Sales of million-dollar-plus homes surged in the first three months of 2015, but the luxury market, defined as the priciest 5 percent of properties, grew at their slowest pace in three years, says a report issued by Redfin, a Seattle-based real estate brokerage.

Luxury home prices in the first quarter of 2015 grew less than 1 percent from the same period a year ago. For the bottom 95 percent of homes, values advanced at a steady 4.3 percent. 

Posh properties also took longer to sell, as the average luxury home sat on the market for 96 days, up from 92 days in the first quarter of last year.

Despite the overall slowdown in luxury home price growth, several cities posted large gains while others saw steep drops, according to the Redfin report. Delray Beach, Fla., for example, saw one of the largest increases in luxury-home prices, with a 33 percent increase compared with the first quarter of last year. Austin, Texas, was right behind Delray Beach, with a 31.5 percent increase from the prior year.

In Florida, a resurgence of downtown living and an influx of employers helped stoke luxury sales. 

“New offices, apartment buildings, and lofts, paired with a big onslaught of urban amenities and proximity to the beach, has turned Delray from a place you didn’t want to be to the place to be for high-end housing,” asserts Robyn Jackson, a Redfin agent in the Palm Beach area.

The most extreme luxury home price drops in the first quarter occurred in Boston, where prices tumbled 19 percent, and Alexandria, Va., where prices fell 12.4 percent from the same period last year.

Prices in Seattle’s luxury home market remained essentially unchanged, increasing  0.3 percent in the first quarter compared with the year-earlier period. Prices in the rest of the Seattle market, however, increased 8.6 percent during the same time period. 

Redfin market itself is a next-generation real estate brokerage that represents people buying and selling homes. Founded by technologists, Redfin employs a team of experienced, full-service real estate agents who are advocates, not salespeople, earning customer-satisfaction bonuses, rather than just commissions. 

Redfin.com features all the broker-listed homes for sale, as well as for-sale-by-owner properties that don’t pay brokers a commission.