While some of the planet's richest people were born into fabulous wealth and privilege, others had far more humble beginnings. With this in mind, we reveal the properties where 10 big-name billionaires spent their formative years. From Kim Kardashian's Beverly Hills manse and Elon Musk's Pretoria pad to Jeff Bezos' grandfather's ranch in Texas, click or scroll to look back at where it all began...

Tyler Perry overcame a tough, troubled childhood to excel as an actor, director, producer and screenwriter. Now worth a billion dollars, the multitalented creator of the Madea movie franchise came into the world on 13 September 1969 and grew up in a compact two-bedroom, one-bathroom Victorian shotgun house in New Orleans' Faubourg Delassize neighbourhood.

Subjected to an extremely difficult childhood and growing up in poverty, the Hollywood mogul would use his imagination to escape the trauma of his early life, providing the foundation for many of the characters that would go on to make him a billionaire. 

These days, the shotgun house is bright and airy, with towering ceilings and elegant fixtures – no doubt a sight different from the living spaces Tyler grew up in. The home remained in the Perry family until 2013 when it was sold for just under $150,000 (£106k).

The new owner went all out restoring and remodelling the property, adding an extra bedroom and bathroom at the back of the house, along with a swish new kitchen, but was careful to keep the original features. These include the ornate fireplaces and original hardwood flooring, not to mention retaining the two front bedrooms.

The house also has a nice-sized backyard. The neighbourhood of Faubourg Delassize has undergone gentrification in recent years, and many of the crumbling shotgun houses it is celebrated for have been renovated. Needless to say, home prices have risen accordingly, and the dinky property on Baronne Street sold in 2019 for $345,000 (£245k), though it was initially listed for $559,000 (£396k).

As childhoods go, Kim Kardashian's was nothing short of idyllic. Born on 21 October 1980, the reality star – who is worth a cool billion dollars –  was raised in a dreamy six-bedroom, eight-bathroom mansion on Tower Lane, an ultra-exclusive private cul-de-sac in the heart of Beverly Hills. 

Pictured here (left) with older sister Kourtney, Kim's luxurious childhood home boasted everything from tennis courts to a duck-shaped pool and a matching Jacuzzi in the form of an egg.

Together with big sister, Kourtney and younger siblings Khloé and Rob, Kim was spoiled rotten by her parents Robert and Kris Kardashian, who lavished their kids with pretty much anything they wanted. Sadly, Kim's world came crashing down and her charmed fairytale existence ended abruptly in 1989 when Kris had an affair with soccer player Todd Waterman, prompting Robert to file for divorce.

Kim moved away with her mother and siblings but visited on a regular basis until her dad put the 6,527-square-foot property on the market in 1994. It ended up selling for $2.2 million (£1.6m). These interior pics were taken that same year, after the manse was given a makeover that removed Kris' "ridiculous wallpaper and kitchen set” and other OTT 1980s touches.

Fast-forward to 5 November 2019 and Kim surprised 'momager' Kris on her 64th birthday with a trip down memory lane by hiring out the beloved house for an intimate lunch, even going as far as recreating the infamous wallpaper on the table settings and renting out every single car her parents owned. Kris has described the home as “her heart” and misses living there to this day.

America's only billionaire president, Donald Trump, whose fortune is currently estimated at $2.4 billion (£1.7bn), lived in this picture-perfect Mock Tudor cottage for the first four years of his life. The house was built in 1940 by the future POTUS' real estate developer father Fred and is located in the upscale Jamaica Estates section of New York's Queens borough.

Born on 14 June 1946, young Trump's formative years were spent in this characterful home. Measuring 2,500 square feet, the cottage he first called home would've given Donald a comfortable start to life.

The brick, stucco and half-timbered house has a total of five bathrooms and four-and-a-half bathrooms, a capacious living and dining room, as well as a library. The house was last sold in 2017 for the inflated price of $2.1 million (£1.5m), the then-owner clearly capitalising on Trump's fame, having bought the property a year earlier for $1.4 million (£1m).

While Trump apparently thought about acquiring the house, it was supposedly snagged by a mystery Chinese investor. The house was then listed on Airbnb several months after it sold in 2017, priced at $727 (£515) a night. Yet according to the New York Times there appeared to be few takers as the house seemed empty most of the time.

Despite its connection to one of the most infamous family dynasties in the world, the current owner is having a hard time offloading the property. After attempting to sell it at auction last August, the owner started a GoFundMe to raise $3 million (£2.1m) from Trump fans to buy the house as a gift for the one-term POTUS, but to date has managed to raise just $7,038 (£5k).

