Luxury home sales plunge, Miami and Hamptons hit hardest

The U.S. housing market is taking a hard hit from higher mortgage rates, and luxury home sales are seeing the worst of it.

Sales of luxury homes dropped 45% during the three months ended Jan. 31 compared with the same period the year before, according to Redfin, a real estate brokerage. Redfin defines luxury homes as those estimated to be in the top 5% based on the estimated market value. Sales of non-luxury homes were down about 38% during that period.

Miami, which had seen a massive influx of wealthy buyers migrating from the Northeast in the earlier days of the…