The Buffett Way. Contents. Buffett and Real Estate? ) Less Than Net Asset Value: ) Margin of Safety: ) Get the Facts:...

Transcription

1

2 Contents Buffett and Real Estate? ) Less Than Net Asset Value: ) Margin of Safety: ) Get the Facts: ) Use BOTH the Quantitative and the Qualitative: ) Put All of Your Eggs in One Basket: ) Be Reasonably Sure: ) Trust Your Gut: ) Integrity:

3 Buffett and Real Estate? Warren Buffett is arguably America s best-known investor. Rigorous, iconoclastic, and wildly successful, stock investors has clamored for his advice and followed his every word for years. But what can Buffett teach us about investing in real estate? The truth is he doesn t invest in real estate - at least not directly, as an exclusive asset class. Nevertheless, it is my contention that Buffett still has much wisdom to share for those who choose real estate as their preferred investment medium. And in what follows, I sketch-out some of the lessons I believe Buffet can teach would-be real estate investors. 3

4 1) Less Than Net Asset Value: Buffet: Following the insights of the famed investor Benjamin Graham, Buffett looks for companies selling at a bargain. By this, he means investments selling at less than 2/3 their net asset value. Of course another important factor he considers is their price to earnings ratios (P/E) or cash flow. In fancier terms, we could say that the value of an investment is the discounted present value of future cash flow. Or stated still more directly, an investment s value is tied to its ability to produce a consistent profit. Real Estate Interpretation: Transposed to the realm of real estate investing Buffett, I believe would encourage us to buy properties at bargain prices: Properties whose value is negatively impacted by some kind of stress whether in financial distress, suffering physical obsolescence, or suffering from poor management. Of course, this means, foreclosed properties, bank-owned properties, and fixer-uppers. Yet, as we will see this does not mean buying so-called bad properties no matter how cheap. Further, seeking good P/E ratios or strongly discounted cash flow would mean finding investment properties with poor management and below market rents, so that your turn-around plan and investment play would be to restore cash flow to market rates and to profit from this difference upon resale. 4

5 3) Margin of Safety: Buffett: Having a margin of safety follows directly from principle number one: buy below asset value. If you buy at a good price, you already have a built-in margin of safety. Thus, for Buffett the cardinal rule of all investing is not to lose your base investment, or principal. Stated succinctly: rule one is don t lose; rule two is see rule number one. Preserve your principal at all costs. Buffet writes The basic idea of investing are to look at stocks as businesses, use market fluctuations to your advantage, and seek a margin of safety. That s what Benjamin Graham taught us. A hundred years from now they will still be the cornerstones of investing. Real Estate Interpretation: By buying properties at discounted prices you create a margin of safety for when things go wrong. And something always goes wrong. It s great to win; but always better not to lose! Safety, safety, safety! 5

6 3) Get the Facts: Buffett: Buffett is all about due diligence and reasoned, thoughtful investment. He does not buy what he does not understand. He always seeks the careful study of available facts with the attempts to draw conclusions therefrom based on established principles and sound logic. It s about the numbers. Thus, Buffett writes: An investment operation is one which, upon thorough analysis, promises safety of principal and a satisfactory return. Operations not meeting these requirements are speculative. Translation: if the numbers don t work, or Buffett doesn t reasonably see how they could work, he doesn t buy; he passes on the business. No speculation allowed! Thus, he is not only all about the numbers and due diligence, he takes a wider perspective that often remains critically skeptical about the numbers themselves. He writes: Managers that always promise to make the numbers, makeup the numbers. Trust, but verify. Real Estate Interpretation: It s all about the numbers and due diligence. Don t fall in love with the property; fall in love with the numbers and because the property makes sense as an investment. Buy with a margin of safety, buy for future cash flow, but make sure your numbers really make sense. And, as for managers making-up numbers, when buying a property, it s worth asking yourself and critically questioning the seller s own numbers on the pro forma. 6

