‘Stealth wealth’ is reshaping luxury real estate: How the ultrarich buy multimillion-dollar mansions off the books

For the ultrawealthy, it used to largely be the case that they wanted their flashy home purchases and sales to be made very public: Think drone shots, a glossy listing, and a splashy press release naming the owner and buyer.

All of that served as a way to show off and solidify their wealth.

But now the upper echelons of the housing market want to be much more private, and a lot of it has to do with privacy being the new sought-after luxury .

A growing class of ultrawealthy buyers, particularly tech and AI executives who have moved to Silicon Valley, are deliberately routing their home purchases through limited liability companies, privacy trusts, and so-called “whisper” listings that never touch the multiple listing service.

Their end goal isn’t getting the best deal they can possibly get: It’s more about maintaining anonymity and thinning their paper trails to ensure security.

This new phenomenon is called stealth wealth buying, Ken DeLeon, founder of Palo Alto, Calif.-based DeLeon Realty , told Fortune earlier this year.

The shift started about three years ago, said DeLeon, who is one of Silicon Valley’s top-producing luxury brokers and was once ranked the nation’s No.

1 real estate agent by the Wall Street Journal and RealTrends.That was when the market capitalization of tech companies began to grow again, and more wealthy people began flooding Silicon Valley.

Photo courtesy DeLeon Realty “Increased wealth brought about greater security concerns and a stronger desire for privacy,” he said.

“Over the last year, AI has driven some of the greatest wealth creation Silicon Valley has seen in 25 years, while also becoming an increasingly controversial topic.

As a result, the desire for privacy has grown even stronger.” Meanwhile, home prices in Silicon Valley have continued to rise.

Atherton posted a median sale price of $8.33 million in 2025, a 5% gain from the previous year and a new high for the longtime Bay Area billionaire enclave, according to PropertyShark .

The town’s top deal of the year was a $51.5 million sale of a 10,000-square-foot estate once owned by tech executive and multimillionaire Stephen Luczo, and it traded off-market , Palo Alto Online reported.

That detail is key: For the buyers behind these transactions, exposure about their home transactions is more of a liability than a flex.