Born on 18 July 1950 into a well-heeled family, Virgin boss Richard Branson was nonetheless avidly entrepreneurial from the get-go. He came up with many of his early money-making schemes at his later childhood home, the characterful red-brick four-bedroom, four-bathroom Tanyards Farm, which nestles on 1.4 acres in the Surrey village of Shamley Green.

The British business magnate, who is now worth $5.1 billion (£3.6bn) and counts his own private Necker Island amongst his assets, moved into the Grade II-listed house in 1963 together with his parents, Eve and Ted, and siblings. 

Among the schemes he concocted in the 17th-century property was a Christmas tree-growing business. After rabbits devoured the seedlings and tanked the scheme, the ever-resourceful teenager shot the offending bunnies and sold the meat to a local butcher.

The Virgin founder went on to launch a budgie-breeding enterprise from the farmhouse, which also failed, and the family narrowly avoided losing the property in 1971. According to the Evening Standard, it had to be remortgaged to settle an $85,000 (£60k) fine the young businessman incurred after he was caught selling export-only records, evading tax in the process. 

Fortunately, Virgin signed Mike Oldfield not long after and the rookie entrepreneur made his first million pounds in 1973 off the back of the massive success of the Tubular Bells LP, saving his parent's property, and then some. Listed last November for $5.6 million (£4m), the property, which impresses with stunning original features, a bespoke kitchen and a conservatory is now on for $4.9 million (£3.5m).

Investing legend Warren Buffett was born on 30 August 1930 and spent the first few years of his life in this one-and-a-half storey Craftsman-style bungalow on Barker Avenue in Omaha, Nebraska, the city he has called home ever since.

His parents, future Congressman Howard and Leila Buffett had purchased the home not long after their wedding in 1925. Like many Midwestern homes of the era, the cute clapboard property was built using a Sears home kit.

The Buffett family soon moved on to a larger property, but the Berkshire Hathaway chairman and CEO has never been one for extravagance and excess, and despite being worth a whopping $108.1 billion (£76.6m), currently lives in a relatively modest home more or less a mile away.

Still, the bijou Craftsman is as basic as they come, though it isn't without its charms. Featuring just two bedrooms and one bathroom, the house has a 400-square-foot dormer room that could be converted into a master suite, as well as a kitchen, living and dining room and unfinished fruit cellar.

The house was put up for sale by its then-owner Jennifer Smedley in 2011 on eBay of all places with an asking price of $120,000 (£85k). Billed as the perfect place for a Berkshire Hathaway shareholder to stay during the conglomerate's famed annual meeting in Omaha, it eventually sold for $150,000 (£106k), the price no doubt boosted by its connection to the city's richest denizen.

Like Warren Buffett, Mark Zuckerberg is a man of humble tastes, a virtue he shares with his parents Edward and Karen. Born on 14 May 1984, the Facebook co-founder, chairman and CEO grew up in this fairly ordinary mid-century property in Dobbs Ferry, a sleepy town in Westchester County, New York.

Given the incredible fortune their son would go on to make, which Forbes estimates at $120.1 billion (£85.1bn), the Zuckerbergs could have easily retired and decamped to a lavish mansion, but the couple still live in the Dobbs Ferry home.

Dentist Edward maintains his practice there – the office is attached to the property – though these days he has a business that helps other dentists use social media and new technology to their best advantage.

In fact, if it wasn't for Edward's keenest to embrace emerging technologies, it's unlikely son Mark would have ever had the know-how to get Facebook off the ground. An early adopter of painless, drill-free dentistry back in the 1980s, the Zuckerberg patriarch was also well ahead of the game in terms of the internet.

Back in 1996 when the technology was in its infancy, he had high-speed internet installed in his home and adjacent business, which would have been key to nurturing his son's expertise in the field, and was even a fan of social media well before Facebook came into existence.

Born on 28 October 1955, Bill Gates, who is now worth $126.8 billion (£89.9bn), spent much of his childhood in this gorgeous mid-century property in the tranquil Laurelhurst neighbourhood of Seattle. Built in 1964, it was snapped up a year later by the Microsoft co-founder's father Bill Sr, who lived in the four-bedroom, five-bathroom property until his death last September at the ripe old age of 94.

Interestingly, the family's previous home in the Sand Point neighbourhood was severely damaged by the area's first recorded tornado, which struck in 1962 when Bill Jr was seven years old.

Several members of the extended Gates family ended up moving to Laurelhurst and there's even road there named after Bill Jr's mother Mary, who passed away in 1994. From the outside, the mid-century property offers a stunning first impression, with a large gable window and balconies encircling the first floor.

