my trusty spreadsheet<\/a> to do some \u201cMusk math\u201d to put that mountain range\u2019s worth of dollars into a language many of us speak: California homes, using some Zillow data.<\/p>\nLet\u2019s imagine that Musk had a huge interest in real estate. How far would a $1 trillion homebuying budget go for the Tesla\/Space X founder?<\/p>\n
Hypothetically, that sum buys you 1.3 million California residences in cash at the $776,000 median value as of April.<\/p>\n
Nationally, $1 trillion buys 2.7 million homes at the U.S. median price of $368,000. Only Hawaii gets a Musk-sized buyer fewer homes than California: Just 1.2 million purchases at the Aloha State\u2019s $830,000 median.<\/p>\n
After California comes Massachusetts, 1.5 million homes at\u00a0 $662,000, Washington state, 1.7 million at $604,000, and the District of Columbia, 1.7 million at $580,000.<\/p>\n
Where in America does $1 trillion buy the most homes? That\u2019s where this enormous bounty runs into a touch of real estate reality.<\/p>\n
That astonishing budget would theoretically buy you 5.7 million homes in West Virginia with its $175,000 median price. But the state has only roughly 800,000 ownership options.<\/p>\n
The same puzzle is found in Mississippi, where $1 trillion gets 5.1 million homes at its $194,000 median \u2013 but there are only 1.2 million residences. In Louisiana, it\u2019s 4.7 million at its $215,000 median, but the state has only 2 million residences. And Oklahoma\u2019s 4.5 million at $222,000 outstretches its 1.5 million residences.<\/p>\n
See a theme here? All told, $1 trillion would buy every home in 34 states. Yup, an astounding two-thirds of America.<\/p>\n
Value proposition<\/p>\n
Ponder this mind-boggling Musk math by another method, looking at Zillow\u2019s 2025 estimates of the total value of all residences in a state.<\/p>\n
If you spent $1 trillion in California, you\u2019d buy only 9% of the $10.8 trillion value of all residences. That\u2019s the smallest slice among the states.<\/p>\n
Nationally, $1 trillion gets you 2% of the $55 trillion total value of U.S. homes.<\/p>\n
After California, $1 trillion buys the least in New York, 23% of $4.3 trillion, Florida, 27% of $3.7 trillion, Texas, 30% of $3.3 trillion, New Jersey, 50% of $2 trillion, and Massachusetts, 54% of $1.9 trillion.<\/p>\n
How much is $1 trillion? That\u2019s more than the total values of all homes in all but 17 states.<\/p>\n
California dreamin\u2019<\/p>\n
Next, contemplate this ginormous nest egg with 12 zeros as a homebuying spree within the 100 metropolitan areas with the largest combined value of residences.<\/p>\n
This Musk math shows a $1 trillion budget is enough to buy every home in all but nine of the metros. Of course, three of those nine are from the Golden State.<\/p>\n
In Los Angeles and Orange counties, $1 trillion buys only 26% of the $3.9 trillion valuation \u2013 the No. 2 most valuable market in the U.S. And \u201conly\u201d is relative.<\/p>\n
In San Francisco, it\u2019s 54% of a $1.85 trillion value, the No. 3 market. Then in San Diego, it\u2019s 97% of $1.03 trillion, the No. 9 market.<\/p>\n
We\u2019ll note that San Jose is almost a budget-buster, as its $995 billion total value \u2013 No. 10 in the nation \u2013 would leave a trillionaire buyer with a mere $5 billion in change.<\/p>\n
In six other Golden State metros among the top 100, $1 trillion would easily buy every residence:<\/p>\n
\u2013 Inland Empire: All homes are worth $849 billion (No. 15), so $151 billion is left.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Sacramento: $498 billion value (No. 19), so $502 billion left.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Ventura County: $244 billion (No. 43), so $756 billion left.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Stockton: $129 billion (No. 61), with $871 billion left.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Fresno: $122 billion (No. 67), with $878 billion left.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Bakersfield: $95 billion (No. 79), with $905 billion left.<\/p>\n
Jonathan Lansner is the business columnist for the Southern California News Group. He can be reached at jlansner@scng.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There\u2019s been lots of chatter about just how much money is $1 trillion, now that Elon Musk, the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":362890,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,153135,100,5026,388],"class_list":["post-378477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-nbbj-opinion","tag-news","tag-north-bay-business-journal","tag-real-estate"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378477","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=378477"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378477\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/362890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=378477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=378477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=378477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}