Zuckerberg Buys Up Neighbors' Homes for $30M

One perk of being a multibillionare: You can buy privacy—and buy your neighbors out of their homes. That's what Mark Zuckerberg has done, spending $30 million on four houses next to his own Palo Alto abode, the San Jose Mercury News reports. He doesn't have any crazy plans for the properties though—he won't, for example, be building a $60,000 greenhouse to match the one at his San Francisco mansion. Instead, the billionaire will lease the homes back to the families who already live there. The plan came about after he learned a developer was interested in buying up a nearby property and marketing it with a "be Zuckerberg's neighbor" pitch. (Click to see the swanky housing complex being developed for Facebook employees.)