The richest real estate billionaires in America 2023

High interest rates and work-from-home policies may have taken a toll on commercial real estate, but America's wealthiest property owners are richer than last year.

America's city centers are struggling with vacant office buildings and closed retail stores, driving down property values in cities across the country. But not everyone suffers. In fact, the richest real estate owners in the nation have gotten even richer compared to 2022.

The Forbes 400 list for 2023 features 25 billionaires whose fortunes are largely dependent on real estate. These real estate titans are valued at a combined $139 billion, about $5 billion more than the fortunes of the 24 billionaires in real estate in 2022.

Despite the pessimistic sentiment in the office sector, apartment rentals are still a hot commodity, with rents up nearly 3% over the past year. One of the two newcomers on the list who made their money in real estate, Los Angeles developer Jeffrey Palmer, derives his fortune mostly from residential real estate in Los Angeles. Another newcomer, Annette Lerner, inherited the fortune of her late husband Ted Lerner (died February 2023), mostly consisting of apartments in the Washington, D.C., area.

Another winner is industrial real estate, boosted by the pandemic e-commerce boom. It's been a boon for billionaires with warehouses and logistics properties, such as Edward Roski Jr, a Los Angeles developer whose fortune has increased by $1 billion over the past year to an estimated $7.4 billion.

It's been a tough time for some U.S. real estate titans, however.

New York compatriots Charles Cohen and Jerry Speier, who own several office towers in Manhattan, lost fortunes worth $700 million and $500 million, respectively. America's second richest real estate owner - Stephen Ross, founder of Related Companies, which built the Hudson Yards complex in New York City - has become the biggest loser in real estate over the past year. His fortune is down by an estimated $1.5 billion.

While Ross's fortune declined, it turned out to be a good year for Donald Bren of Orange County, California. He remains the richest real estate billionaire in the U.S., and his fortune is now estimated at $18 billion, up $0.6 billion from 2022.

The biggest winner was Ty Warner, creator of the Beanie Babies plush toys of the '90s, but most of his fortune is tied up in real estate - thanks to the rising prices of luxury hotels and golf courses, including his Sandpiper Club in Santa Barbara. Warner's fortune is estimated at $5.7 billion.

Two real estate billionaires also returned to the list this year: Donald Horton returned after a year-long absence, as shares of his publicly traded construction company D.H. Horton is up 64% over the past year, and George Argiro, a southern California developer who founded the real estate firm Arnel in 1968, is back after leaving the list in 2020 thanks to rising retail and residential real estate prices in the Golden State.