Bill Gates Could Buy All 114,212 Homes in Boston, but Couldn’t Afford Seattle; the Walton Family of Wal-Mart Could Buy All of Seattle, Dallas, Miami, Las Vegas or Washington, D.C.
Just how rich is Bill Gates? According to Forbes, he’s the world’s richest person and is worth $77.5 billion. But that kind of wealth is hard to wrap your head around, so let’s put it another way: Gates could buy every single home in the entire city of Boston. That’s 114,212 single-family homes, condos and townhouses, at a total purchase price of $76.6 billion.
Given that the average American struggles to afford a home, we wanted to illustrate just how many homes the wealthiest among us could buy. Here’s a table of some of the billionaires on the Forbes’ 400 Wealthiest list, each paired with a city that billionaire could hypothetically buy. For the sake of this illustration, we assumed that wealthy families, such as the Waltons of Wal-Mart and the Koch brothers, would pool their money if they were going to purchase an entire city.
Billionaire / Wealth Source / Net Worth |
City / # of Homes / Cost of All Homes |
---|---|
Walton Family Wal-Mart $154.8 billion |
Seattle, WA 241,450 homes $111.5 billion |
Koch Brothers Oil $86.0 billion |
Atlanta, GA 286,629 homes $78.1 billion |
Bill Gates Microsoft $77.5 billion |
Boston, MA 114,212 homes $76.6 billion |
Warren Buffett Berkshire Hathaway $63.5 billion |
Charlotte, NC 280,214 homes $56.1 billion |
Michael Bloomberg Bloomberg LP $31.8 billion |
Anaheim, CA 69,167 homes $31.4 billion |
Larry Page $30.8 billion |
Boca Raton, FL 99,964 homes $29.5 billion |
Jeff Bezos Amazon.com $30.5 billion |
Napa, CA 57,923 homes $29.5 billion |
Mark Zuckerberg $27.7 billion |
Saint Paul, MN 139,124 homes $26.8 billion |
Steve Ballmer Microsoft $20.4 billion |
Littleton, CO 64,516 homes $20.0 billion |
Phil Knight Nike $18.3 billion |
Falls Church, VA 37,838 homes $18.0 billion |
Paul Allen Microsoft $15.9 billion |
Durham, NC 92,290 homes $15.8 billion |
Rupert Murdoch media $13.6 billion |
Peoria, AZ 60,894 homes $13.5 billion |
Elon Musk Tesla Motors $8.8 billion |
Centreville, VA 23,789 homes $8.8 billion |
Ralph Lauren Ralph Lauren $7.1 billion |
Worcester, MA 44,385 homes $7.1 billion |
Dustin Moskovitz $6.6 billion |
Wheaton, IL 21,365 homes $6.6 billion |
Jan Koum $6.4 billion |
Laguna Hills, CA 10,892 homes $6.4 billion |
S. Truett Cathy Chick-fil-A $6.3 billion |
Brick, NJ 30,541 homes $6.3 billion |
Charles Schwab Discount brokerage $6.0 billion |
Spotsylvania, VA 25,925 homes $6.0 billion |
George Lucas Star Wars $5.0 billion |
Homestead, FL 44,400 homes $5.0 billion |
Donald Trump Television, real Estate $3.9 billion |
Commerce City, CO 17,527 homes $3.9 billion |
H. Ross Perot Sr Computer services $3.6 billion |
Dover, DE 24,197 homes $3.6 billion |
Steven Spielberg Movies $3.4 billion |
Sun City West, AZ 18,934 homes $3.4 billion |
Jerry Jones Dallas Cowboys $3.1 billion |
Longview, WA 18,645 homes $3.1 billion |
Oprah Winfrey Television $2.9 billion |
Mokena, IL 10,625 homes $2.9 billion |
Mark Cuban Online media $2.6 billion |
Forney, TX 13,286 homes $2.6 billion |
Ted Turner Cable television $2.2 billion |
Jonesboro, GA 28,981 homes $2.2 billion |
Howard Schultz Starbucks $2.1 billion |
Lake Wales, FL 23,045 homes $2.1 billion |
Meg Whitman Ebay $2.0 billion |
Winder, GA 19,818 homes $2.0 billion |
Donald Sterling Real estate $1.9 billion |
Randallstown, MD 10,421 homes $1.9 billion |
Bruce Nordstrom Department stores $1.4 billion |
Florence, AZ 10,878 homes $1.4 billion |
Redfin Chief Economist Nela Richardson puts this wealth in perspective:
“In this fictional real estate investment, the 30 billionaires on our list, with a combined fortune of $582 billion, could afford to own a staggering 6 percent of the total U.S. home equity.”
While Bill Gates is the richest single person, several of the Waltons are among the superrich. The family could choose from any of a number of large cities in which to buy up every home, including these 10:
With a $154.8 billion net worth, the Walton Family (Wal-Mart) could buy… |
||
City | Cost of City’s Homes |
Number of Homes |
---|---|---|
Seattle, WA | $111.5B | 241,450 |
Dallas, TX | $109.4B | 330,028 |
Washington, DC | $109.2B | 209,092 |
Miami, FL | $92.8B | 409,488 |
Portland, OR | $91.8B | 289,133 |
Baltimore, MD | $88.8B | 597,437 |
Austin, TX | $88.8B | 279,912 |
Las Vegas, NV | $86.5B | 462,751 |
San Antonio, TX | $85.8B | 506,094 |
Atlanta, GA | $78.1B | 286,629 |
These home value numbers are estimates, and these are just hypothetical scenarios, but they do highlight how far a billion dollars can go. If you were a billionaire, or if you are currently, which city would you buy? Tell us in the comments or on Twitter or Facebook.
Data Sources
If you’re curious what your city or town is worth, or who could afford to purchase your city, download this spreadsheet. The list of billionaires can be found on the Forbes website.
Methodology
The billionaire’s wealth was pulled from the Forbes list on May 15, 2014. We calculated the value of all homes in a city or town by first taking all MLS sales between April 1, 2013 and April 1, 2014. We used those sales as a representative sample of all homes in a city. If 10 percent of homes sold in a city for $1 billion, then we’d estimate the values of all homes in the city are $10 billion. Only single-family homes, condos and townhomes were included. In Texas, home prices were estimated by looking at the list price of homes rather than sale prices.