In 1626 Peter Minuit famously bought this with beads, trinkets & cloth worth $24; real estate has gone up since then
In 1626 
Peter Minuit bought Manhattan island from the local Indians for a load of cloth, 
beads, hatchets, and other odds and ends then worth 60 Dutch ... the assessed 
value of taxable real estate in Manhattan for 1990-91 was $47 billion.