What does wealth mean in San Antonio? (Houston, Dallas: 2014, home sales)

[jmw56]

Just curious- What does wealth mean in San Antonio? Certainly the billionaires are wealthy, but what does your net worth have to be to be considered rich?

[Pancho-Villa]

Wealth in SA is if you have enough to pay for your 2 breakfast tacos tomorrow morning.

[TiredandRetired]

Most of the Wealthy here are Wealthy wannabe's from other regions who move here because it is cheaper to live. Red Mcombs and Tom Benson are possibly the only exceptions.

[txtea]

Seems like most of the "wealthy" people here, are in debt up to their eyeballs, so they can maintain the "image" of being wealthy. Not impressed.

[WilGar]

Originally Posted by TiredandRetired

Most of the Wealthy here are Wealthy wannabe's from other regions who move here because it is cheaper to live. Red Mcombs and Tom Benson are possibly the only exceptions.

Add Charles Butt

[Neshomamench]

There are 7 Billionaires

If we assume the San Antonio Metro area has a similar number of millionaire housholds as the the Texas average (between 4 and 5% depending on what math you look at) There are going to be about 100,000 millionaire households in greater San Antonio. That seems reasonable. While that is not quite "rich" (even if it is in most peoples eyes) given the somewhat low cost of living in the San Antonio area, such households are living well.

If we look at what is called an "ultra high net worth" person. (30 million or more) these are people living the what most consider "rich." Private Jet travel, multiple homes, exotic cars.... There are about 6500 such people in Texas, that would put the number of such people in the San Antonio metro area at about 600. (That actually makes perfect sense because I have seen an actual statistic that puts the number of such people in Austin at 800, which would have more, even though the population is a little smaller for the metro)


So, to answer your question, in the San Antonio metro area:

There are around 600 people that are rock star/movie star rich (and some much much more) and about 100,000 households who are doctor/successful small business owner rich.

[elnina]

Over the past 30 years, San Antonio, Houston and Dallas have grown into the most economically segregated cities in the country. Now San Antonio has the highest level of income segregation.
People making $100+ live north of loop 1604. (census 2010)

Spoiler

The million dollar+ housing market, less than 1% of the San Antonio-area home sales, is on the rise.
Here are the wealthiest of six San Antonians:
The billionaires - grocery magnate Charles Butt and his family have surpassed the $9.8 billion mark in holdings and remain — by a long shot — the wealthiest of six San Antonio billionaires on Forbes magazine's listing of the world's billionaires for 2014.
Natural-gas driller Rodney Lewis, 60, is the second-richest San Antonian, with a net worth of $2.6 billion.
And "Red" McCombs, 86, is ranked third with $2 billion.

Tom Benson, 86, owner of the NFL's New Orleans Saints; Silver Ventures owner Christopher "Kit" Goldsbury, 71;
Kinetic Concepts Inc. founder James Leininger, 68; and Graham Weston, Rackspace Hosting Inc.'s co-founder, chairman and CEO fall below the $1 billion mark.

Wealthy Mexicans moved to the San Antonio area, where they gather in deluxe communities designed with safety in mind. These are the 1% ultra rich (nicknamed "migrantes fresas"), with private jets, who generally like to flaunt their wealth when they feel comfortable in doing so. Settling in San Antonio with private jets and Porsches, their influence has been compared to that of well-heeled Cubans who took refuge in Miami decades ago.
They meet on the north side of town, at Cielito Lindo Restaurant, or at new neighboring country clubs. Their wives frequent Neiman Marcus, Tiffany’s and Brooks Brothers at the nearby mall. Their children park Porsches with Mexican license plates in the student lots at Reagan High School.
They have poured into developments with names like the Dominion, Stone Oak and Sonterra turning an upscale enclave known as "Sonterrey" or "Little Monterrey" into the city's second-fastest growing ZIP code.

Wealthy people in San Antonio and its surrounding areas live among other wealthy people. They have very little understanding of the real-life problems faced by the poor, or what it means to be poor.

[Rustybolt]

Originally Posted by jmw56

Just curious- What does wealth mean in San Antonio? Certainly the billionaires are wealthy, but what does your net worth have to be to be considered rich?

Your question is a good one in that it seems to defy a precise definition. As to what people in San Antonio consider to be wealthy, I would say it is the same as beauty...it is in the eye of the beholder.

[Neshomamench]

Originally Posted by elnina

Wealthy Mexicans moved to the San Antonio area, where they gather in deluxe communities designed with safety in mind. These are the 1% ultra rich (nicknamed "migrantes fresas"), with private jets, who generally like to flaunt their wealth when they feel comfortable in doing so. Settling in San Antonio with private jets and Porsches, their influence has been compared to that of well-heeled Cubans who took refuge in Miami decades ago.

This is very bad math. Almost all the people in the 1% can NOT afford private jets. To make it into the 1% requires an income of about 400,000 dollars. Or about what some top specialist doctors make. You can not afford a private jet on that income and you really cant afford to use them either.

Private Jet use does not generally become something people can afford until the 2 million a year mark or beyond and a much higher number for it to make sense for you to own your own.

My point is the term 1% gets tossed around a lot, but your surgeon in the 1% cant come close to affording the things the .1 (point 1) can afford.

Yeah, a top doctor or the guy who owns a nice small business makes a fine living. He might even have a million dollar home and a real nice car, but there is a lot of things those kind of people can not afford.

That is why the concept of an ultra high net worth person (as I used in a previous post) is so important. It draws that line between "a well to do person" and a person that is actually rich and does not have much in the way of restriction on the things he can afford.

[Neshomamench]

Originally Posted by elnina

Wealthy people in San Antonio and its surrounding areas live among other wealthy people. They have very little understanding of the real-life problems faced by the poor, or what it means to be poor.

Less than 1/3 of the very wealthy inherited their wealth. That means, for most of them, their entire lives, up until they became wealthy, they were not wealthy. Not all of them were poor, but some were.

I would also ask, a man who made his money honestly, though doing all the right things, working his butt off and creating new things, what does that man owe to someone else? Poor or otherwise?