• Roy E. Carroll has built a $2.9 billion fortune largely made up of real estate and apartment construction
• Coming up from a humble background, Carroll today is one of the biggest landowners in the United States of America.
• Mr Carroll is also very big on philanthropy and supports a lot of non-profit causes.

Roy E. Carroll II is one of the largest landowners in the United States and amassed a large fortune from real estate investments and construction.

As the founder and chairman of The Carroll Companies, Carroll is an accomplished businessman and successful real estate developer with a portfolio across commercial, residential and industrial properties, worth an estimated $2.9 billion, according to Forbes.

The struggles of growing up too early

Roy was born in 1962 in the city of Greensboro to working-class parents. When his father was laid off from a grocery store job, things became tight for the family, and he felt the need to do more to support himself and the family.

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While in Guilford High School, and at 16 years old, he worked multiple jobs including a school bus driver, lawn mower at a golf course and then grocery store attendant. Even when he got admission to study at Emmanuel College in Georgia, he kept returning home every weekend to work and fund his studies.

When studying in Georgia was becoming too expensive for the family, Roy returned home to study at the University of North Carolina in his hometown. He later dropped out of college to focus on obtaining a real estate broker's license instead.

Interest in real estate and construction

Roy's interest in real estate started with the close relationship he shared with his father. After his father was laid off from his job, a family friend hired him to build a house. Roy who was then in college joined his father in the project. After class, he would come around to help hammer nails and sweep the floors.

After the success of the project, other friends hired them to build theirs too, and then the father-son duo decided to establish a company and went on to build about six homes annually through the 1980s. Roy's father supervised and managed the crews on the site, while he handled billing and office duties.

The duo was able to build faster, giving more value to their clients because they did not make use of bank financing for land. As a result, their impressive reputation which included efficiency and quality was reinforced.

Because of his vision to scale up the business to entirely new subdivisions, Roy bought out his father's 50% stake and has remained without a partner ever since.

Roy Carroll's success story

Roy E. Carroll, II has successfully led the development and involvement of an impressive real estate portfolio including residential, commercial and industrial properties.

By the mid-1990s, Roy founded Carroll Investment Properties, expanding into commercial land and property development. He then established Capstone Management Company and CIP Construction Company to manage apartment communities and multifamily development. Over the years, the company has constructed and owns more than 15,000 apartments and sold more than 2,000 homes.

He also founded Bee Safe Storage sites that took off during the pandemic as Americans stockpiled more stuff. The firm now has 29 locations spread out across five states - South Carolina, Florida, Tennessee, Virginia, Texas and North Carolina.

In 2013 Carroll acquired the Greensboro newspaper, Rhino Times. The weekly newspaper known for its anti-government venting was going through a crisis at the time. His involvement in the newspaper is limited to suggestions of story ideas and paying bills.

Roy Carroll the philanthropist

Roy E. Carroll is an active philanthropist. Apart from his commitment to his businesses, he supports a number of civic endeavours to which he donates large sums of money annually.

One of them is the “Building an End to Diabetes” program. The program has delivered over $600,000 in proceeds in three years to fund the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. He also supports the Samaritan’s Purse and organizations bringing water purification technology to Third World countries.

In addition, he also serves on several civic and non-profit boards. He is married to his wife, Vanessa, and they both have three daughters.

Elon Musk loses position to Bernard Arnault on list of World's Richest People in 2023

French billionaire Bernard Arnault remains the richest man in the world in 2023 with a net worth of $209.3 billion. This is according to the recently released Forbes list of the World's Richest People in 2023.

It would be recalled that in the last few months of 2022, Arnault who is the CEO of LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton overtook Tesla and Twitter CEO, Elon Musk who was number one for a long time. Musk's wealth in recent months has dropped to $146 billion from a net worth of $300 billion.

Other billionaires on the list as of Saturday, January 14, 2023, include Gautam Adani ($128.3 billion), Jeff Bezos ($121.3 billion) and Larry Ellison ($110.4 billion).

Source: Legit.ng