Michigan’s Richest Man is #73 on Forbes Billionaire List
While Michigan has its fair share of business titans, sports legends, and entertainment icons, there can be only one most prosperous person in the state. Thanks to Forbes, we now know that a man who practically sneezes is officially the Mitten's richest.
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So, who is this modern-day Midas? He's likely the mastermind behind your mortgage and a dealer in sneakerheads. He is Daniel Gilbert, cofounder of Quicken Loans, and his story of being a pizza delivery guy to a mortgage industry titan is as impressive as his estimated net worth.
Dan Gilbert is Michigan's Richest Man and One of Detroit's Biggest Investors
So, who is this Michigan man with the Midas Touch? Let's start with Gilbert's first step into the business world: co-founding Quicken Loans in 1985 at 22 with $5,000 he'd earned from selling pizza in college. Fast-forward to 1999, when he sold Quicken to Intuit for a paltry $532 million, only to buy it back three years later for just $64 million.
Now Quicken stands as the Godzilla of lenders, chucking out mortgages like it's Halloween candy, $320 billion worth, to be exact. How much of that is part of Gilbert's net worth?
Forbes estimates Gilberts's value at $28.1 billion (as of the time this article was published). Not all of that is from mortgages, though. He co-founded StockX, an online sneaker retailer, and owns the NBA's Clevland Cavaliers.
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Say what you will about Gilbert, but the guy believes in Detroit. He's invested $5.6 billion in freshening up downtown. His plan? To create 24,000 new jobs in Motown. Dan Gilbert is Michigan's money-making maestro, and with his net worth, he's certainly enjoying the high life in the Great Lakes State.
LOOK: States with the most people earning $1 million or more
Gallery Credit: Elisa Fernández-Arias
Michigan's 35 Most In Demand Housing Markets
- Demand score: The demand score represents an area's page viewers per property compared to other areas (X/out of 100).
- Median days on the market: The median number of days property listings spend on the market in that location.
- To create the index, the above metrics were considered — both of which were weighted with a score of 50. The final score was then given out of 100 - the higher the number, the more in-demand the location
Gallery Credit: Scott Clow
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