Valuetainment - March 05, 2026


“California’s Socialist Confiscation” - Billionaires FLOCK To Florida As Wealth Wars Escalate


Episode Stats

Length

9 minutes

Words per Minute

211.11893

Word Count

2,100

Sentence Count

186

Hate Speech Sentences

1


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Miami Heat. Why does this matter? Okay, this is not a sports podcast, but the Miami Heat's phones
00:00:05.300 are ringing off the hook as California billionaires look to drop nine figures on homes
00:00:11.480 in the 305. And we're seeing the wealth tax conversation that is taking place. So
00:00:18.240 Sadie Abunza Delgado has sold luxury real estate in South Florida for over three decades,
00:00:25.700 typically to doctors or family business owners, ready to spend as much as $8 million on a home
00:00:30.980 in the Miami area. Almost overnight that change, her phone started ringing with billionaires,
00:00:34.960 titans of tech and finance looking to drop nine figures on waterfront properties. I got a
00:00:41.180 flurry of requests and inquiries. Delgado has landed two billionaire clients recently,
00:00:46.820 told Business Insider, had a lot of Zoom calls with people coming in January after the holidays,
00:00:51.400 while the Florida migration among everyday people may have cooled following a pandemic
00:00:56.800 era boom, billionaires are fueling the spree of massive purchases. They are largely looking to
00:01:02.820 avoid a property California wealth tax, which Delgado said led to the busiest January she's ever
00:01:09.320 experienced. Three other agents told Business Insider that inquiries picked up at the end of 2025
00:01:13.820 and into 2026. We know Mark Zuckerberg just bought a $170 million home. If you want to pull that up,
00:01:20.300 Rob, I think if I'm not mistaken, there is a Ken Griffin that's building a billion dollar home
00:01:27.020 in compound in Palm Beach, and it's going to be the most expensive private residence in America
00:01:32.820 with what he's building. And then you got Sergey Brin and... Citadel's building a massive building
00:01:38.940 in Miami. Yeah. And by the way, Palantir also announced that they're moving to Miami as well. So
00:01:44.400 Jeff, what are your thoughts on this story here? Can we stop calling it a tax? It's not a tax,
00:01:48.820 it's confiscation. You know, what they're proposing. California. Thank you. It's not a
00:01:53.640 tax. It's not. It is not a tax. Whatever you think about billionaires, and we should not be
00:01:58.600 demonizing billionaires, whatever you think about billionaires, it's inherently unfair. And I'm going
00:02:02.240 to use the word, it's un-American. You don't confiscate somebody's wealth just because they're
00:02:05.640 wealthy. So you can understand why they're fleeing California and other places, not just California,
00:02:10.520 Illinois. That's where Citadel was. They're in Chicago. Correct. So they're fleeing these blue
00:02:16.740 states. And somebody who's done that before, I mean, I used to live in upstate New York. I moved
00:02:20.440 to Florida for basically the same reasons, certainly not on that level. But you can understand where
00:02:25.680 they're coming from because it's not a tax. It's not a matter of policy disagreements. It's a matter of
00:02:30.880 philosophical disagreements. The government in California philosophically has shifted.
00:02:36.160 It shifted to the point that it demonizes success. It demonizes people who are able to create wealth,
00:02:43.780 essentially, which is what an economy actually needs, is wealth creation. It's no longer just
00:02:48.780 about, hey, we need to raise some revenue for the government. There's a different element to it.
00:02:54.140 And I think finally, some of these people who may have supported that in the past have realized that
00:02:59.180 the worm has changed here. And this is something completely different. This is categorically
00:03:04.300 different. This is not a tax. This is something completely different. Yeah. Yeah. I love the
00:03:09.380 word. It is confiscation. It's confiscation. It's not what you earned. It's what you have.
00:03:13.860 There's a big difference. You have a big year. You earn a lot. You pay taxes on that. We have a tax
00:03:18.240 code. It's progressive. The higher it goes, the higher it goes. And all of a sudden, you hit a million
00:03:23.520 dollars. And every dollar above that is 39 percent of the federal government. And plus whatever is in your
00:03:29.620 state. This is, I don't like what you have after you've paid your taxes. And people need to think
00:03:35.140 about it that way. That's so-called billionaire tax is confiscation after they have paid taxes,
00:03:41.900 after they have paid it. So the only thing is jealousy. Oh, well, they've made too much. You want
00:03:47.340 to take it? Or it's socialist confiscation. There's another word here, attraction, you know,
00:03:53.100 and leadership. So attraction and leadership go hand in hand together in Florida. Attraction.
00:03:59.860 Francis Suarez has probably one of the most economically changing tweets in American history.
00:04:06.040 Wouldn't you say, Pat? How can I help? Yeah. And all of a sudden, there's a crypto conference in
00:04:11.320 Miami and people realizing, wow, this is what you have to offer. Traffic's not perfect. Things aren't
00:04:17.000 perfect. But you know what? You offer no income taxes. You offer a lot of other things.
00:04:21.720 And Francis Suarez worked to cultivate that. So it was attraction and leadership. Then look what
00:04:28.080 DeSantis did leading during COVID. So now Florida is attractive to people. And somehow that's a bad
00:04:33.720 thing. And now you're shocked that millionaires are coming down here to buy, millionaires and
00:04:40.340 billionaires are coming down to buy incredible places in an incredible state. It's a law of attraction
00:04:45.880 and leadership set it up. Yeah. And so I, but please, please correct all your friends.
