new capital effect": capital migration and tax arbitrage.

Meanwhile, London, which set the tone for decades, is experiencing rare weakness at the top of the pyramid: in Kensington and Chelsea, average prices have dipped to their lowest since 2013, with analysts attributing this to fiscal changes and the departure of some international buyers to low-tax havens. Simultaneously, the market is "shivering" due to a combination of factors—from interest rates and VAT to the abolition of the non-dom regime—while the national average statistics appear more robust than the elite central London market. For the global buyer, this means a simple truth: Prime London is once again a place for negotiation, and the degree of a lot’s "trophy" status (a house with a garden in a club-style neighborhood) matters more than the overall market temperature.

If measured not by dynamics but by the "weight" of a square meter, the "trophy" scale becomes equally transparent. According to the 2025 Wealth Report, $ 1 million buys approximately 19 sq. m in Monaco—the size of a parking space; in New York and London, it buys around 34 sq. m, reflecting the discounts of recent years and currency shifts. Family offices value this map of purchasing power not for its exoticism but for its discipline: it quickly reveals where scarcity is structural and where it is cyclical. Conversely, the further a million "stretches," the more critical the filter of locations and addresses becomes—a trophy is defined not by a general index but by a specific neighborhood, facade, and surroundings.

This year, Russia added a paradoxical chapter to the global picture. According to analysts' calculations, Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Sochi led the world rankings in terms of price growth for luxury new builds in 2024: +25.8% and +20.5%, respectively. In 2025, Moscow’s luxury segment reached historic levels: the weighted average price on the primary market reached 2.18−2.20 million rubles per square meter, while in deluxe projects, it exceeded 3.07 million rubles. The top 100 most expensive apartments in Moscow—a useful snapshot of trophy status—showed an average price of 4.7 million rubles per square meter in June, with the total value of the hundred lots amounting to around 147 billion rubles. The entry threshold for the list starts at 269 million and peaks at around 6.9 billion rubles.

Text: Daria Arkhipova

Another trend of 2025 is "branded residences": a partnership between a developer and a luxury hotel brand, offering five-star level service. Europe already has over 140 completed projects, and the market is projected to grow by 180% by 2031; in the Middle East and Africa, growth is expected to be exponential, reaching up to 270%, while local reviews indicate a doubling of the global pipeline by the end of the decade. Southern Europe is charting its own path: in Spain and Portugal alone, over 2,400 residences are in development, some priced as high as € 24 million per unit. For the buyer, this represents a hybrid of status and liquidity: the combination of address, service, and rare layouts transforms "expensive" into "rare," and "rare" into "trophy."

Who needs this in their 2025 portfolio, and why? Classic answers come from the same reports: the number of individuals with assets exceeding $ 10 million grew by 4.4% in 2024, and nearly half of family offices plan to increase their real estate allocation—as a defensive, income-generating, and status-driven asset. But trophy real estate follows a different logic: it’s not about "square meters for rent" but an "address for a biography." It resists indexing more stubbornly and preserves cultural value more effectively. This is precisely why, in times of uncertainty, it outperforms mainstream prime real estate: it falls less frequently, recovers faster, and, most importantly, remains supply-constrained. In simple 2025 terms: while average prime inflation is modest, super-prime is breaking transaction volume records. And this is happening even as owners in key global cities increasingly prioritize "quieter, more reliable, more appropriate" over "higher, faster, stronger."

From this perspective, a "trophy" is not about the cost of finishes but the synthesis of three factors: an undisputed address, irreversible scarcity, and history. A penthouse on Patriarch’s Ponds with a protected view or a palazzo on the Grand Canal—these are not about square meters but the ability to master time: your breakfasts, meetings, your children growing up, and reselling at a moment when the market "breathes differently." That’s why the key advice of 2025 sounds surprisingly old-fashioned: trust indices less, walk the streets more. Look at the facades, the entrances, the neighboring buildings. Ask the city what will remain in it twenty years from now. Trophy real estate is like art: you buy it when it speaks to you in the same language. And statistics are there to confirm: you understand the rarity you’re paying for.

Yet "trophy" status is not limited to skyscrapers and waterfronts. In 2025, rural luxury is being revalued before our very eyes: vineyards and agro-estates. The financial press notes a cooling in vineyard prices worldwide—a drop of up to a third in certain terroirs, structural challenges in wine consumption, and climate pressure. In Bordeaux itself, according to specialized brokers, around 400 estates were listed for sale by summer—a historically high inventory for the region; transactions are counted in dozens per year, while the rest require careful restructuring. The paradox: this very correction may give rise to a new "trophy"—when a rare plot with water access, sun exposure, and a history in a "great" appellation is acquired by a patient buyer at a price below the "2021−2022 bubble."