Inside Billionaire Larry Ellison’s HOA Feud Over His 8-Home Buying Spree
Billionaire Larry Ellison recently spent nearly $10 million on eight homes for his staff in a —but not everyone was thrilled about his buying spree.
Ellison, 82, co-founder of technology giant Oracle, purchased the properties in spring 2023 in Palm Meadows Estates, an upscale 288-home community in Boynton Beach, FL, known for its sprawling houses, manicured lawns, and lakefront views.
But the plan hit a roadblock when the neighborhood’s homeowners association adopted a new rule limiting owners to just five properties around the same time the deals were closing.
The amendment, obtained by Realtor.com®, was signed on May 30, 2023, and recorded with Palm Beach County on June 2, 2023—during the same period Ellison’s eight purchases were finalized. All eight deals were closed between May and June 2023, according to property records.
However, the amendment appears to have come too late to stop the sales from closing, and property records show that a company associated with Ellison now owns the eight homes.
All eight homes were purchased for Ellison’s household staff, which included teachers, therapists, and chefs, according to his real estate agent Kimmie Cruz, who talked to CBS12 about how some of the deals were still in the process of closing when the HOA moved to limit the number of properties a single owner could acquire.
“They tried to stop it,” Cruz said. “There were also some neighbors who felt that it was going to change the dynamic of the neighborhood.”
The amendment to the HOA rules also requires a year of ownership before a property can be rented out, according to the document obtained by Realtor.com.
Attorneys became involved in the dispute, and all eight purchases ultimately closed.
The HOA did not respond to a request for comment from Realtor.com.
The identity of the buyer initially remained a mystery, with an LLC listed as the buyer on property records.
But Cruz later learned the purchases were being made for Ellison, who has a roughly $200 billion fortune. A year earlier, he had bought a $173 million oceanfront estate in nearby Manalapan.
Cruz, a local real estate agent with LuxeIQ who lives in the community, previously that she received an urgent call in March 2023 from another real estate agent about a buyer interested in purchasing as many as 10 homes.
The agent told Cruz that it would be “worth it” to arrange the last-minute showings, she recalled. A few days later, Ellison arrived to tour the homes and that night, Cruz received the first of the signed contracts for the houses.
Cruz said the homeowners walked away with sizable profits from the sales.
“Across the homes I sold, I secured sale prices averaging 20% above market value,” she said.
One couple, Paul and Yvonne Carozza, sold their three-bedroom, roughly 2,100-square-foot home to Ellison for $1.2 million, a home they paid $567,000 for in 2019, records show.
Ellison’s purchases highlight an emerging trend among the ultrawealthy who are buying properties to house staff who manage their multimillion-dollar estates on their behalf.
Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg has been buying up a number of homes in Palo Alto, CA, to create a family compound.
Wealthy newcomers to South Florida, including billionaires, tech executives, and hedge fund managers, have poured hundreds of millions of dollars into building out new private and charter schools for their children, according to the Journal.
Some, including Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, WeWork co-founder Adam Neumann, and real estate developer Jeff Greene, have even launched schools of their own.
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