The ultrawealthy are buying nearby homes to keep staff close—and Larry Ellison and Mark Zuckerberg are two examples

For some of the world’s richest people, buying a mansion is the first in a string of many purchases.

They then start buying homes nearby—not to live in themselves, but to keep their household staff close by.

Oracle cofounder Larry Ellison, who is worth $195 billion , is one example.

In 2023 he paid nearly $10 million for homes in a small gated community in Boynton Beach, Fla., to house members of his family’s staff, including tutors for the five children he shares with Jolin Ellison, his sixth wife, the Wall Street Journal reported , citing people familiar with the situation.

The community sits roughly 30 minutes from the Manalapan, Fla., estate on the ocean he’d purchased a year earlier for $173 million.

At the time, it was the most expensive residential property ever to change hands in Florida, according to local outlet Palm Beach Daily News .

The ultrawealthy are increasingly buying up homes for the people who work for them while they build out their own property holdings, the Journal reported .

The arrangement keeps employees “close enough to be helpful,” while still giving the family its privacy, according to the Journal , which also reported that the world’s eighth-richest man bought eight homes in Florida’s Palm Meadows Estates.

An Ellison-linked LLC with a California address made those purchases, according to the Journal.

The LLC structure behind Ellison’s purchases also fits a broader “stealth wealth” shift in real estate planning for rich buyers.

A growing class of ultrawealthy buyers, particularly tech and AI executives, are routing home purchases through LLCs, privacy trusts, and off-market “whisper” listings to stay anonymous.

Ken DeLeon, founder of Palo Alto–based DeLeon Realty, previously told Fortune his wealthiest clients structure LLCs so that even someone digging through ownership records “still cannot easily connect the property back to the principal owner.” Overall, Ellison has invested at least an estimated cumulative $450 million in real estate in Manalapan, a 400-resident island town about 20 minutes from Mar-a-Lago.

The surrounding area has also become increasingly popular among billionaires , and in nearby Palm Beach, security has become part of the draw .

“What used to be a temporary inconvenience has now become part of the infrastructure of doing business here,” Palm Beach–based luxury agent Jessica Julian previously told Fortune .