How Long Before a Home Lists for $1 Billion?

When a Los Angeles hilltop home that's under construction was recently priced at a record half-billion dollars, it looked like a one-off in excess. The same thought occurred to me late last year when real estate investor Jeff Greene, who won big betting against the housing market before the financial crisis, priced his renovated Beverly Hills, California, home at $195 million. When I dug a little deeper, though, I found that the nine-figure home is becoming almost, well, commonplace: there are no less than three homes with asking prices of more than $300 million -- on the French Riviera, in London and in Monaco.

Those prices tower over anything a high-roller hangout like the Hamptons has to offer; the most expensive sale there was an East Hampton estate that last year fetched $147 million, less than a third of the asking price for the L.A. house -- but still the highest price ever for a U.S. home.