A mere 20 years ago, a $100 million home sale was all but unimaginable. Today, it’s becoming increasingly common among the world’s growing population of billionaires. Since 2007, 20 U.S. homes have sold for nine figures, including four this year alone, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The majority of these sales have taken place on the coasts, specifically in California and New York. These mega rich buyers include at least five purchasers who made their money in tech, while a handful of other elite buyers made their fortunes in finance. Some of these buyers have even purchased more than one nine-figure home. Ken Griffin, founder of the hedge-fund firm Citadel, paid $130 million for an oceanfront compound in Palm Beach back in 2012, before dropping $238 million on a Manhattan penthouse earlier this year.
According to the WSJ, this rise in previously unheard of nine-figure home sales is a testament to the state of wealth in the 21st century, an era in which extreme wealth is increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few. As the number of billionaires across the world surges, home sale prices are following suit.
The worldwide population of billionaires hit a record of 2,754 in 2017, up from 2,170 in 2012. Their wealth also shot up 24 percent from 2016 to 2017, according to a report by data provider Wealth-X.
“It’s gotten so extreme, the wealth of people,” real-estate agent Jeff Hyland of Hilton & Hyland told the WSJ. “People are worth $50 billion—what do you do with it?”
Fortunately, some of those billionaires have figured out exactly what to do with it: simply drop hundreds of millions on a home or two.
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