Who can buy all the homes in your city?

Comparing the billionaires’ wealth in dollars or another global currency is so passé. We understand that Microsoft founder Bill Gates ranks No. 1 on the world’s billionaires list, making him the richest person in the world. But for mere mortals, it’s difficult to work out the extent of his wealth when Forbes magazine tells us that his wealth stands at $79 billion (as of July 5, 2014), up from $77.5 billion a few weeks ago on May 15.

For most of us who start a monthly countdown of days to the next paycheque just a week into getting one, the extent of that richness that $79 billion bestows upon an individual is simply too difficult to comprehend.

Here’s a new way of understanding the depth of the billionaires’ coffers. According to a study conducted by the US-based real estate brokerage Redfin, Bill Gates’ $79 billion will be enough to buy each of the 114,212 houses in Boston, and still be left with $2.4 billion, a little more than what may be required to buy another smaller city, say Lake Wales in Florida or Jonesboro in Georgia. Got it?

According to Redfin’s Tommy Unger, “[g]iven that the average American struggles to afford a home, we wanted to illustrate just how many homes the wealthiest among us could buy.” To come up with a list of cities that billionaires can buy, the property company borrowed wealth statistics from Forbes’ real-time listing of the world’s billionaires as of May 15, 2014, and then juxtaposed their wealth against Redfin’s own database of houses and cities.

“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,” says Unger.

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 per cent of the total US home equity.”

It’s still a hypothetical listing – no billionaire in the right mind is going to spend all of their wealth on buying all the real estate in one city. That just goes against the cardinal investment principle of not putting all your eggs in one basket. In addition, most of these billionaires’ wealth is well invested, and in some cases, it would be next to impossible to liquidate it for the sake of re-investment in real estate. Still, why let a few technical realities get in the way of an interesting read?

If you’re so inclined, here’s a list of billionaires and the American cities they could buy with their wealth. Remember, it’s the money that matters, and someone who could buy Boston could well buy Mumbai instead, and the one who can buy Seattle could well buy Shanghai instead.

For the sake of brevity, we’ll just list a few of the billionaires and the cities their wealth can buy in full. For a complete list of the 30 billionaires and their hypothetical cities, click here .

Seattle in Washington goes to… Wal-Mart’s

Walton Family Wal-Mart heirs the Waltons – Christy, Jim, Alice, Rob, Ann and Nancy – have $154.8 billion or so of wealth floating between them. Imagine what they could do with that money… well, you don’t have to imagine. The folks at Redfin have done it for us – if they decide to pool their wealth, the Waltons could buy every house in Seattle, and still be left with a staggering $43.3 billion to refurnish each of the 241,450 homes they would buy.

Or, if Seattle didn’t catch their fancy, the Waltons could shop around for all the homes in Dallas ($109.4 billion), or Washington DC for roughly the same amount. They could opt for Miami for $92.8 billion, or buy all residential real estate in Portland for a billion less. They could even go for Baltimore and Austin, Texas for $88.8 billion, or Las Vegas for $86.5 billion.

Whichever one of these the Waltons would have chosen, they would have a huge negotiating edge as no other individual/s could muster up that kind of money.

Atlanta in Georgia sold to… Koch Brothers

The Koch Brothers – Charles and David – were together worth $86 billion as of May 15, and could have bought each of the 286,629 homes in Atlanta with $78.1 billion out of that money. Their remaining net worth would still be enough to buy a few smaller cities. Or, they could go for San Antonio for $85.8 billion, but that wouldn’t leave them with any spare cash.
 

Boston, Massachusetts taken by… Microsoft’s

Bill Gates The richest person in the world debuts at No. 3 on the list. While he couldn’t have bought Seattle or Atlanta with the $77.5 billion he had on May 15, he was worth $79bn by July 5, and was in a position to give the Koch Brothers a run for their money while bidding for Atlanta. Nevertheless, the Redfin report said he could well buy all the 114,212 homes in Boston with his wealth.

Charlotte, North Carolina goes to… Warren Buffett

Berkshire Hathaway’s Warren Buffet was worth $63.6 billion on May 15, and could well own each of the 280,214 homes in Charlotte for $56.1 billion.

Boca Raton, Florida, owned by Google’s

Larry Page Google co-founder Larry Page literally owns the virtual world with the search engine, but he could well own a bricks-and-mortar city if he wishes so. His wealth is perhaps among the most liquid among the top billionaires if he ever chooses to buy. What could he buy? Wealthy Florida retirement haven Boca Raton with 99,964 homes, for starters, for $29.5 billion out of his $30.8 billion fortune.

Among other honourable mentions…

•        Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com can afford to buy all of Napa, California’s 57,923 homes for $29.5 billion, and still be left with a billion dollars to live it up.

•        Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook can afford the 139,124 homes of St. Paul, Minnesota for $26.8 billion out of his $27.7 billion fortune.

•        Donald Trump, property moghul, can buy all the 17,527 homes in Commerce City, Colorado, for $3.9 billion, but then he won’t be left with a penny to drive back home.

•        Steven Spielberg, director of epic movies including the all-time top grosser Avatar, can buy the 18,934 homes in Sun City West, Arizona, for his entire net worth ($3.4 billion). But then he’d have to borrow money to make Avatar 2, which we think should be easy considering the success of the first iteration.

•        Oprah Winfrey, reality TV star, too could own the 10,625 homes in Mokena, Illinois, for $2.9 billion, but then would be left with nothing in the bank.

Follow Emirates 24|7 on Google News.