Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s nine-bedroom mansion in the exclusive neighbourhood of Montecito, California, has tripled in value just nine months after they bought it for £10million.
Last year, the royal couple bought their nine-bedroom, 16-bathroom mansion with the help of a $9.6million mortgage.
The property market in Montecito has gone ‘crazy’ since the summer according to a local estate agent, meaning Harry and Meghan’s home could have tripled in value.
It cost the pair $14.65million (around £10million) but could now be worth as much as £30million, prompting Sandy Stahl, an agent with Sotheby’s International Realty, to say Harry and Meghan’s move was ‘really smart’, the Times reported.
Estate agent Randy Solakian knows Harry and Meghan’s home well because he represented the couple who built it when they sold it to previous owner Sergey Grishin, a Russian businessman.
As well as its nine bedrooms, the home boasts a gym, spa, cinema, separate guesthouse, tennis court, and swimming pool.
Highlighting how the home had possibly tripled in value, Solakian told The Times: ‘It would have been really ugly if they’d paid $40 million [£30 million] for it, which is what it’s probably worth, but I would say they got a bargain’.
And fellow estate agent Stahl told the newspaper that while the explosion in the Montecito property market was not due to Harry and Meghan’s arrival, she said they made a ‘smart move’.
She claimed the home would sell for ‘at least double’ what they paid and noted how a home near to Harry and Meghan was on the market for $21million and was not ‘nearly as nice’.
That home reportedly formerly belonged to actor Rob Lowe. It has seven bedrooms, 13 bathrooms, a pool and a separate guesthouse.
The Duke of Sussex said in his bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey that his family ‘literally cut me off financially’ after he and his wife Meghan Markle opted to move to the US.
But the couple last year signed lucrative deals with Netflix and Spotify, thought to be worth £71million and £18million respectively.
And Harry, 36, and his brother William inherited £21million from their mother Diana. The money was held in trust until they turned 25.
Harry also received a smaller figure from the Queen Mother’s will after she died in 2002, putting his total inheritance assets at around £23million, the Times estimates.
He and Meghan were said to be seeking a contract worth £71million when they signed their deal to make series’, films and TV shows with Netflix last year.
They also have clinched a deal with Spotify to make podcasts under the banner of their Archewell foundation. It is said to be worth £18million.
Harry and Meghan’s Archewell foundation was set up last year with the expectation it would champion issues the couple have previously focused on, including racial justice, gender equity, climate change and mental health.
Their first Spotify podcast, which saw Archie make his broadcast debut, was published last December.
That same month, Meghan, 39, announced she had invested in firm Clevr Blends, which makes instant oat milk lattes.
Meghan’s overall net worth is said to be around £4million. When, as an actress, she starred in US drama Suits, she was paid £2million over six years.
The duchess also cashed in six-figure amounts for film roles and she owns a property in Toronto.
So when accounting for their assets and lucrative deals, Harry and Meghan’s net worth is thought to be around £96 million.
In their bombshell interview with Oprah, Harry and Meghan touched on their new life in California, with the Duchess saying the move was ‘greater than any fairytale you’ve ever read’.
She said she and Harry wanted to ‘live authentically’ and get back ‘down to basics’ as she showed off the hens which the couple rescued from a factory farm.
Despite the growth in their wealth, Harry and Meghan’s fortune still pales in comparison to one of their neighbours – Miss Winfrey herself, who lives a five-minute drive away.
She bought the first 42 acres of her estate for $50million in 2001 and is believed to have a net worth of $2.7billion (£1.94billion).
And fellow neighbour Ellen DeGeneres is thought to be worth around $340million (£244million).
However, Harry and Meghan are reportedly rarely seen in Montecito. The only place they have been seen together is in Lucky’s, a steakhouse.
Asked about his money-spinning partnerships with the likes of Netflix and Spotify, Harry told Miss Winfrey they were ‘never part of the plan’ but were suggested by a ‘friend’ when they were worried about financial issues.
He insisted: ‘My family literally cut me off financially and I had to afford security for us.
‘But I’ve got what my mum left me and, without that, we would not have been able to do this.’
He added of Diana: ‘I think she saw it coming. And I certainly felt her presence throughout the whole process.’
However, informed sources say Harry received a lump sum from his father Prince Charles in late March 2020 after he and Meghan announced their decision to step aside from their roles as working royals.
The source told the Daily Mail that the sum was ‘many hundreds of thousands of pounds’.
This was intended to be money to last them for the year ahead’ until they ‘sorted themselves out’, the source added.
The couple are said to have been told there would be more resources available if they needed them in the next financial year.
However, Harry and Meghan’s decision to buy their enormous home means they need to earn more.
On this point, an aide told the Daily Mail: ‘No one told Harry he had to spend £11 million on a mansion with 16 bathrooms. That was his choice.’
The most explosive claims in their interview with Miss Winfrey was the allegation that at least on member of the Royal Family had expressed concern about ‘how dark’ their unborn baby’s skin might be.
Harry and Meghan refused to say which family member made the remark but they later clarified to Miss Winfrey that it was not the Queen or the Duke of Edinburgh who made the comment.
Meghan also revealed she had had suicidal thoughts and said: ‘I just didn’t want to be alive any more.’
She said she begged for help, and asked to go somewhere to get help, and approached one of the most senior people in the institution, but was told it would not look good.
The duchess said: ‘I said that I needed to go somewhere to get help. I said that I’ve never felt this way before and I need to go somewhere. And I was told that I couldn’t, that it wouldn’t be good for the institution.’
Meghan also suggested she and Harry wanted Archie to be a prince so he would have security and be protected.
The duchess expressed her shock at ‘the idea of our son not being safe’, and the idea of the first member of colour in this family, not being titled in the same way as other grandchildren.
Archie, who is seventh in line to the throne, is not entitled to be an HRH or a prince due to rules set out more than 100 years ago by King George V.
He will be entitled to be an HRH or a prince when the Prince of Wales accedes to the throne.
As the first born son of a duke, Archie could have become Earl of Dumbarton – one of Harry’s subsidiary titles – or have been Lord Archie Mountbatten-Windsor, instead at the time of his birth, a royal source said Harry and Meghan had decided he should a regular Master Archie Mountbatten-Windsor.
It comes as the Queen and Prince Charles this week backed Prince William after he insisted the royals were ‘very much not a racist family’.
William on Thursday became the first senior Windsor to address directly the string of allegations made by Harry and Meghan in their explosive Oprah interview.
Buckingham Palace and Clarence House, the official homes of the Queen and the Prince of Wales, were both said to be supportive of William’s solo intervention.
The prince was speaking as he and his wife Kate visited a school in east London to support a youth mental health support service.
Aides had initially insisted the couple would not answer questions about the interview because it would ‘not be appropriate’ in a school setting.
His firm rebuttal came after Buckingham Palace issued a statement on Tuesday on behalf of the Queen expressing the family’s sadness at learning the ‘full extent of how challenging the last few years have been for Harry and Meghan’.
The statement said the issues they raised, particularly that of race, were very ‘concerning’.
But it made clear that the Queen and other senior royals were keen to stand their ground, adding: ‘While some recollections may vary, they are taken very seriously and will be addressed by the family privately.’
