The economics of Santa Claus’ complex

Ever wonder how much Santa Claus' house costs and how it chalks up against the national average? Turns out he's definitely paying more.

For starters, Santa's house is located on a so-called "Christmas Campus" or "Christmas Town," which includes a workshop, elf houses, as well as a warehouse. There's also reindeer stables and a sleigh runway. Talk about fancy digs.

"When the costs of the various parts of the campus are tabulated, things start getting complicated. What is the cost of this campus? A lot. Like $11.7 billion a lot. This figure doesn't even factor in the reindeer," writes David Cross his Movoto blog, purveyors of quirky calculations for famous imaginary houses.

Here's the breakdown: Santa lives in Grise Fiord, a small Inuit hamlet in the Qikiqtaaluk Region in Nunavut, where real estate is pretty pricey it appears. Cross assumes Mr. and Mrs. Kringle don't have kids, so it's estimated they live in a house that is roughly 1,200 square feet and costs $536,000. That figure is derived from crunching Nunavut Housing Corp data.

(To put that into perspective that's about $467 per square foot, compared to $368 per square foot for a home in much-warmer Los Angeles.)

As well, that's above the national provincial average of roughly $363,900, according to the Canadian Real Estate Association.

But there's more, a lot more. The price tag for the elf houses is some $4 billion and the warehouse, which spans about 277 football fields, costs about $7 billion. Real estate for the workshop is a little bit more affordable at roughly $72 million.

If you're wondering why housing costs so much the massive complex is overrun by thousands of elves. Turns out Santa is a slave driver: Santa employs 15,000 elves and they operate on a five present per hour, 20 hour-production schedule. The warehouse can store 526 million gifts.

"What's the takeaway? Santa spent a pretty penny for his privacy," Cross writes. "It also doesn't hurt that with so few distractions his elves will have little to do but concentrate on pumping out those Christmas gifts."

But if Santa is looking to move any time soon, he should probably get a good realtor to help him navigate the choppy housing market.