I'll see if I can find the sources but I saw some comments recently that it was a sham, mostly. He did have high expenses.

Edit: Wikipedia says:

> Kamprad owned a villa in Switzerland, a large country estate in Sweden and a vineyard in Provence, France.

I can't guarantee the prices, but those things should be in the multi-million Euro range. Not quite rapper expenses, but definitely not middle class either.

Here's a picture of his villa in Switzerland: https://w.cdn-expressen.se/images/7d/e2/7de2bbfb59044fe6bfc3...

I mean it's really nice house and apparently comes with a very big garden and beautiful view of the lake, but it's hardly opulent. In a different, cheaper, part of the world a house like that would definitely be within the reach of at least someone earning a decent upper middle class salary.

edit: Here is his "large country estate" in Sweden: https://x.cdn-expressen.se/images/ae/fc/aefca41095674fdcaf01...

> In a different, cheaper, part of the world

Key words :)

Real estate is 90% "location, location, location".

Obviously. My point is that if you just saw a picture of that house your first thought wouldn't be "Wow, I bet one of the richest people in world lives there". Compare to for example this house: http://luxurylaunches.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Le-Belv... which would be expensive basically no matter where in the world you where.

And even with it's perfect location it's apparently still 'only' a ~4 million eur. house. It's not even one of the 10 most expensive houses in town. Hell there are 10 more expensive houses for sale around there on homegate.ch right now.

Well depending on the body of water it's on my first thought would probably be "which billionaire owns that"

It has a view of the lake, but isn't actually close to the lake.

Well, with lump sum taxation you pay taxes primarily based on the value of your property. So the more 'modest' your house is the less tax you pay. Of course the house, or the land more likely, was still worth $4.5 million USD when he moved.

"It's not about the money, it's about the game." -- Gordon Gekko