8

According to a Martin Thomson article at zeromillion.com:

8/10 millionaires surveyed found their wealth in Real Estate.

I can't find a reliable source for that statistic.

Oddthinking
  • 140,378
  • 46
  • 548
  • 638
Dale
  • 653
  • 4
  • 9
  • 2
    Argh! The maths in that article is all over the place. Buy 5 properties at $100K each, and then in 20 years they are all worth $500k each, (8.3% p.a. long-term capital growth for residential houses? Nice investing!). Oh wait, in the next sentence they are worth $600K each. And that's the SLOW way to invest? – Oddthinking May 21 '14 at 02:53
  • I'm guessing that we are defining a millionaire here as total assets and not just liquid ones? – rjzii May 21 '14 at 12:57
  • 13
    The claim **not** that 8 of 10 millionaires made their money in real estate. The claim is that *8 of 10 millionaires **surveyed** made their money in real estate*. These claims are worlds apart. They could have done their survey at a real estate agent convention. And if I were a betting person, I would bet they did something very much like that to get a "statistic" that favors them. – Flimzy May 21 '14 at 13:19
  • 1
    Up here, I'd say it's more likely that 8 out of 10 millionaires **spent** their fortune on real estate. There are cities up here where the cheapest houses go for $500k. – Compro01 May 21 '14 at 14:05
  • 1
    If anyone does answer this can they put in the context that 7.5 out of the 8 also lost their billions in real estate, some more than once. – matt_black Jul 16 '14 at 20:55
  • Also define "in real estate". Here in the UK there are quite a lot of "property millionaires" who don't fit the common conception of a millionaire, but who have net worth above £1 million (and obviously even more such people above $1 million equivalent) in large part due to the increase in price of the one or two properties they own. No idea what proportion of millionaires they constitute, but it affects what kind of statistic would be needed to support the claim. So the secondary claim they did not "buy the family home and toil for a lie time to pay it back" could also be questioned. – Steve Jessop Feb 20 '16 at 19:50

0 Answers0