Last week, Movoto asked The Koitz Group to estimate the value of the White House. The boutique real estate firm came back with a list price of somewhere between $110 and $115 million -- just for the building and its 132 rooms. This didn't include any of the mansion's 200 year history, which would make valuing the structure nearly impossible.
At somewhere between $1,364 and $1,455 per square foot, the White House would be among the most expensive homes in the United State if it were to be listed on the open market.
To put some perspective on this, for the cost of one square foot of the White House, you could purchase about 50 shares of Facebook when the social media giant finally goes public later this month. (We used a conservative $28 per share.)
What I'm trying to say, as if we didn't already know, is the White House is an extremely valuable piece of property, mostly because of its size -- 55,000 square feet -- and location in downtown Washington, D.C.
The large price tag started me thinking about the White House in terms of cost and location. What began with a comparison to the expected cost of a share of Facebook, turned into questions about the White House's cost if it were located in different parts of the country.
I asked the Movoto team to crunch numbers. The real estate brokerage came back with the the average cost per square foot of a residence in seven of the country's largest metro areas.
After some quick calculation, here is what the White House would cost if it was picked up and dropped into these major cities:
Washington $110,000,000
Houston $20,000,000
Chicago $44,000,000
Miami $39,000,000
San Francisco $147,000,000
Los Angeles $79,000,000
New York City $387,000,000
Below is the Movoto team's best guess as to how the White House would look in its new city.