Millions of people use Facebook every day without giving any thought to the fact that thereâs a company out there making money off all those Likes and Shares and whatnot. Not just some money, either, but a lot of money. In fact, Facebook just announced earlier this month that it made $1.46 billion last quarter and has a cold $11 billion in assets without counting its various properties and equipment therein.
That figure got us thinking: What could Facebook buy with all that money? You know, if it didnât have shareholders to answer to. Since we focus on real estate here at Movoto, we specifically wondered what properties the company would be able to snatch up with its billions.
The answer was… pretty astonishing.
All That and a Bag of (Very Expensive) Chips
If Facebook were to spend $11 billion of its assets to buy property, it would be able to afford everything you see here:
Photo: Benh Lieu Song
- One World Trade Center (Freedom Tower) ($3.8 billion)
- Burj Khalifa (worldâs tallest building) ($1.5 billion)
- Buckingham Palace ($1.5 billion)
- Antilia (worldâs most expensive home) ($1 billion)
- Willis (Sears) Tower ($835 million)
- Eiffel Tower ($830 million)
- Sydney Opera House ($550 million)
- The White House ($110 million)
- Space Needle ($79 million)
- Empire State Building ($57.5 million)
These alone would cost $10.26 billion, which is still short of the $11 billion total. So, we added these celebrity homes:
- Bill Gates ($148 million)
- Oprah Winfrey ($90 million)
- Madonna ($32.5 million)
- Seinfeld ($32 million)
- Will Smith ($20 million)
- Angelina Jolie & Brad Pitt ($15 million)
- Rihanna ($12 million)
- Kim Kardashian & Kanye West ($11 million)
- Christina Aguilera ($10 million)
- Justin Bieber ($6.5 million)
All of those combined total $377 million, or a mere 1/29th of Facebookâs assets. Still, thatâs enough to get our grand total up to $10.63 billion.
We know what youâre thinking because weâre thinking it too: thatâs crazy.
Whatâs crazier is that Facebook isnât even that large in the grand scheme of things. In fact, itâs ranked in the 400s on the Fortune 500 list. We canât even begin to imagine what Exxon Mobil, which placed first on the list in 2012, could buy with all its dough. (Some conspiracy theorists would argue that theyâve already bought… the government!)
Now that weâd figured out all the crazy stuff Facebook could buy, we decided to make it personal (but still crazy).
Facebook Could Buy a City
Burbank, CA. Photo: Nopira
For most people, itâs hard to comprehend buying something on the scale of the Empire State Building or Buckingham Palaceâor even a celebrity fortress like the ones above. But a regular house? Thatâs within reason. Thatâs something a lot of people can identify with.
The average price of a home in America as of the 2010 Census was $272,900. Given that number, Facebookâwith its far-above-average amount of assets afford the American Dream many thousands of times over. 40,307 to be exact.
Thatâs right: Facebook could afford to buy more than 40,000 single-family homes. If we look at the latest U.S. Census data, which shows that the average number of people per home in America is 2.6, that means Facebook could afford enough housing for 104,798 people, or slightly more than the number of residents in Burbank, California. Thatâs right: Facebook could totally buy a city, and it would be Burbank, CA.
Looking at it from another perspective, Facebook could buy houses for all 11,984 homeless families in New York City and still have $7.7 billion in assets. Talk about the most amazing PR move in history. Then again, the story would be shared so many times it would probably crash the entire social network.
It Could Even Buy the… Unbuyable
Just for fun, we figured weâd take a look at all of the fictionalâor pricelessâproperties weâve valued to date here on the blog to see just how many of them Facebook could buy. As it turns out, the company could snap them all up… with money to spare. Weâre talking about:
- The White House ($110 million)
- Barbieâs Dream House ($18,000)
- Wayne Manor ($32 million)
- Clue Mansion ($4.45 million)
- 123 Sesame Street ($614,460)
- Bowserâs Castle ($455,000)
- Mister Rogersâ House ($46,000)
- Addamâs Family House ($3.2 million)
- Munsters House ($1.17 million)
- Bag End ($1.33 million)
- Santaâs House ($536,000)
- A Christmas Story House ($53,000)
- Downton Abbey ($400 million)
- The TARDIS ($2.58 billion)
- Fawlty Towers ($9.94 million)
- Hogwarts ($204 million)
- Howlâs Moving Castle ($5.1 million)
The grand total for all this comes to $3,352,192,460âleaving Facebook with a cool $7.6 billion in assets, even if it bought every single one.
So, the next time youâre sharing yet another photo of your kid in a slightly different pose or that latest video of Maru climbing into a box, just take a second to think: Youâre making Facebook rich. Not just rich, but stupid rich. Not quite âbuy the whole worldâ rich, but at this rate that might not be too far off. How would you âLikeâ that?
