Bitcoin billionaire Michael Saylor says buying a home should not be viewed as a first-choice investment by people who want to grow their wealth.   

In an interview with Steven Bartlett on The Diary of a CEO podcast this week, Saylor said commercial property provided a better opportunity to grow wealth. 

Saylor has previously claimed people should mortgage their home to buy bitcoin, even though cryptocurrency can be a highly volatile and risky investment.   

Saylor said to Bartlett: 'One acre of land in Miami Beach on the water cost $10,000 about 100 years ago. 

'I know this because I have a house on the water and I have the deed of sale and it was about two acres and it was $20,000. 

'The entire house cost $100,000 and it's about $20,000 worth of land. Today, one acre of land on the same spot on the water, $10million, maybe $20million.'

He said that in cash terms $10,000 in 1926 would be worth $100,000 now, but the Miami Beach house would now be worth between $50million to $100million. 

Saylor said that to 'preserve wealth', people needed to acquire 'scarce desirable property'. 

Options included, he said, commercial real estate,  a private company, collectibles or buying a public company via stocks. 

The billionaire outlined why he believed people should not buy a house as a first choice investment, particularly in Florida.

He said: 'Because there's a 2 per cent property tax on houses in Florida, which means that if you buy a house, you pay 2 per cent of the value every year. 

'Two per cent means that every 36 years you actually pay the cost of the house in tax to the government. 

'Not a very good store of value because you're taking on a massive tax load and you're taking on a maintenance load.

'But having said it, it's still a better deal than just holding cash in a bank or holding cash in a safe.'

Saylor said the opportunities for wealth growth commercial property provided were a 'bit better'. 

In Saylor's view, with commercial real estate, you can offset the tax, the insurance, and the maintenance cost with rental costs. 

He said: 'So what really works out with commercial real estate most of the time is you buy a million dollars of commercial real estate, you have a bunch of fees, you charge rent, the rent offsets the maintenance cost. 

'You don't really make any money on the rent, but the underlying million dollars appreciates seven per cent a year every year. 

'And so you actually can build wealth with commercial real estate if you can just cover the maintenance expenses.'

Bartlett said that most people's plan to generate wealth centred on getting a job and securing a mortgage to buy a house.

When asked by Bartlett whether getting a mortgage and buying a house was a good way to get wealthy, Saylor said: 'The only way that it's a good strategy is if you're buying the house in a jurisdiction where the property taxes are manageable, then yeah, you can generate some wealth. 

'But if I flip that and you end up taking a 7 per cent mortgage and you get massive tax and massive insurance expenses, then that same investment works out the other way and it crushes you to death.'

He added 'So a better idea generally is commercial real estate, if you actually have the business acumen to get into the commercial real estate business, because you can pass all the expenses through to your tenants.'

Saylor, who told Bartlett he made $15billion by using artificial intelligence in 2025, said he favoured bitcoin as buying it did not require people to be a real estate or tax expert. 

Elsewhere in the podcast, Saylor said that the US dollar had lost 7 per cent of its value every year for a century and that cash savings and bonds were making many people poorer. 

Saylor owns and runs a business called Strategy, previously called MicroStrategy. He led the company's pivot from a software firm to a bitcoin buying business. Saylor has claimed he would never sell his own bitcoin. 

Owners of tens of thousands of properties in England valued at more than £2million are set to be hit with a surcharge of at least £2,500 from 2028, in what has been dubbed a mansion tax.  

The annual charge will come on top of existing council tax, and will rise depending on the price of a property, with four separate bands.

The lowest band will cover properties valued between £2million and £2.5million, while the highest charge of £7,500 will fall on homes valued at £5million or more. The majority of homes affected will be in London.

The Office for Budget Responsibility previously said it expected the measure to raise approximately £400million a year by 2029-2030.