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Billionaires hoping to escape Wall Street's bad news need look no further than their own homes. If their portfolios are shrinking, they'll find plenty there to distract them.
David Geffen's Pollock and Rothko paintings line the walls of his 100-room Beverly Hills, California mansion. Paul Allen can dock his 416-foot yacht--the Octopus--beside his Mercer Island, Washington waterfront property. And Bill Gates can shut the world out in his 60-foot swimming pool with an underwater music system, just steps from his 66,000-square-foot home on the edge of Lake Washington near Seattle.
Then there is the 40-acre beachfront spread Baron Capital Management founder Ron Baron bought last year. Baron paid Adelaide de Menil Carpenter, an heiress to the Schlumberger oil fortune, $103 million for her East Hampton, N.Y., property, shattering the previous residential record held by Ron Perelman, who sold a Palm Beach estate for $70 million in 2004.
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They're just a few of the amenities America's richest enjoy after a hard day's work.
Of course these properties don't come cheap--or easy.
Over the last few years, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison has spent $200 million by some estimates on near a dozen properties in Malibu, including five homes that in aggregate would create a custom compound. His 23-acre estate in Woodside is reminiscent of a 16th-century imperial Japanese palace and reportedly cost upward of $100 million to build.
Oprah Winfrey paid $50 million in 2001 for the 23,000-square-foot Georgian-style home she calls the "Promised Land." Last year the Montecito, Calif., spread was appraised at just under $85 million. For such a public persona, Winfrey ferociously guards the privacy of her home, situated on 43 acres. At a Barack Obama fundraiser last year, guests were strictly prohibited from entering the house, and cameras were forbidden.
There are two ways in which billionaires facilitate a home buy.
One is to simply ask for it. That's what financier Henry Kravis did in 2006 when he made an unsolicited $50 million offer for a 15,255-square-foot Palm Beach property; the owner readily accepted.
Billionaire sellers have found that an under-the-radar arrangement has its advantages. Proposing offers or piquing interest among friends can be a lucrative strategy.
"Some billionaires aren't certain they want to sell," says Dolly Lenz, a broker at Prudential Douglas Elliman. "So they'll float a deal where they tell their friends that if they could get X for their property, they would sell it."
In the case of high-profile properties--like the Harkness Mansion that financier J. Christopher Flowers bought in 2006 for $53 million or the Duke-Semans mansion that real estate mogul Tamir Sapir acquired last year for $40 million--word is sent out that the owners are interested in selling.
Prospective buyers will then peruse the property six to nine months before it is formally listed. After all, it's never good for a prestigious home to sit on the market too long; case in point: the $70 million Pierre Hotel penthouse, which has been on the market since 2004.
Three years may be a long time, but with the summer over and prime billionaire buying season upon us, that penthouse may soon find a buyer. That's because unlike the ordinary housing market, which spikes in the spring and ebbs in the fall and winter, trophy properties usually come off the market toward the end of the year.
"Activity takes off in December and January for trophy properties," says Jonathan Miller, president of real estate appraisal Miller Samuel. "This is when the bonus money is announced and starts percolating through Wall Street."
That is, what's left of it.
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