00:04:52.040 Mark, you're the only one that lives in California. I'm the only one that lives in California. So tell us
00:04:55.380 what's going on. You know, I would say to the point that you both made, it's absolutely right. And I just
00:04:59.280 want to hit on that point. It's confiscation of property. But I think there's a big misconception by
00:05:03.160 the public to how billionaires hold their wealth, because what it's really doing is it's forced
00:05:07.860 liquidation of assets. And so when you look at, you know, a Jeff Bezos or an Elon Musk,
00:05:12.640 you know, they don't just have billions of dollars of cashing in a bank that they can just like cut a
00:05:17.540 check for. They have it in their stock of their company. Paper. And so, yeah, but not just paper
00:05:22.380 in ownership. And so what they're really being forced to do is they're being forced to give up
00:05:27.520 ownership of their company. And then that ownership is going to go to who? And so then that ownership
00:05:32.040 gets democratized or it goes to people who don't know how to run or, or manage that ownership of
00:05:37.720 those properties. So I think that's a, that's a really big problem. To your point though, Pat,
00:05:41.240 yeah, billionaires are leaving. Friends of mine that are not billionaires, but even millionaires
00:05:46.040 make, make millions per year. They're leaving right now as well. And the reason why is because
00:05:49.840 it's very easy for the state of California to just turn a dial and bring it down to lower income
00:05:55.160 people without even having to go back through another vote. And so I think that's really bad.
00:05:58.780 And the last thing I'd say is kind of to the point that you said about attracting people.
00:06:01.980 It's a carrot or a stick, right? We look at Dubai. I went to Dubai for the first time two years
00:06:06.420 ago and I was blown away coming from California, like how nice the streets were and how new the
00:06:10.640 buildings were. And they've done that by attracting talent, by giving you a good business climate,
00:06:15.520 low taxes, things like that. Things like, things like Florida has done. And so it's catastrophic.
00:06:22.080 Florida's lucky, I guess, New York and California are pushing the best of the best to them.
00:06:26.340 But I want to say this to some of you guys that are buyers of big homes. You'll manek me and you'll
00:06:30.700 say, Pat, I'm looking at a $12 million home in Boca. I'm looking at a $22 million home in
00:06:35.200 Manalapan. If you're a bigger buyer, just keep this part of mind, a tip for you. When you're
00:06:40.680 negotiating commissions, it is a different conversation to have versus, well, listen,
00:06:45.740 I normally charge five and six, but for you, because we really like you, four and 5%. No,
00:06:50.760 no. The way you negotiate, if you're buying a house that's above 10 million or above 20 million or
00:06:56.240 above a hundred million, whatever the number may be, is you say, look, I don't know. Let's just say
00:07:00.320 you want to buy a $50 million house. Don't negotiate rate because 4% on 50 million is what?
00:07:06.840 $2 million commission. Rather say, I don't know how big of a house I'm buying. Are you
00:07:11.400 willing to work with a flat fee of a half a million dollars? They don't like that. So
00:07:15.680 remember the difference. You know how big of a house you want to buy. Don't tell them
00:07:19.140 how big of a house you want to buy. Say I'm talking to a handful of different realtors and
00:07:23.000 have a very simple agreement. If you're open to it, you help me find a property. It's a half
00:07:27.020 a million dollar flat fee. So this is not a $700,000 house where it's five or 6% or
00:07:31.500 million, $8 house. That's four and a half, 5%. No. Talk about a flat fee. And some of
00:07:37.500 these guys will agree. Some of them won't agree. Some of them will agree to be able to
00:07:41.560 say, I sold the house to Sergey Brin. I sold the house. So if you're somebody that's in
00:07:47.080 that market. So the only question. And if you are Sergey Brin, don't let him trade on
00:07:52.000 your name. You need privacy. Would you like me to bring the U-Haul? Yeah. I'm thankful
00:07:59.100 for Pat giving us some free consulting here because now I know I have to negotiate my
00:08:02.980 deal. No, but in all honesty, I mean, I grew up there and I love it there. And like my lifestyle
00:08:07.160 is built there. But my daughter, my youngest daughter is going to graduate high school
00:08:10.680 in a year. And there's a good chance we're probably going to move our tax residence. I
00:08:13.720 have a ranch in Texas. I got a beautiful house in Mexico. Like I could just move my tax
00:08:17.680 residence and there's probably a pretty good chance I might do that. And I don't want to.
00:08:21.320 What are you looking at in Texas? Well, I have a ranch property in Dripping Springs
00:08:25.180 outside of Austin. It's beautiful. Like I said, I have my house in Mexico that we could
00:08:29.420 just go live at on the beach down there. You have choices. You make the right decisions
00:08:32.340 where you and your family have a choice on what to do with that. And I don't want to.
00:08:34.920 And I'm willing to pay a premium. I'm willing to pay a premium to stay there. I don't eat
00:08:39.260 at McDonald's going back to McDonald's. I don't eat at McDonald's. I'd rather go get a
00:08:41.800 steak. So I'm willing to pay a premium to live there, but there's only so much
00:08:45.420 for premium to get your wealth. Give me a flipping break. See, you shouldn't lose a person
00:08:48.040 like this. This is a good citizen, good for society, family. Why not keep them
00:08:52.740 instead of pushing them to a different place? Well, if you, if you think about
00:08:56.080 Florida as one of your options, let us know. I have a realtor that charges 7%,
00:09:00.440 but it'll be a deal for you. It's only 6%. Hey, by the way, for those guys that are
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