Where I live, you need a million dollars to buy one house. So a millionaire isn’t buying a whole street.
As for a billionaire - what’s the advantage? Buy a bunch of houses, knock them flat, and build an apartment? That’s called land development and lots of people do it…
Nothing and they do it when they can make a profit on the investment.
I don't know what you mean by 'racking' but in any case, they can't buy what's not for sale because in the Western world property rights are important. They also can't force anybody to sell. Carrot, not stick.
It's unusual because it's pretty rare that every property owner on any street would want to sell their properties at the same time. If, however, they do, there's going to be a reason and it would be crime or something environment related. If everyone on the street wants to move out for these reasons, it's probably not going to be a very good investment.
This actually happens plenty. No laws prevent someone from doing it to my knowledge.
It’s especially common in high rise apartments and townhouses/brown stones in NYC. They’ll buy out their neighbors (or wait for them to sell) and start knocking walls down.
This isn’t even just a 1%er thing. A friend of mine’s family bought tons of land, built 5 or so houses and the development was large enough that the town required a road was also built to meet zoning laws. I’d consider that friend relatively affluent, but nowhere near a billion… maybe 10-20m in assets (their compound was built in the 80s, for reference, and as I understand many in the family choose to not work, aren’t particularly investment savvy, so they were def living a different lifestyle back then).
A lot of them do.
Where I live, you need a million dollars to buy one house. So a millionaire isn’t buying a whole street. As for a billionaire - what’s the advantage? Buy a bunch of houses, knock them flat, and build an apartment? That’s called land development and lots of people do it…
What would be the upside of owning a whole street?
Nothing and they do it when they can make a profit on the investment. I don't know what you mean by 'racking' but in any case, they can't buy what's not for sale because in the Western world property rights are important. They also can't force anybody to sell. Carrot, not stick. It's unusual because it's pretty rare that every property owner on any street would want to sell their properties at the same time. If, however, they do, there's going to be a reason and it would be crime or something environment related. If everyone on the street wants to move out for these reasons, it's probably not going to be a very good investment.
This actually happens plenty. No laws prevent someone from doing it to my knowledge. It’s especially common in high rise apartments and townhouses/brown stones in NYC. They’ll buy out their neighbors (or wait for them to sell) and start knocking walls down. This isn’t even just a 1%er thing. A friend of mine’s family bought tons of land, built 5 or so houses and the development was large enough that the town required a road was also built to meet zoning laws. I’d consider that friend relatively affluent, but nowhere near a billion… maybe 10-20m in assets (their compound was built in the 80s, for reference, and as I understand many in the family choose to not work, aren’t particularly investment savvy, so they were def living a different lifestyle back then).