The Dow was hovering below 1000 in 1970. Today, without counting didends, the Dow is around 16,000.
If 27,000 apartments were worth $400,000,000 in 1970 ($15,000 per unit), keeping pace with the Dow (even while spending all the dividends), would suggest a value of over $60 billion. Even if the units were worth $5000 each in 1970 (in New York??? My parents little house in the outskirts of Maryland was bought for over $30k in 1969.), that would suggest a fortune on $20 billion (even discounting all dividends for 45 years), not two to four billion, or even trump’s mythical $10 billion.
I think it is fair to say that although donnie did well, he’d have done better buying the Dow and leaving it alone. And if he wanted to live off the dividends, he’d do okay ($560 million to $1.7 billion in dividends per year).
Where do you obtain base data on the apartments?