It's Friday morning on Edgewood Drive in Palo Alto, Calif., and none of Mark Zuckerberg's neighbors want to talk about the fact that he's just bought four more houses on their street.
The Facebook founder worth close to $20 billion has been buying up the four homes not to tear them down, but to take their backyards for his own, and to use the houses as a buffer.
Zuckerberg has no plans to build a McMansion on the four additional properties adjacent to the home he already lives in with his wife, physician Priscilla Chan. The Zuckerberg's plan is to lease back the existing homes to the families that already live there. Those families got extremely lucky: they made multimillion-dollar sales, get to live in their existing homes and all they did was give up their backyards and title.
Zuckerberg paid way over market rates, in fact one of his neighbors who only spoke to us on condition of anonymity, said he paid over $14 million for a house that would not have gone for more than $4 million before he came to town. The $14 million home on Hamilton Avenue is a 2,600 square foot home on .39 acres, which is actually a lot of land in this tony Valley enclave.
Then there is the 3,200 square foot house directly behind Zuckerberg's Edgewood Drive home also on Hamilton Avenue. It went for a paltry $4.8 million in December 2012, according to public records.
Then a third house he bought next door on Edgewood Drive went for $10.5 million. And the fourth home on the other side of his main house on Edgewood Drive sold earlier this week for an undisclosed amount.
All told Zuckerberg paid more than $30 million for the four homes adjacent to his main property.
Sunday, October 27, 2013
Zuckerberg Going House Buying Crazy; Pays $14 Million for $4 Million House
Yes, you can buy privacy on the free market. CNBC reports:
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A cautionary tale. Just because he has money does not mean he is:
ReplyDeleteA. Intelligent
B. Wise
C. Caring
[May in fact be none of these...]
30 million is chump change for anyone worth 20 billion. that's like someone who makes $200,000 K spending $300
ReplyDeleteplus he does not have to move, does not have the hassle or scrutiny of moving, nor sell his house or pay the massive commissions he would pay on a new house, he gets the bigger yard he wants on his current house that he apparently likes, he gets built in perimeter security via the existing families living on the edges of his now bigger yard (who would probably be pretty loyal after a nice payday and not want to be kicked out of their new lease, plus he rents their house back to the families, probably at a loss which will get him some tax breaks.
sounds smart to me.