The Super-Rich Take On San Francisco & Silicon Valley

So many of the individuals on Forbes’ World Billionaires List made their fortune in the tech world, that we just had to take our Billionaires vs. Real Estate series to their business alma mater – Silicon Valley. And given how this is also one of the most expensive real estate markets in the country, we thought it fitting to size it up against the fortunes of the richest people in the world.

The crown jewel of the Bay Area is surely San Francisco. Hence, we made a point of checking just how many of today’s top earners have enough money in the bank to buy it all up. The answer to that turned out to be – not that many.

As for the whole Valley, were these top Forbes billionaires to switch industries today and venture into real estate investments, they could use their fortunes to claim whole cities in the area for themselves.

So who would buy which city? And what insane amount of cash would it take to snatch San Francisco? Read on for a scenario where this entire wedge of the Californian coast would suddenly be up for sale and only the super-rich were invited.

One of the most expensive cities in America could be home to just 2 people

The total value of all residential properties in San Francisco comes up to almost 166 billion dollars. However daunting that sum of money may seem, in fact, the two richest people in the world – Bill Gates and Warren Buffett – could almost afford to cover that bill and split the 10 city districts between them.

Narrowing down the pool of Forbes entries, we took a look at only the ones that made their fortunes in the tech industry. What we found is that the 4 richest tech gurus right now – Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Ellison, Larry Page and Sergey Brin – could chip in their fortunes to buy out all residential San Francisco. In fact, they’d still have about 10 billion dollars left over to start the next hit company.

To choose a different comparison, all the homes in this city could be bought for the November market value of Apple. And not just once, but 3-and-a-half times over.

All Silicon Valley could become Google-Facebook Land – or the backyard of only 18 people

Zooming out and taking a look at the whole of Silicon Valley, we were able to match the fortunes of the 18 richest people in the world with 33 cities covering most of Santa Clara, San Mateo and Alameda counties – an area that makes up Silicon Valley in its most sprawling definition.

Most people on this list can easily afford to buy up more than just one small city in the Bay Area, despite the hefty home prices. For example, Mark Zuckerberg, with a personal net worth of $50B, could buy not only Palo Alto, home to one of Los Altos Hills. Similarly, Larry Page could buy up 4 cities just south of San Francisco.

However, in our scenario, Santa Clara, Saratoga and Cupertino would each go to one of 3 Walton heirs, of Walmart fame, for a very considerable chunk of their net worth. As for San Jose, it would take billionaires #3 and #4 – Amancio Ortega and Jeff Bezos – to join forces to cover the 152 billion dollar bill for all its residential property.

While the whole area is notoriously pricey for home buyers, it’s perhaps worth putting the eye-watering value of all residential property in Silicon Valley – worth 846 billion dollars – into perspective. The combined values of the locally-bred tech giants Google and Facebook would more than suffice to cover that sum.