The Rich Have No Home
April 25th, 2010
The rootless world of the super-rich: Interesting article about how the really rich live these days.
Once upon a time, the rich were rooted. They had big estates in the country. They were chairmen of local charities; they hosted the summer fête. Today, they are rootless – international nomads forever in search of fertile ground in which to sow the seeds of another bumper financial harvest.
[…] "That’s one of the problems we have," says Trevor Abrahmsohn, head of Glentree International, a firm of estate agents that specialises in upscale houses in the area. "For a lot of people, this is their third or fourth home and sometimes they lose interest. They can’t be bothered to live here and they can’t be bothered to sell."
A commenter in the Reddit thread made a really interesting point:
The article is about how wealth used to be land-based — and, basically, hereditary — and is now pretty much free of geographical basis.
It’s an interesting concept – wealth is no longer tied to land. Land no longer confers status, and is no longer the preferred investment to tie capital up in.