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A 27-acre estate in Palm Beach, Florida, used to be a neighborhood. Citadel CEO Ken Griffin spent more than $450 million (1) buying this estate from his neighbors.
Brokers call it “landmaxxing”, and it means buying the homes and lots around your own until the address becomes a compound. Coldwell Banker put the term at the top of its (2)2026 midyear luxury report (2),
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On July 15, the hosts of Fox Business’ (3)The Big Money Show (3) argued on air about whether it counts as greed. Greedy or not, the buying is happening. Some of the biggest fortunes in America are moving into land, and the people who happen to own property nearby could score a big payday.
Here’s who’s buying, why now — and what it means for the rest of us.
Billionaires are buying the block, not the house
Coldwell Banker’s report found would-be buyers circling high-end U.S. homes at twice last year’s rate between January and May. Buildable-land searches jumped 97% from a year earlier. And the hunt for one-of-a-kind properties — private islands, estates and historic homes — grew fastest of all, up 146%.
Jeff Bezos has spent (1) more than $230 million on homes in Indian Creek Village, the gated Miami island that residents call the “Billionaire Bunker.” WeatherTech founder David MacNeil has gone back for the lot next door three times in Manalapan, Florida — spending more than $230 million so far. In June, he and Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison went halves on a $67 million parcel that developer Stewart Satter owned, each folding their share into the compound they already had next door.
Griffin’s 27 acres alone cost him over $450 million, according to WSJ. (4)The Real Deal (4), which has tracked his deals for years, puts his running total between Miami and Palm Beach at more than $1 billion.
The pattern runs inland too, as Dace Stubbs, a member of the family behind Jack Daniel’s, bought a 14.3-acre Colorado ranch for $3 million. Then he spent $1.2 million more on the 40 acres around it so nothing could ever block the mountain view, the WSJ reported (1).
The truth is buying out the neighbors isn’t particularly new. Mark Zuckerberg bought the four houses around his home in Palo Alto, California, for (5)more than $30 million (5) in 2013 and let the same families stay on as his tenants. Ellison maneuvered in Carbon Beach in Malibu, California, the same way, and the WSJ says he’s still at it today, in Malibu, Incline Village, Nevada and Manalapan.
What has changed this year is the volume.
Privacy, staff quarters and an inflation hedge
The extra land mostly earns its keep, WSJ found: staff housing, gardens, garages and docks. Coldwell Banker’s report lists two more reasons: preserving views and making room for several generations of one family. And it keeps strangers from living within sight of the main house.
“For some people, it is privacy and security,” Danny Hertzberg, a Coldwell Banker agent in Miami, told WSJ. For others, he said, the lot next door is just a safe place to put money.
Waterfront in Palm Beach or on Indian Creek can’t be manufactured, and every lot a compound swallows leaves fewer for sale. For a buyer worried about what inflation does to cash, that scarcity is the whole point — the same logic behind real estate’s reputation as an inflation hedge.
What it means for everyone else
The clearest winners so far are the people who already live next door. One example from WSJ’s story is home builder Pedro Adrian who had stitched two Palm Island parcels in Miami Beach into a single lot and put up a house of roughly 11,600 square feet. When the double lot sold for $40 million, it went to venture capitalist Benjamin Ling — Adrian’s neighbor.
One of Zuckerberg’s Palo Alto neighbors (5)told CNBC (5) in 2013 that the Facebook founder handed over more than $14 million for a house they reckoned was a $4 million property until Zuckerberg showed up.
Chad Carroll, a Compass agent in Miami who handled that sale, also told WSJ (6) many of his richest buyers now come asking for 200 to 300 feet of waterfront — and assembling several lots is usually the only way to find that much. “This wasn’t a topic of conversation five years ago,” he said.
Each home folded into a compound comes off the market in places where supply was already thin. Luxury inventory fell over the past year, according to Coldwell Banker. The compounds themselves are hard to resell, too. There are only so many people who can buy a 27-acre, $450 million property.
For ordinary Americans, the thing worth noticing is where America’s wealthy are putting their money: land they can see from the kitchen window.
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Article Sources
We rely only on vetted sources and credible third-party reporting. For details, see our ethics and guidelines.
The Wall Street Journal (1); PR Newswire (2); Fox Business (3); The Real Deal (4); CNBC (5); MSN (6)
This article provides information only and should not be construed as advice. It is provided without warranty of any kind.
