That, and stealing/looting/robbing weaker people. The Queen of England's ancestors are not all saints.
Do you mean, "The rich are rich because they exploit and cheat those who are financially lesser"? Please explain.
That is an interesting argument, but how many rich people ($20MM+ net worth) have you met who have decided that they don't want to make any more $? Besides that, it isn't about the write-offs. The rate on a home is much lower than most forms of financing. It's not difficult at all to beat a 5% interest rate if the capital is used in other ventures.
Those stats are likely legit, but IMO don't tell the whole story. IOW, how many of those people are simply "cutting a check" from personal savings. I would bet that very few fall into that category. I would also bet that a huge chunk of those cash sales weren't to an individual, but rather some entity that the individual owns. In those cases, the expected appreciation in addition to other tax consequences, might exceed reasonable returns from other forms of investment. Those results are also very likely to be region specific. Newport Beach is not representative of where the majority of the top 1% live.
Actually, many really rich people rent, and place the money they would have spent in the house into more profitable businesses.
All depends on your business and investments...a lot of things you could use the money to do other things and make more. But you have to spend some of it to get the things you either want or need... IMO, renting to "make more" kind of pushes things into frugality mode unless you only have at best a few mil. The ones defaulting are the faux and ones who had that few mil and thought it was plenty...and overbought still
Sounds like a Donald Trump move to me.... buying a multi-million dollar house and then defaulting on it.
All of you people who are saying "haha million dollar houses are for the uber rich" never lived in California. During the boom, that was what you paid for your next house after you sold your starter home. I lived in the Bay Area in Cali and have family in Orange County. I did refi's during the boom. It was crazy what houses were being refi'd for. It worked like this; you bought a house for $300k, and that wasn't a lot of house in a fantastic neighborhood. Five years goes by, the market heats up, your place doubles in value. You sell it for $600k, plow that into a million dollar house with an interest only or neg-am mortgage. This was exactly the case of a young couple I tried to refi. Husband was a cop, wife stayed at home with their kids. He worked 80-100 hours a week; overtime, double time, every shift he could get. Not hehe hubby makes a lot of cash income. Had W2's, tax returns, paycheck stubs all from the Orange County Sheriff's Department for about $150k. That's all it took back in the day to get a million dollar house.
Truth is, you don't know shit. The "really rich" likely spend more money in a year on jet fuel for their private jets than most of your "really rich" make in a year All you know how to do is read about supposed "Financial Secrets of billionaires" from stupid privacy websites & "Millionaire Next Door" type books for the sheeple. Every billionaire owns - directly or via offshore company - at least one multi-$M home & often many around the world. Hamptons, Manhattan, Monaco, Kensington Palace Gardens, Hong Kong etc...record reported sales...obviously someone is buying. Fact is more "ordinary" people have become millionaires from owning property than any other field. And that's essentially passive investment. So who are these "really rich people" who rent & otherwise put their money into more profitable businesses...? I guarantee they have at least 1 property.