The Rhode Island waterfront has always been the domain for high-end home sales as the wealthy gladly pay steep premiums for houses with a view of wide expanses of the ocean or a bay.
But like an incoming tide, the state is seeing a flood of homes selling in the millions of dollars away from the coastline, too.
How could it not?
From Providence to Exeter, Warwick to Cumberland – Michael Pereira, president of the Rhode Island Association of Realtors, says there have been seven-figure sales in all but a few cities and towns in Rhode Island as values continue to climb, pushing moderately appointed homes into price ranges that were considered high end just a few years ago.
“A little tiny house in Newport is now $1.5 million,” said Pereira, an agent at June Realty Group LLC.
[caption id="attachment_518333" align="aligncenter" width="1200"]
1. 70 Beacon Hill Road | NEWPORT
Price: $15,300,000 | Date of sale: Sept. 11, 2025
Buyer: Sea Spray Newport LLC
SellerS: Jerry and Judy Sheindlin
Broker: Gustave White Sotheby’s International Realty (buyer and seller)
Year built: 2012 | Bathrooms: 6 full, 2 half | Bedrooms: 6
Living space: 9,719 square feet
Previous price: Sold for $9,000,000 in 2018 / COURTESY GUSTAVE WHITE SOTHEBY’S INTERNATIONAL REALTY[/caption]
Realtors say that at least partially explains why a total of 866 single-family homes sold with the price tag higher than $1 million, according to the Realtors association – a record for the state. That mark is nearly 18% higher than the previous year and a far cry from the 560 $1 million-plus sales recorded in 2023.
Real estate agents say the price line that delineates a luxury home now sits between $3 million and $5 million.
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2. 390 Ocean Road | Narragansett
Price: $14,500,000 | Date of sale: Sept. 12, 2025
Buyer: Ocean State LLC
Seller: Mark Decoff
Broker: Engel & Völkers Oceanside (buyer and seller)
Year built: 1986 | Bathrooms: 4 full, 1 half | Bedrooms: 4
Living space: 6,533 square feet
Previous price: NA / COURTESY ENGEL & VÖLKERS OCEANSIDE[/caption]
“The bottom of the market has very consistently risen,” said Kate Greenman of Gustave White Sotheby’s International Realty. “There are fewer and fewer listings under a million.”
Exacerbating the situation for prospective buyers looking to get a fair price is the continued lack of homes being put up for sale across the board.
Typically, six months of inventory indicates a balanced market for supply and demand. Yet, as of February, the supply of homes on the market stood at 1.7 months, an indicator of a tight market.
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3. 169 Wellington Ave. | Newport
Price: $14,480,476 | Date of sale: Sept. 3, 2025
Buyer: Wellington 2025 Revocable Trust
SellerS: Daniel Joseph and Beth Ann Hughes
Broker: Gustave White Sotheby’s International Realty (buyer and seller)
Year built: 2006 | Bathrooms: 5 full, 2 half | Bedrooms: 5
Living space: 5,000 square feet
Previous price: Sold for $6,000,000 in 2018 / COURTESY GUSTAVE WHITE SOTHEBY’S INTERNATIONAL REALTY[/caption]
Somehow, the sales of single-family homes continued to rise in this environment, increasing from 7,708 in 2024 to 7,811 in 2025, as buyers were faced with the choice of paying inflated prices or sitting on the sidelines. Still, that’s far off the record mark of 11,602 home sales in 2020, when supply was equally as low but the median price was a more affordable $319,000.
The median single-family home price in 2025 was just $100 shy of half a million dollars in Rhode Island, up 5.3% from the $474,700 the year before.
