Tuesday, October 16, 2012

America's largest landowner

The billionaire John Malone is the largest landowner in America and now owns 2.2 million acres of U.S. cropland, ranch land, and woodland, an area about three times the size of Rhode Island. Malone is worth an estimated $5 billion. "Productive land is one of the very few permanent values throughout history," Malone says.

In the Midwest, farmland prices have skyrocketed. Iowa farmland prices saw a 27% increase. Last year a farm in Iowa's Sioux County sold for a record $20,000 an acre. Malone figures that his cropland will get a 5% operating return as an investment, while his forest investments in New Hampshire and Maine should get closer to a 2% to 3% real return. Ranching, he says, gets close to zero in terms of an operating return. But it does have potential for appreciation, especially in times of inflation.

New York City's billionaire mayor Michael Bloomberg had recently bought a 33-acre estate, for $4.55 million. This is his third home in Westchester County, just north of New York City. He also has three in Manhattan, one in nearby Long Island, one in Colorado, one in Florida, one in London and one in Bermuda to where he regularly flies in his private jet.

No comments: