On Wealth, Benchmarks, and the Curious Belief That Everyone Is Supposed to Want the Same Life
When Exactly Does the Next Dollar Stop Changing Anything?
Every time I write about luxury real estate, emerging wealth markets, or second-home economics, a familiar objection appears—usually dressed as moral critique but functionally identical each time:
“This is all nonsense. Most of us don’t have the money for this.”
Correct.
And most of us will never play shortstop for the Yankees either.
This Substack is not about median pricing in Memphis.
It is not about first-time homebuyer programs.
And it is not an instruction manual for how to afford a $435,000 condo.
Ryan Serhant is not posting videos about the perfectly adequate two-bedroom he just sold. He is telling you about the $210,000,000 house he claims he represented, because context matters.
30A is a luxury experience, emerging wealth market. Pretending otherwise doesn’t make it more accessible—it just makes the analysis worse.
Flexibility Is Not Where You Live. It’s How Much You Need.
Not everyone is flexible in where they live. That’s obvious.
Jobs, kids, aging parents, schools—those constraints are real for some. Others brush them aside because they want to live their lives. I mean after all one day you want to have Thanksgiving Dinner with your family right?.
Every city and every real beach town has a school. It probably has a job just like the one you have “there”.
In the United States, a significant majority of people live near where they grew up, with studies showing nearly 60% of young adults residing within 10 miles of their childhood home and 80% within 100 miles. The median distance Americans live from their hometown is approximately 30 miles. To me that is actually a sad statement. My mother never left the country. She never took a vacation that I am aware of in my lifetime with her beyond Tennessee, South Carolina, Arkansas and Michigan. Thats it. 92 years. Was she ok with it? Maybe.
I live 450 and 1850 miles from by birth home in my two countries of residence. My son lives 1300 miles from where he was born. My wife lives with me some 900 miles from where she was born. I love that we have adventure as part of our DNA.
We do not move along because of ingrained beliefs but almost everyone is flexible on one variable, even if they don’t like admitting it:
How much they require before they consider themselves “done.”
We occasionally need people like Steve Jobs—men with no internal monetary off switch—to remind us what the extreme looks like and to create the next wave on which society builds its life. We apparently also need Elon Musk, though I’m still unclear on the lesson there.
But here’s the more interesting question:
Why do we treat those people as the benchmark? I mean despite Grant Cardone asking you on YouTube if you want to be a Billionaire so he can sell you his course I have news for you. Only 800,000 people in the world have a net worth reasonably accessible excluding a primary home of over $30,000,000. Let that sink in.
If you’re 33 years old with $1,000,000 in the bank and already make $500,000 a year between you and your spouse what do you do next?
If you’re 27 years old, the youngest Senior Vice President in a major regional bank, running a $4,000,000,000 book of assets, with the equivalent of $5,000,000 already put away and two houses owned (oh yeah in 1989)—
Are you allowed to slow down?
Or do we pretend the scoreboard resets to zero every morning? Are we driven because some 35 year old is doing what we did 28 years ago and still we are tying to compete or did we already win?
I’m asking seriously?
This Is a Wealth Market. Let’s At Least Be Honest About That.
As an economist, I can tell you roughly what participation in this market requires—based not on aspiration, but on observed behavior.
Simplified, but directionally accurate:
$1,000,000 second home
~$200,000 down
~$60,000 incremental annual income above current lifestyle
$4,000,000 second home
Typically $3,000,000+ in liquid net worth, excluding primary residence
A bit of a loan
The comfort to Roll Dice a bit.
and a qualifying income approaching $756,000 per year.
$8,000,000 second home
Net worth approaching 1.5× purchase price ($12,000,000)
Less liquid, more portfolio-based, longer decision horizon
Rational understanding that the $8,000,000 home if it needs to be liquidated might only be worth $7,000,000 and you are ok with that.
In other words the ability to take a $1,000,000 loss in exchange for an invaluable experience.
This is not judgment.
This is arithmetic. It is also observation. It can be more statistically and economically demonstrated.
Still 30A is not populated primarily by the 800,000 people in the $30,000,000 “wealthy” class, though many are present. They tend to be the ones who let you know they are present too.
It is an emerging wealth market, with a substantial minority well beyond an inflection point that matters. People here currently buy at a median price point near $2,000,000. That is not trivial.
Ignoring this doesn’t make the market fairer. It just makes commentary inaccurate.
The Real Question Everyone Is Avoiding
Eventually, every serious person runs into the same uncomfortable question—usually quietly, usually late at night:
When does the next dollar stop mattering?
Not in theory.
In practice.
Not when you can buy anything.
But when buying more no longer changes your daily life.
When your risk profile stabilizes.
When your optionality plateaus. I am not likely to win the Masters at at 63. At age 12 I might have been able to set that goal.
When time, not money, becomes the scarce asset.
This is not a question about ambition.
It’s a question about enough.
Economically and rationally, as Prof G puts it best, the next dollar does not matter when your passive income is more than your required dollars to live. Wherever that is I have said it two ways to my son.
“make sure there is more water running into the tub than running out if you want to fill it” and “make sure the size of the boat you want is equal to the income you make”
No judgement. You want a bass boat great. You want a 65 foot Manhattan Sunseeker? Great. If more water is running out of the tub than running in you will never fill the tub. It is far easier to be rich than to be poor. Let that sink in. Then get your mindset right. I know people that make far less than me that are as happy or happier with their lives. I know people that make more than me that to me appear to be headed for a train wreck. And I know a few really wealthy people that like jeans and a t-shirt and a walk around town and nobody is the wiser.
Get your mindset right first on what is rich and what is not. Wealth and Money may or may not equal rich.
Why I Talk About Wealth at All
I’ve taken some heat for “wealth talk.”
That’s fine. But understand what it is and isn’t.
Money is not success, Wealth is not Intelligence. Oh we mistake it so. I mean more people probably take life advice from Taylor Swift’s instagram than ever did from Warren Buffet.
But pretending all markets are for all people is how you end up making bad decisions, resenting outcomes you never actually wanted, and benchmarking your life against people playing an entirely different game.
Final Thought (The Only One That Actually Matters)
“You cannot build sand castles on the beach with your grandbabies on a pile of Bitcoin.” -C.B.
You cannot trade an extra zero on a balance sheet for a conversation you didn’t have, a year you didn’t take off, or a life you postponed because “now isn’t the right time.”
Money buys options.
Clarity tells you which ones to ignore.
At some point—and the timing is different for everyone—the most rational economic decision is to stop optimizing and start living. Hard to do when the reference point reset of Prospect and Endowment Theories keep you on the wheel.