Posts shared on Facebook in the weeks leading up to the November, 2020 U.S. presidential election claim to show an image of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden’s “huge Delaware mansion, one of largest in the state!”. This claim is false, as Biden does not own the property in the image, nor are his homes in Wilmington and Rehoboth Beach among the largest in the state.
A post making this claim can be found here .
The house shown in the image is 10 Pyles Ford Road in Wilmington, Del. ( here ). Online real estate database company Zillow shows that the property is currently for sale for an estimated $8,600,000.
The Bidens do not own the home on Pyles Ford Road. As stated in a previous Reuters Fact Check article ( here ), Joe and Jill Biden own a 6,850-square-foot home ( here ) in Wilmington as well as a 4,800-square-foot vacation home in Rehoboth Beach, Del. ( here ).
Neither of these two properties that the Bidens own is among the largest in the state. Besides the 17,588-square-foot Pyles Ford Road home shown in the posts ( here ), there is an even larger 21,000-square-foot home located at 900 Old Kennett Road in Wilmington ( here ).
Other Delaware homes with significantly higher square footage than the Bidens’ homes include: 2450 Montchanin Road in Wilmington, which is 14,050 square feet ( here ); 915 Overbrook Road in Wilmington, which is 13,907 square feet ( here ); 305 North Ashview Lane in Wilmington, which is 12,458 square feet ( here ); 35 Inlet View Court in Bethany Beach, which is 12,000 square feet ( here ); 111 Centrenest Lane in Wilmington, which is 11,350 square feet ( here ); 314 Pentland Drive in Wilmington, which is 10,519 square feet ( here ); and 105 Centrenest Lane in Wilmington, which is 10,769 square feet ( here ).
Reuters did not find any other reports or records showing that the Bidens owned properties other than those in Wilmington and Rehoboth Beach. The Bidens have been renting a house in the Washington, D.C. suburb of McLean, Va. since 2007, the Washington Post reported, as of June 2019 ( here ).
The Reuters Fact Check team previously clarified misleading claims on social media suggesting that Biden had purchased an opulent Delaware home on a senator’s salary ( here ). Though Biden did once own the property in the posts ( here ), he bought the run-down property more than three decades ago for less than $200,000, and sold it for $1.2 million in 1996.
VERDICT
False. Joe Biden neither owns the 17,588-square-foot home shown in the posts, nor does he own one of the largest homes in Delaware.
This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our fact-checking work here .
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.