Barack & Michelle Obama Live A Wildly Lavish Life

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Barack and Michelle Obama's life in retirement certainly hasn't been boring or low-key. Ever since moving out of the White House in January 2017, the former president and first lady have maintained a luxurious lifestyle. They've filled their time with extravagant trips to Italy, French Polynesia, and billionaire Richard Branson's private island.In fact, vacation time was even the reason Michelle skipped Jimmy Carter's 2025 funeral. Barack's multifaceted career is the reason he and Michelle can live an uber-comfortable life. Their net worth is estimated to be around $135 million, according to International Business Times. It's a far cry from their $1.3 million net worth when Barack first stepped into office in 2008.

Their public influence has led to quite a few lucrative projects for the couple. In 2017, the Obamas partnered with Penguin Random House on a book deal that Financial Times reported was worth more than $65 million. The record-breaking contract led to Michelle's 2021 memoir "Becoming," as well as Barack's 2024 best-seller, "A Promise Land." They even influenced Netflix to drop a pretty penny on their family. A 2018 multiyear production agreement with Barack and Michelle is estimated to have cost the streaming giant tens of millions of dollars, according to The Hollywood Reporter, who based the assumption on other partnerships at the time, like Netflix's $300 million deal with Ryan Murphy. Clearly the retirees aren't just spending their afternoons at the country club, like most affluent post-career folk. And as it turns out, their extravagance doesn't end there.

Michelle and Barack Obama have amassed quite an expensive real estate portfolio since leaving the White House after Barack's second term. They didn't travel far from their presidential quarters in 2017, when they purchased a century-old, Tudor-style mansion in D.C.'s Kalorama neighborhood for $8 million, per Curbed. Still, Michelle and Barack keep their roots in Chicago, continuing to own the Georgian Revival-style mansion in Hyde Park, which they purchased in 2005 for $1.65 million, per the Chicago Sun-Times.

Of course, every first family needs a good summer getaway house, which is what the Obamas' Martha's Vineyard property is for. Michelle and Barack rented their palatial Edgartown estate for $50,000 a week in their initial summers on the island, per Realtor.com. In 2019, they opted to purchase the home for $11.8 million. However, in 2025, they put it back on the market for a whopping $39 million. No need to fret; Barack and Michelle are still finding places to vacation. According to Hawaiian news outlet KHON2, the Obamas bought a home on O'ahu, Hawaii for $8.4 million, but have spent many years, and many dollars, transforming it into an 11-bedroom, 14-bathroom, 3-acre estate, valued at roughly $18 million. They certainly took the American Dream to the next level.