What's more, the rich (especially foreigners) continue to buy real estate as an investment as stocks and other financial investments weaken.

Yet the million-plus real-estate market experienced a similar spasm in 2010, when many of the wealthy feared Congress would raise capital-gains rates. Inventory popped up and and prices slumped.

Jonathan Miller, of Miller Samuel, the New York appraisal and consulting firm, said that in the fourth quarter of 2010, the supply of homes priced at $1 million or more increased in the New York area. In the affluent Hamptons, inventory increased 5 percent in the fourth quarter, a much greater increase than the same period a year earlier.

Miller said a similar or even larger increase is likely this year.

“I’m confident we’ll see just as much or more this time because of the fiscal cliff,” he said. “People are going to be pressing to close earlier than they might have.”

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