Primary Homes: Where Five Democratic Front-runners Head After the Campaign Trail

The front-runners for the democratic presidential nomination may disagree on health care and tuition-free college, but they share one thing in common: a good nose for real estate.

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The former mayor of South Bend is more than three decades younger than his leading rivals. His real-estate portfolio is also the most modest. Mr. Buttigieg paid $125,000 for his South Bend home in 2009, according to records. The then 27-year-old appears to have gotten a good deal, as the prior owner had been foreclosed on and Mr. Buttigieg bought the house directly from the bank. The home had been sitting vacant for sometime beforehand, according to his spokesman. Zillow estimates the home’s current value at about $230,000, almost twice the median home price in South Bend but still far less than the area’s priciest homes, which can top $1 million. The property is in a historic district along the St. Joseph River, designated in 1978, according to the Historic Preservation Commission of South Bend and St. Joseph County.

A self-described democratic socialist, Sen. Bernie Sanders owns three homes: two in his home state of Vermont and another in Washington, D.C. The addition of a lake home in 2016 attracted some criticism that Mr. Sanders’s lifestyle doesn’t reflect his rhetoric. Mr. Sanders and his wife Jane O’Meara Sanders bought their primary Burlington home for $405,000 in 2009 and obtained a $324,000 mortgage from Congressional FCU, the credit union, records show. The property, which is a roughly 3-mile drive from Burlington City Hall, has four bedrooms and spans about 2,352 square feet, according to Zillow, which estimates its value at about $439,000. Other homes in the neighborhood have recently sold for between $300,000 and $500,000, according to the listings site. The home is in a quiet area off Ethan Allen Park, a woodland area with views of Lake Champlain and the Adirondacks from a 40-foot stone observation tower. In Washington, D.C., the couple owns a roughly 900-square-foot townhouse dating to the late 1800s just off Stanton Park and close to the U.S. Capitol. They bought it for roughly $489,000 in 2007, records show. Similarly sized homes in the area have more recently traded for as much as $800,000. Zillow values the property at about $685,000. In 2016, shortly before the publication of Mr. Sanders’s bestselling book “Our Revolution,” the couple bought an island retreat property in North Hero, Vt., for $575,000, records show. It originally listed for $775,000.

Elizabeth Warren, a fervent advocate of data privacy, appears to be the only presidential candidate who has opted to have her house blurred out on Google Maps streetview feature. (Google allows users to submit a request to have a home, a car or themselves blurred for privacy.) Sen. Warren and her husband, Harvard law professor Bruce H. Mann, bought their Cambridge, Mass., distinctive blue Mansard Victorian of nearly 4,000 square feet for $447,000 in 1995, records show. Since then, prices in the neighborhood have soared, thanks to low inventory, according to Gail Roberts, a local agent, who noted that Sen. Warren’s house appears to be beautifully maintained. While Zillow estimates its value at $3.14 million, local agents estimated that it could trade for around $4 million. “In Cambridge, it’s the kind of house people go crazy for,” said Lauren Holleran of Gibson Sotheby’s International Realty. The senator and her husband also own a two-bedroom condo in Washington, D.C., which they bought for $740,000 in 2013. The two-bedroom, roughly 1,400-square-foot apartment is located in the Penn Quarter area in the east end of downtown D.C. Zillow now estimates its value at about $915,000.

Former Vice President Joe Biden, once one of the poorest members of the U.S. Senate and at one point a self-described “Middle Class Joe,” has made millions since leaving office from book deals and speaking fees. That wealth growth is reflected in his real-estate choices. His primary home is in Wilmington, Del., in a tony neighborhood called Greenville. Local agent Stephen Mottola of Long & Foster Real Estate said the area is one of the most expensive in the state and is known as “château country,” thanks in large part to a group of large Colonial estates built by the wealthy du Pont family. Vice President Biden’s is one of a handful of homes that overlook a man-made lake built by the du Ponts, Mr. Mottola said. A few years ago, Mr. Mottola sold the neighboring property, a former du Pont home that required a gut renovation, for $2.2 million. He said he wasn’t sure of the exact value of the Biden home but that it would likely “have a 2 in front of it.” Mr. Biden and his wife Jill Biden bought the site for $350,000 in 1997, records show, and built the home. The Bidens also own a vacation home in Rehoboth Beach, Del., which they purchased for $2.74 million in 2017. The three-story indigo blue property is on the edge of Cape Henlopen State Park, a quiet stretch of beach known as a fishing and hiking spot. It had six bedrooms, three indoor fireplaces, outdoor showers and a doggy-wash station, according to the listing.

Of the democratic front-runners, billionaire and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has the most valuable real-estate portfolio by far. It includes several homes on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, several properties in New York state, a townhouse in London, a waterfront estate in Bermuda, a condo in Vail, Colo., a house in the Hamptons and a horse farm in Wellington, Fla. His ownership of many of these properties was made public as part of financial disclosures during Mr. Bloomberg’s tenure as mayor, and is also confirmed through public records.


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