Warren Buffet photo: Paul Morigi/Getty Images for FORTUNE
Monopoly Berkshire Hathaway edition: Parker Brothers
Earlier this week, billionaire businessman Warren Buffett revealed to Yahoo Finance that he plans to invest around $32 billion in the next few months.
True, much of it will be earmarked for the aircraft equipment manufacturer Precision Castparts, a recent acquisition of his company, Berkshire Hathaway. But with the stock market in such flux and the prospect of a Fed rate hike looming, many Americans believe real estate is the best investment.
Buffett famously lives in the same house in Omaha, NE, that he bought for $31,500 in 1958. It’s not an immodest house, exactly: a large Dutch Colonial (seen here with a pickup truck in the driveway) in a leafy, stately suburban neighborhood. But for $32 billion, Buffett, you can do better.
In fact, our data team brainstormed lots of ways you could do better. Here’s what $32 billion could get you in real estate:
- 3% of current U.S. inventory at list price
- All of Los Angeles County ($32 billion)
- Manhattan plus Miami ($31.6 billion)
- Two Manhattans ($31.1 billion)
- All five boroughs of New York City ($27.9 billion)
- Dallas and Houston ($30.6 billion)
- The city of Chicago ($31.6 billion) and almost the entire state of Illinois ($34.9 billion)—he’ll have to leverage a few things to make up the extra $3 billion
- Seven Midwest states ($31.1 billion): Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming
- The state of Pennsylvania ($31.4 billion)
As our own chief economist, Jonathan Smoke, said, “Buffet is a good negotiator so maybe he can get Illinois, or shoot higher than Chicago and buy all of Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach.” The cost: $38 billion.
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