Andra Rus 
The world’s top 4 billionaires could afford to buy all of LA’s most exclusive areas
Malibu, Venice, Santa Monica, Beverly Hills or Bel Air. When it comes to the world of real estate, these names instantly make everyone think of beach-front mansions owned and made famous by celebrities. And, if you’re anything like us, you’ve probably found yourself astonished at least once by photos of celebrity-owned homes, torn between wondering why anyone would ever need so much space to live in and secretly wanting that luxury for yourself.
If you also think that spending $100 million on the Playboy Mansion, LA’s most expensive home ever sold, is rather outrageous, we’re here to rock your world even more. For a select group of people, buying a sprawling home with this price tag is not at all a faraway dream. In fact, the world’s top 4 billionaires could buy LA’s most exclusive and celebrity-dense areas for themselves.
Take Warren Buffett for example: Malibu is well known for being home to a huge number of celebrities but this billionaire could buy it whole, and still afford Santa Monica and Pacific Palisades. As for 90210, Jeff Bezos could have the monopoly on all addresses in what’s probably the most famous zip code in the world. And his fortune could stretch even further to swallow the neighboring district of Westwood.
In our scenario, Bezos’s neighbor to the North could be Amancio Ortega, the sole inhabitant of Brentwood, Bel Air, and Beverly Crest and, in the meantime, Bill Gates would enjoy a lot of beachfront property stretching along the South Bay region.
How about LA County? How many billionaires would it take to buy it all?
Los Angeles County is home to more than 10,000,000 people, making it more populous than any other county in the US. The estimated value of the county’s residential property is 1,199 billion (that’s right, try to wrap your mind around that figure!) However, if we match the county’s value to the fortunes of the world’s wealthiest, the county’s population would be down to just 30 people.
If you’re wondering how Los Angeles County compares to Manhattan, which is also a county in itself, we’ve recently revealed that the top 12 richest people on Forbes’s list could split all of Manhattan between them.
Eager to see who could buy what? Take a look below!
Use the two buttons at the top to switch between the 2 views: exclusive areas and the entire county. Click on the infographic to zoom in.
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Methodology
In calculating the overall value of Los Angeles County and its exclusive areas, we took into account all residential property in each neighborhood. The total number of residential units in a neighborhood (single-family houses, condo and co-op units) was multiplied by the average sale price recorded in that neighborhood for 2015, resulting in an approximate value for said neighborhood. The list of top billionaires and their net worth was retrieved from Forbes on December 9, 2016. The only criteria considered when matching Forbes’ list entries with specific neighborhoods were, respectively, their wealth and total property value.
