A recent article in the Chicago Tribune shined light on Bill Gate's wealth -- given his $77.5 billion fortune, he could theoretically purchase all residential properties in Boston worth $76.6 billion, leaving him to practically own the entire city.
The purchase price of the city was calculated by adding up 10 percent of its home prices, then multiplying that number by 10 to cumulate the total percentage of Boston's residential real estate. In addition to Gate's potential with Boston, Redfin, the brokerage that released the report, paired up 30 of the world's wealthiest families with an American city they could afford to buy. Not surprisingly, there was not one family's fortune massive enough to purchase New York City.
With apartment prices in Manhattan higher than ever, especially given the influx of high-end new developments, it is no wonder New York did not make the list. For example, after only half of the units were sold at mega-condo 432 Park, already close to $1 billion in sales were recorded. However, even if one buyer could not purchase the entirety of NYC residential real estate, imagine if a (very large) group of the world's wealthiest families joined together to collectively own the city.
Joint venture ownership is not such a far off idea, especially in New York. UK real estate equity fund, The Rocksure Group, is starting a new fund that would treat Manhattan apartments as time-shares. The Group is seeking out to buy four apartments with 16 investors each as "owners," for which every investor is granted 21 nights of occupancy per year with the intention to sell for profit within 10 years' time.
How many billionaires do you think it would take to buy New York? Which city would you buy if you could? Leave your comments below, I'd love to hear them.