What America’s Most Expensive ZIP Codes Reveal About Where Wealth Goes

When Realtor.com® ranked the country’s most expensive ZIP codes earlier this year, the numbers were staggering.

Fisher Island, FL, was among the top 3 with a median home price of $10.83 million. Water Mill, NY, and Bridgehampton, NY, two enclaves in New York’s Hamptons, were close behind, with median prices approaching or exceeding $8 million.

But outside of housing, living in these communities does not cost dramatically more than it does in other affluent parts of the country.

Using county-level data from United for ALICE—a nonprofit research initiative that estimates the minimum income households need to cover basic necessities—a family of four would need about $66,000 a year for essentials in Miami-Dade County and roughly $76,000 in Suffolk County, where Water Mill and Bridgehampton are located.

Those budgets are significant, but they are dwarfed by housing. Financing the median-priced home in Fisher Island, assuming a 20% down payment and a 30-year mortgage at approximately 6%, pushes the annual cost of ownership to nearly $688,000 before taxes, insurance, HOA fees, and maintenance. Comparable totals reach roughly $582,000 in Bridgehampton and $531,000 in Water Mill.

The mortgage alone costs several times more than the annual cost of a family’s basic needs. The difference is not a slightly more expensive lifestyle—it is an entirely different scale of housing expense.

The comparison offers a window into what happens when housing stops reflecting the local cost of living and starts reflecting something else entirely: scarcity, exclusivity, and wealth.

Housing plays by different rules

Most everyday expenses are tied to the local economy: Grocery stores compete for customers, child care costs reflect local wages, and transportation and health care expenses vary by region but are shaped by what residents and businesses can afford. Luxury housing follows a different set of rules.

“At the top of the market, the entry barrier is almost entirely the asset itself: land, structure, and a scarcity premium,” says Anthony Smith, senior economist at Realtor.com®. “Local wages and the employment base barely factor in, because a lot of the time, the buyer pool is not local and not income-constrained.”

In other words, the highest-priced homes are often competing for buyers who are not dependent on the local job market. A household’s ability to purchase a $10 million property may have little connection to the wages earned by people who live and work nearby.

“In these ZIP codes, the wealth divide is the home value, not the cost of everyday life,” Smith says.

That dynamic helps explain why a county-level estimate for groceries, child care, and other necessities can remain relatively grounded while housing costs climb into the hundreds of thousands of dollars per year.

Different markets, different premiums

Although Fisher Island and Water Mill sit among the country’s most expensive ZIP codes, they command those prices for different reasons.

Fisher Island’s appeal begins with scarcity. The private island, accessible only by ferry, helicopter, or private boat, has a fixed geographic footprint with little ability to add new supply.

“Fisher Island carries its premium on true island scarcity,” Smith says.

Water Mill’s appeal is different. The Hamptons community has some of the largest homes among the country’s most expensive ZIP codes, with a median home size of more than 6,100 square feet.

“Water Mill can lean into space,” Smith says.

Both command extraordinary prices, but the reasons behind those prices reveal how different forms of scarcity can shape the top of the housing market.

Do buyers even think about everyday costs?

Corey Wayne Ogle, a New York real estate advisor who specializes in the Hamptons, says some clients still want to understand the ongoing costs associated with owning a large property.

“[One client] was asking these questions: How much is the seller spending every month to maintain the lawn, maintain the landscaping? What are these costs actually going to be for keeping the pool clean?” Ogle says.

Those expenses can add up, but Ogle says they are not unique to ultraluxury homes. A buyer with a large property in the Hamptons is still paying for many of the same categories of upkeep as someone with a second home elsewhere.

“If you have a pool and a garden, you have someone that you have to pay to help you maintain it,” he says. “You still have those things.” The difference is that buyers at higher price points often view those expenses differently.

“If I had to put a number on it, it’s probably people buying over like $3 million or $4 million,” he says. “At that point, people kind of are less concerned with the smaller line items when they’re spending $4 million on a home.”

At that level, buyers may still care about maintenance costs, but those expenses are no longer the deciding factor. The question becomes whether the property itself—the location, land, privacy, or lifestyle—is worth the price.

What the numbers reveal about luxury housing

There are important limitations to comparing these budgets.

United for ALICE publishes its estimates at the county level, not the ZIP-code level. That means Fisher Island shares the same non-housing budget estimate as the rest of Miami-Dade County, while Water Mill and Bridgehampton share Suffolk County’s estimate.

Even with those limitations, the pattern is clear: The cost of everyday life rises gradually, even in wealthy communities. Housing can rise without the same constraints.

At the highest end of the market, homes are not priced only as places to live. They are shaped by scarcity, status, investment potential, and access to something that cannot easily be replicated.

That may be the clearest takeaway from America’s most expensive ZIP codes: Wealth does not necessarily make everyday life dramatically more expensive, but it changes what people are willing to pay for a home.