3 hours ago
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I don’t particularly enjoy analysing the habits of the ultra-rich. I would be happier if I didn’t have to think about them at all – and I apologise for making you do so – but in my defence, this is fascinating: a feature in the Financial Times reveals some have started selling up and living in motorhomes.
Obviously, they’re ultra-luxurious motorhomes. The owner of a private equity firm interviewed has a 30-tonne behemoth with air conditioning and high-speed internet, a kitchen, dining room, two bathrooms, a “spacious master bedroom” and “a range of modern hi-tech appliances”. Which, yes, sounds plusher than my in-laws’ caravan, but it’s still a massive shed on wheels. And you’ll never guess how much they cost: “around $2.7m” (£2m), apparently. Imagine the bricks-and-mortar house you could get for that – that private equity chap sold both of his – and you wouldn’t have to empty a toilet tank. (Maybe they outsource that somehow, but still.)
Weirder still, for long periods these wheeled vehicles and their occupants don’t move, despite that being, you’d think, the whole point. Instead, they park up – and imagine parking something 13 metres long, the horror – in places called things like Motorcoach Country Club but which sound like gussied-up trailer parks. Owners buy permanent plots with, the FT explains, “pools, covered patios, barbecue areas, fire pits, and small homes with living rooms and bedrooms”. So, hang on – you buy a giant, more-than-million-pound motorhome, then you don’t live in it, instead hanging out in a sort of small chalet structure with a view of your massive truck? I nearly lost my mind after I spent three days in Center Parcs; these plutocrats are spending months in the equivalent voluntarily, when they could be jetting off to some White Lotus-style resort to have their every whim indulged, or being heli-dropped at the top of a mountain to protect their peace.
It’s like a perverse reversal of Nomadland, the book and subsequent film that explored the lives of struggling Americans living peripatetically in vans from necessity after the 2008 recession. Are rich people so tired of luxury they’re doing this just to feel something? Is it a Common People socioeconomic tourism thing: if you called your real-estate broker, he could stop it all?
Initially I was, at most, mildly entertained by this – it’s just a microtrend, albeit a baffling one that seems to confirm my conviction that wealth is wasted on the wealthy. But then I read something else about ultra-high-net-worthers: they’ve started renting rather than buying property, with the number doing so tripling between 2019 and 2023 in the US, according to the New York Times. Something similar is happening in the UK, with high-end properties being rented and tenants potentially buying later once they’ve tested the water. The founder of the private car hire company Addison Lee, Sir John Griffin, has apparently put his place on the rental market for £75,000 a month.
At those kinds of prices, I’m sure none of them are dealing with black mould or unfairly retained deposits, but it’s still unexpected. I can’t imagine preferring transience and uncertainty over permanence. So why? As a real-estate broker told the New York Times, they’re “choosing flexibility and liquidity over ownership. They don’t want to be bothered with the inconveniences of home ownership, which includes paying real-estate taxes and insurance, especially in markets like Florida and California, where we’re seeing a lot of natural catastrophes.” “Flexibility is the name of the game in today’s market,” the Times confirms.
And, huh – perhaps that’s the explanation? In a world that feels dangerous and unpredictable, increasingly prey to “natural catastrophes” (and unnatural ones), the ultra-rich are learning from their hedge-funder friends and they’re hedging. They’re prepping for any eventuality, but with a luxe 30-tonne RV rather than a government-recommended grab bag. Maybe that’s the most important thing money can buy these days: the ability to get the hell out of Dodge at a moment’s notice.
