Economic slowdown or not, billionaires are still buying $100+ million homes. And many of those homes can be found in the New York area.
Ira Rennert, who owns the Fair Field enclave in Sagaponack, NY, is the owner of the country’s highest valued home. A local appraiser put a price tag on the house at $248 million.
A recent purchase of an East Hampton estate for $147 million by hedge fund manager Barry Rosenstein set a new world record for the most expensive home ever bought in the country.
Such mega-purchases are on the rise, too.
While in 2013, Forbes found that many billionaires’ estates fell below the $100 million mark, 2014 saw an uptick in the value of billionaires’ homes. Of the top 20 most expensive homes in the world owned by billionaires, only six were worth less than $100 million.
Shortly before Rosenstein purchased the East Hampton home earlier this spring, timber magnate John Rudey sold his Copper Beech estate in Greenwich, Connecticut, which he had owned since the 1980s, to an unknown buyer for $120 million.
At the time of the sale, Copper Beech Farm was the most expensive home ever on sale in the U.S. [Forbes] — Claire Moses