Larry Ellison Just Buying Houses for The Hell of It Now
Boats, part of Hawaii, and now $200 mil worth of luxury Malibu real estate—tech billionaire Larry Ellison's eternal spending spree crusade continues. This is how you stay busy when you're the third richest man in America.
The L.A. Times uncovered a giant swath of houses the software magnate has snatched up along what's called "Billionaire Beach"—for no real reason other than to toy around with them. The consensus seems to be that Larry just likes buying property, retooling it, and maybe selling some of it off as a hobby. Fine, everyone needs a hobby (sailing enormous boats gets dull). Ellison's land-grab will have a ripple effect on Billionaire Beach for some time, too:
By controlling the supply of houses on Carbon Beach, Ellison is creating an exclusivity that is likely to drive up prices in the next few years, [local rich guy Greg] Hebner said. "He's creating value for the other homeowners too."
It's a perfect rich-get-richer happy ending, except for this anonymous token poor guy in the Times piece:
Tremendous wealth "is something to fear," said a local merchant who declined to give his name because wealthy landowners are among his clientele. "It don't trickle down."
That kind of naysaying will NOT get you an invite to a party on Billionaire Beach, local "merchant."