7 4) Use BOTH the Quantitative and the Qualitative: Buffet: He has famously said I am 15% Fischer and 85% Benjamin Graham. To know what this means you have to understand what Fischer and Graham each respectively represents. Graham, as we have seen, was all about the bargain. Graham sought discounted investments by raw numbers alone. If it was cheap, he bought it. By contrast, Fischer was not so much driven by bargain pricing, but rather by the quality of what he was purchasing. In other words, quality over quantity. And further, Fischer was not afraid to pay a fair price for quality. Buffet has likely shifted his Fischer/Graham ratio over the years to closer to 50/50. Buffett not only seeks bargain prices, he is also willing to pay a fair price for quality. In fact, he prefers a fair price for a quality company, to a mere bargain price (for a less than excellent operation). Real Estate Interpretation: I confess. I ve made the mistake myself. I ve bought real estate simply because it was cheap. And I paid the price in headaches. You can always find super-cheap properties in so-called war-zones that have excellent cash flow. But Buffett, I suggest, would warn against it. Inspired by Fischer, he would encourage us to pay a fair price for a particularly strong and well-located property. Of course, price matters too. So the 50/50, Fischer/Graham ratio, is indeed a nice model to hold. 7

8 5) Put All of Your Eggs in One Basket: Buffett: I love this one because it is so counter-intuitive to prevailing wisdom. Most famous investment gurus, at least those for the masses, preach to diversify assets for safety. They proclaim the very opposite of Buffett. They say don t put all your eggs in one basket. Of course, it would likely be worth comparing their net worth to Buffett s before you decide whose advice to follow! Buffett s reasoning is this. It s just far too hard to watch too many baskets. If you want to succeed as an investor you ve got to become expert, or at least work closely with someone who is expert. And no one is expert in everything. Like the jack-of-all trades riff, we can say a master of all asset classes is a master of none. And it is for this reason Buffett encourages us to put all of our eggs in one basket, but with this caveat: become an expert on that basket and never take your eye off of it! Real Estate Interpretation: I think this one is self-evident. Rather than merely dabbling in real estate, go all in. Become an expert (or work closely with one) and don t take your eye off that basket! If you want to succeed, you need to commit. 8

9 6) Be Reasonably Sure: Buffett: If Buffett cannot reasonably project future cash flows of an investment he will not buy it. He explains: Part of the equation is how confident you can be about those cash-flows occurring. Some businesses are much easier to predict than others. We try to look at businesses that are predictable. Real Estate Interpretation: Within the asset class of real estate different kinds of investment property have different levels of cash flow predictability. For instance, cash flow from a retail strip-mall is likely less predictable than residential real estate rental given that retail may suffer much longer vacancies. Of course, even within the residential rental market different locations will have differing levels of demand and thus predictability. I take this notion of predictability to follow from Fischer s urge toward quality at a fair price. In other words, lower but predictable income would trump higher, but erratic earnings. 9

10 7) Trust Your Gut: Buffett: Ironically, this principle is a necessary extension of the previous one that asked us to be reasonably sure. Paraphrasing the famed economist Maynard Keynes, Buffett writes I would rather be vaguely right, than precisely wrong. Buffett s praise of rough estimates, I take as the affirmation of a thoughtful macroperspective that might be summarized as trust your gut. Now this is certainly not an uninformed intuition that one embraces in lieu of due diligence and numbers. But rather, when all of the information is in you sometimes need to simply make a decision based on rough estimates. In short, because no one can accurately predict the future, we are left, in the end, based on all available information, to trust our guts. There are no other options. But it is important to recognize this, and to seize the moment. Real Estate Interpretation: The obverse of this principle is this: analysis is paralysis. Once you have all of your numbers and due diligence, you still may not have all of the answers. But you never will. Still, you have to act. In the end, you have to trust your gut. You have to buy or walk away. 10

11 8) Integrity: Buffett: Buffet writes: No matter how attractive the prospect of their business, we ve never succeeded in making a good deal with a bad person. Buffett would seem to be a bit of an endangered species these days in his unabashed affirmation of integrity at all costs. With all of the shady dealings on Wall Street, Buffett stands out as a rare breed, because for him integrity is non-negotiable. Real Estate Interpretation: Like Buffett, exude integrity. Is your word good? Do you do what you say? Do you stand-by your purchase offers? Are you honest in your own disclosures? If so, you know that karma takes the long-view. Word will get out that you are a serious player, an honest investor, and people will want to do business with you. Heck. They will bring you deals, because they know you word is good and you will get them done! 11

12 This is just a quick overview of some of the wisdom Buffett has to share with the real estate investment community. If you too have the investor s mindset and want to join us in a strategic alliance in investing in real estate contact us! We are skin-in-thegame investors happy to help other investors on the journey whether you are experienced or just getting started! Contact us. We are here to help! Disclaimer: As noted, Warren Buffet does not directly invest in real estate. And he has in no way endorsed this special report. All interpretations here are my own. And, of course, all investment comes with some risk. Caveat emptor. 12