Following on from yesterday where I looked at the top 10 cities for investors, I thought I might have a look at where I should make my next move, should the desire to country-hop take hold of me. The obvious list of choices was of course the top 3 cities occupied by billionaires. Where else would I feel at home? Looking at where billionaires choose to call home is interesting. Some are of course tied to their home countries, but others have sought real estate away from their native shores.
The number of billionaires this year has slipped in line with the economic downturn, which isn't all that surprising. I wonder how hard it is to cope with slipping from billionaire status to plain old millionaire status? Also not surprising is that a couple of the cities people should be investing in also house some fairly affluent people, number one of which is New York, a city home to more billionaires than any other in the world.
New York actually lost the title to Moscow last year, but has regained its status despite losing more than a fifth of its billionaires. The city now houses 55 billionaires within its borders as opposed to last year's 71. Moscow is still home to Russia's richest man, metals mogul Mikhail Prokhorov, who is worth $9.5 billion but this city lost two-thirds of it's loaded population and only has 27 billionaires in its midst.
London also remains in favour with the richest of the rich and continues to attract wealthy folk from other countries, like Indian citizen and steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal, Russian oil and chemicals tycoon Leonard Blavatnik and Dutch Heineken heiress Charlene de Carvalho-Heineken. In total London houses 28 billionaires.
So, if you want to choose real estate like a billionaire, investing in one of these three cities is possibly a good place to start.