The 3,860-square-foot home was put on the market in early June with an asking price of $2.6 million (£1.8m) and an offer is pending at the time of writing. Along with the breathtaking lake and mountain vistas it provides, the property has a whole host of highlights, including this stunning living room, complete with a large feature window and brick fireplace.

Other standout features of the property range from a family room with floor-to-ceiling windows that flood the space with light, to a snug den, chef's kitchen and master bedroom that leads out to a spacious terrace. There's also plenty of additional outside space and even a court for playing pickleball, which has long been one of Bill Jr's favourite sports and top ways to unwind.

Elon Musk arrived on Planet Earth on 28 June 1971 and spent his formative years in the upscale suburb of Waterkloof in Pretoria, South Africa. The family comfortably resided in one of the neighbourhood's biggest homes.

Elon was born into a reasonably well-off family – his engineer father Errol is said to have part-owned an emerald mine in Zambia (though Elon denies this), while his mother Maye worked as a model and dietician.

A super-bright kid, the co-founder of PayPal, Tesla and SpaceX badgered his father for a computer at the age of six or seven and swiftly taught himself how to program it. He is pictured here in the garden of the Pretoria home sometime in the 1970s with his mother Maye and younger siblings Kimbal and Tosca.

This snap from the family album also shows the three siblings in the garden, where they no doubt spent many happy times. Incidentally, all three kids have done exceptionally well. Kimbal is a chef and restaurateur, who has an estimated fortune of $500 million (£354m), while Tosca is an acclaimed filmmaker.

Another shot from Maye's collection shows the children on their way to school. Musk was bullied relentlessly and even had a two-week spell in hospital after he was thrown down a flight of stairs by a group of boys. He's certainly had the last laugh. At the time of writing, the genius entrepreneur and visionary is worth a very satisfying $153.2 billion (£108.6bn).

Jeff Bezos was born on 12 January 1964 in Albuquerque to Jacklyn Gise and Ted Jørgensen, who were aged just 17 and 19 respectively. They divorced not long after and in 1968 Jacklyn married Cuban immigrant Miguel Bezos, who adopted young Jeff that same year.

The Bezos family moved around a lot during the future Amazon founder's childhood, but spent many a summer at Jeff's maternal grandfather's ranch outside Cotulla in Texas.

Jeff actually spent more than a dozen summers working on his grandpop Lawrence Preston Gise's Lazy Gise Ranch ( called 'Lazy G' for short), which sprawls over 250,000 acres. The internet entrepreneur credits the time he spent with his grandfather on the ranch for making him self-reliant and resourceful.

Speaking at an event in India last year, the centibillionaire told the audience that this self-reliance, which involved everything from erecting fences and fixing windmills to suturing livestock and even building a whole home from scratch, made a big impression on him and taught him a plethora of valuable life lessons.

This time spent toiling away on the ranch certainly stood him in good stead. His belief that “constraints breed resourcefulness, self-sufficiency and invention", picked up from those working summers is written into Amazon's DNA, and was instrumental in making the site a huge success and its founder a huge fortune, which currently stands at a staggering $193.4 billion (£137.1bn).

This charming clapboard cottage was a childhood home of Oscar-winning filmmaker Steven Spielberg. Born on 18 December 1946, Steven moved to the property at the age of five when his family snapped it up for a mere $14,000 (£9.9k) in 1952.

Pictured on the right in this childhood photograph, young Steven stayed in the New Jersey home for five years before the family relocated to Arizona. While his time at the property was brief, Spielberg has said that his passion for filmmaking was sparked when he saw the 1952 film The Greatest Show on Earth at a local movie theatre.

Built in 1949, the three-bedroom, two-bathroom colonial-style home in the township of Haddonfield is modest but comfortable. Just a 20-minute drive from the bustling heart of Philadelphia, it would've offered the Spielberg family an idyllic slice of suburbia.

The 1,452-square-foot residence accommodated Steven, his parents, Leah and Arnold, along with his younger sisters, Anne and Sue – the youngest of the brood, Nancy, arrived in 1956 while the family were still living in New Jersey. The property was last on the market in 2014, when it sold for a reasonable $249,000 (£178k).

Among Steven's first forays into filmmaking was the Second World War short film Escape to Nowhere, which he wrote and directed at the age of just 14, four years after the Spielbergs swapped Haddonfield for Phoenix, Arizona. With no end of acclaimed blockbusters under his belt, from Jaws, Jurassic Park and Indiana Jones, to Saving Private Ryan and Schindler's List, it's no surprise that he has a net worth of $3.7 billion (£2.6bn), according to the latest figures from Forbes.

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