Thoughts on Business, Politics, and Life from a Private Investor
This is a 223-unit, 15-story high-rise luxury apartment tower in Silver Spring, Maryland called The Bennington. It is 292,000 square feet and was built in 2004 for a cost of $27 million. The architect was A.R. Meyers Architects and the general contractor was Foulger-Pratt (motto: "We build to last"). Today, presuming the property was rationally priced on construction value, the replacement cost should come to around $33.2 million. If it is decently managed, rents should come to … [Read more...]
Given that I wrote about Charlie Munger so much this week (re-reading part of his biography caused him to be on my mind), I thought this was interesting ... Years ago, through a tiny property subsidiary called MS Properties (or something along those lines), that is a subsidiary of Wesco Financial Corporation, that is a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway, Charlie Munger decided to secretly develop a tiny bit of Southern California as a creative outlet. His friends called this "Mungerville" but … [Read more...]
When it comes to real estate, business acumen, and interior decor, Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne have my admiration. Not only are their properties flawless in appearance, they use them as cash generators. According to one of my favorite blogs, Mr. and Mrs. Osbourne purchased this 4,500 square foot, 5 bedroom, 5 bathroom beachfront property in Malibu, California for $5,100,000 in March of 2003. Today, they rent it out for several months during the summer at $40,000 per month. This is what … [Read more...]
As Warren Buffett pointed out in this year's letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders, for every house that falls in value and pushes one family into bankruptcy, another American family benefits from the lower prices as new households are created due to the younger generation graduating from college, settling down, and moving out of their parents' houses. So, the 50 year old that lost all of their home equity is in trouble, but the 22 year old getting married now has much more affordable … [Read more...]
One of the single most common questions I receive from friends, family, and readers who are enrolled in college is, “Should I take out student loans and invest the excess above and beyond the cost of college?” No doubt spurred by the historically low rates – the interest expense on a typical government student loan [...]
This is the most bizarre thing that has happened to me in years. All day long, out of nowhere, I have had the 1988 hit song “Lost in Your Eyes” by Debbie Gibson in my head. It was released when I was 5 or 6 years old. I don’t even remember anything about it, nor [...]
One old definition of “being rich” is when your money earns money. This afternoon, I was writing a piece and reviewing the dividend yields on some of the common stock holdings owned by my household personally, outside of the business, when I began quantifying that in the back of my mind. How much would it [...]
Just Because Something Is Old Does Not Mean It Is Right A significant error in thinking comes from people using “It has always been this way” as justification for the state of things. As if, somehow, precedence confers legitimacy. Just because something is old does not mean it is right. Being long-established does not mean [...]
For the past six hours, I have been playing Aaron, Ashly, and Ian over the Internet at a game of Civilization V. By the time it was done, I kept getting a feeling that the latter two were up to some devious machinations because my military adviser relentlessly informed me they could wipe my civilization [...]
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