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4. 320 Harrison Ave. | NEWPORT
Price: $12,145,000 | Date of sale: Aug. 29, 2025
Buyer: Boomerang Acquisition LLC, which is in the care of James Star
Seller: Spring Creek LLC
Brokers: Residential Properties Ltd. (buyer)
Gustave White Sotheby’s International Realty (seller)
Year built: 2003 | Bathrooms: 7 full, 2 half | Bedrooms: 5
Living space: 7,640 square feet
Previous price: Sold for $12,000,000 in 2014 / COURTESY GUSTAVE WHITE SOTHEBY’S INTERNATIONAL REALTY[/caption]
The tight market continues to encourage off-market sales, where brokers approach owners without an actual listing about the possibility of selling, sometimes with a buyer already lined up.
“If there’s not as much inventory, we’re looking for it,” said David Huberman, of Gustave White.
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5. 8 Manatuck Ave. | Westerly
Price: $11,750,000 | Date of sale: Jan. 30, 2025
Buyer: Brenda Winiarski 2015 Family Trust
SellerS: Paul J. and Camille Daqui
Brokers: Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices New England Properties (buyer); Mott & Chace Sotheby’s International Realty (seller)
Year built: 1930 | Bathrooms: 4 full, 2 half | Bedrooms: 6
Living space: 4,976 square feet
Previous price: Sold for $7,000,000 in 2003 / COURTESY MOTT & CHACE SOTHEBY’S INTERNATIONAL REALTY[/caption]
Prospects looking to pounce can be found at the top of the market, too.
As houses hit the market, they are quickly picked up by buyers. Paul Leys, broker and owner of Gustave White, recalled that the 7,200-square-foot mansion at 169 Wellington Ave. in Newport, with a view of the harbor, had three offers on the first weekend. It sold for $14.4 million in September, placing it third on the list of top 10 home sales for last year.
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6. 294 Ocean Ave. | NEWPORT
Price: $10,442,000 | Date of sale: Sept. 23, 2025
Buyer: Magothy Investments LLC
Seller: Boomerang Acquisition LLC
Brokers: Hogan Associates Christie’s International Real Estate (buyer); Gustave White Sotheby’s International Realty (seller)
Year built: 1902 | Bathrooms: 3 full, 1 half | Bedrooms: 4
Living space: 4,392 square feet
Previous price: Sold for $9,935,000 in 2024 / COURTESY GUSTAVE WHITE SOTHEBY’S INTERNATIONAL REALTY[/caption]
Meanwhile, the 4,392-square-foot shingle-style house at 294 Ocean Drive along Newport’s rocky southern coast sold within a week for $10.4 million, also in September. It was the sixth-highest sale of 2025.
While seven-figure sales have occurred across the state, waterfront continues to be king.
Almost all of the homes in the list of top 10 sales have sweeping lawns that practically touch the water, although the top sale – the house at 70 Beacon Hill Road in Newport known as The Bird House – was one of the exceptions.
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7. 2 Fort Wetherill Road | Jamestown
Price: $10,000,000 | Date of sale: Aug. 28, 2025
BuyerS: The Dragonline East Realty Trust and
The Dragonline West Realty Trust (tenants in common)
Seller: Dragonline LLC
Broker: Jamestown Real Estate LLC (buyer and seller)
Year built: 1991 | Bathrooms: 2 full | Bedrooms: 2
Living space: 2,156 square feet
Previous price: NA / COURTESY JAMESTOWN REALTY LLC[/caption]
Owned by Judy Sheindlin, of “Judge Judy” fame, the 9,719-square-foot home sold in September for $15.3 million, despite being about a half mile from the Atlantic Ocean.
“It’s an anomaly,” Leys said of the state’s largest home sale being away from the water.
There’s little to indicate that the luxury market will cool off anytime soon.
Out-of-state buyers continue to flock to Rhode Island, looking for more bang for their bucks than they’re getting in New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts or even the West Coast. Those people accounted for 41% of sales over $1 million last year, according to the Realtors association.
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8. 1236 Corn Neck Road | New Shoreham
Price: $8,980,000 | Date of sale: Dec. 8, 2025
Buyer: Debra Cary Rhode Island Qualified Personal Residence Trust
Seller: Carolyn Booth
Broker: Block Island Realty (buyer and seller)
Year built: 2007 | Bathrooms: 3 full, 2 half | Bedrooms: 4
Living space: 4,908 square feet
Previous price: NA / COURTESY BLOCK ISLAND REALTY[/caption]
“When I’m showing a house, people say, ‘This house would be $80 [million] or $60 million in California or the Hamptons,’ ” Huberman said.
Although Rhode Island’s proximity to Boston and New York is a major draw, the “luxury triangle” of Block Island, Newport and Watch Hill continues to be a prestigious destination in its own right.
Primary drivers for the high-end market are second- (or third-) home buyers, Huberman said, as they look for a place to enjoy their equally expensive hobbies, bringing their yachts that can fit in the deep harbor at Newport.
And there are still enough of those buyers to push prices higher in Rhode Island. After only two Rhode Island homes sold for more than $10 million in 2024, six fetched more than that amount in 2025.
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THROUGH THE ROOF
The annual number of homes sold in Rhode Island for more than $1 million has skyrocketed in the last two years – up 55% between 2023 and 2025 – not because more mansions are being built but because rising home values have pushed more houses into that bracket, according to those in the real estate industry. / SOURCE: RHODE ISLAND ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS[/caption]
Now Leys is hoping the pendulum will soon swing the other way, a reversal of the migration that took place amid the COVID-19 pandemic when people were looking for “great escapes” where they could work remotely and not worry about crowded social environments.
He has already seen some of these houses come back on the market and believes these “COVID listings” will become more frequent, particularly as remote work has grown less prevalent.
“Five and six years [after COVID-19], those buyers are saying maybe we don’t need this house and can move back to where we were,” he said.
Pereira isn’t so sure it’ll be enough to move the needle.
Even if there were fewer out-of-state buyers, there are plenty of Rhode Island residents looking for homes now.
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9. 37 Avondale Road | Westerly Price: $8,375,000 | Date of sale: July 2, 2025 Buyer: William Atkinson Seller: Thomas D. O’Connor Jr.Broker: Olga B. Goff Real Estate (buyer and seller) Year built: 1800 | Bathrooms: 4 full, 2 half | Bedrooms: 5 Living space: 4,218 square feet Previous price: NA / COURTESY OLGA B. GOFF REAL ESTATE[/caption]
And supply is being dampened by what Pereira calls the “locked-in effect” among people who purchased when mortgage rates were about 3%, half of what they are now. Those same homeowners still have vivid memories of the struggle of house hunting in a market that severely favors the seller. Now they’re determined to stay put.
“The hassle people have gone through; they don’t want to do it again,” Pereira said. “It was like going through a war.”
Those factors play a part in why more residential sales away from the waterfront have crossed over the $1 million mark.
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10. 13 Everett Ave. | Westerly Price: $8,200,000 | Date of sale: Sept. 29, 2025 Buyer: Flying Horse GJSon LLC Seller: Kimberly G. Reynolds Broker: Olga Goff of Olga B. Goff Real Estate (buyer and seller) Year built: 1910 | Bathrooms: 3 full, 1 half | Bedrooms: 6 Living space: 5,063 square feet Previous price: NA / COURTESY OLGA B. GOFF REAL ESTATE[/caption]
Areas in southern Rhode Island, as well as affluent Barrington, East Greenwich and the East Side of Providence, have long had sales hitting seven figures, but a growing number of transactions in communities such as Warwick and Cranston have reached that level.
Pereira said a colleague recently sold his own modest three-bedroom ranch in Warwick for $550,000 and bought a home off Scituate Avenue in Cranston for $1.2 million. In Pawtucket, a newly constructed single-family house in the Oak Hill neighborhood sold for $1 million last June, a rarity in an urban-ring community where the median house price is around $400,000.
Pereira said he expects to see more of these high-dollar home sales in once-unexpected places in Rhode Island.
“Nothing really surprises me anymore,” he said.
