Big Ben Myers of Bullpen Consulting doesn't usually have strong opinions on Twitter (obviously joking), but I did see him respond to this tweet this morning:

The assertion he is responding to is basically this: "developers are stupid because they tend to hold onto land during downturns, instead of building through them." On some level, I think I know where this line of thinking is coming from. It's the whole Warren Buffet philosophy of "being fearful when others are greedy, and greedy when others are fearful."

But what it ignores is development feasibility. Developers typically rely heavily on the availability of debt financing. First you need land financing in order to acquire the land, and then, once you have your entitlements, condominium pre-sales and/or any other requirements in place, you move onto a construction loan (which often "takes out" your land loan).

Maybe you have deep enough pockets to fund everything with cash, but most of the time that is not the case. And so if these debt facilities are not available to you, then you are not building.

The other part of this equation is that, during downturns, it can be harder to forecast your future revenues. What can I sell/rent this space for, and how long will it take to absorb? These are difficult questions in the best of times, but they're even more difficult when you don't have a lot of market activity/comparables to point to.

All of this contributes to debt being less available, especially for smaller developers. It also makes new sites difficult to underwrite. Because as we have talked about many times before on this blog, land should be the residual claimant in a development pro forma. Revenue minus development costs equals how much you can afford to pay for land.

If the math doesn't work and if you can't get financing, it almost certainly doesn't matter how much "leading" you feel like doing. You're not building.

Perhaps the greatest lesson from Warren Buffet's most recent letter to Berkshire shareholders is that, to be wildly successful, you only have to be right sometimes:

In 58 years of Berkshire management, most of my capital-allocation decisions have been no better than so-so. In some cases, also, bad moves by me have been rescued by very large doses of luck.

Our satisfactory results have been the product of about a dozen truly good decisions – that would be about one every five years – and a sometimes-forgotten advantage that favors long-term investors such as Berkshire.

The lesson for investors: The weeds wither away in significance as the flowers bloom. Over time, it takes just a few winners to work wonders. And, yes, it helps to start early and live into your 90s as well.

So-so decisions. Periodic moments of brilliance. And a long-term patient outlook. These are, I think, important things to keep in mind. It's okay to make mistakes; you just have to keep going.

Each year in March, Knight Frank publishes something called, The Wealth Report, which typically includes things like its Prime International Residential Index (PIRI) and a general overview of what ultra high-net-worth individuals (UHNWIs) are up to with their money.

(An UHNWI is typically defined as someone with a net worth greater than $30 million. And as of last year, there were nearly 400,000 of them around the world, with Hong Kong being the city with the most.)

In anticipation of this year's report, Knight Frank has just published the key findings of an "Attitudes Survey." This is them talking with and surveying private bankers, wealth advisors and family offices about some of the key themes for 2023.

Here are a few of my takeaways:

• Globally, about 1/3 of UHNWI wealth is allocated to primary and secondary homes. This is expected. Generally the richer you become, the more your net worth gets diversified away from your primary residence. It is also worth noting that of this 1/3 allocation, more than a quarter is being held outside of their country of residence. This outside-of-country-of-residence percentage is highest for UHNWIs in the Middle East (41%).

Big Ben Myers of Bullpen Consulting doesn't usually have strong opinions on Twitter (obviously joking), but I did see him respond to this tweet this morning:

The assertion he is responding to is basically this: "developers are stupid because they tend to hold onto land during downturns, instead of building through them." On some level, I think I know where this line of thinking is coming from. It's the whole Warren Buffet philosophy of "being fearful when others are greedy, and greedy when others are fearful."

But what it ignores is development feasibility. Developers typically rely heavily on the availability of debt financing. First you need land financing in order to acquire the land, and then, once you have your entitlements, condominium pre-sales and/or any other requirements in place, you move onto a construction loan (which often "takes out" your land loan).

Maybe you have deep enough pockets to fund everything with cash, but most of the time that is not the case. And so if these debt facilities are not available to you, then you are not building.

The other part of this equation is that, during downturns, it can be harder to forecast your future revenues. What can I sell/rent this space for, and how long will it take to absorb? These are difficult questions in the best of times, but they're even more difficult when you don't have a lot of market activity/comparables to point to.

All of this contributes to debt being less available, especially for smaller developers. It also makes new sites difficult to underwrite. Because as we have talked about many times before on this blog, land should be the residual claimant in a development pro forma. Revenue minus development costs equals how much you can afford to pay for land.

If the math doesn't work and if you can't get financing, it almost certainly doesn't matter how much "leading" you feel like doing. You're not building.

Perhaps the greatest lesson from Warren Buffet's most recent letter to Berkshire shareholders is that, to be wildly successful, you only have to be right sometimes:

In 58 years of Berkshire management, most of my capital-allocation decisions have been no better than so-so. In some cases, also, bad moves by me have been rescued by very large doses of luck.

Our satisfactory results have been the product of about a dozen truly good decisions – that would be about one every five years – and a sometimes-forgotten advantage that favors long-term investors such as Berkshire.

The lesson for investors: The weeds wither away in significance as the flowers bloom. Over time, it takes just a few winners to work wonders. And, yes, it helps to start early and live into your 90s as well.

So-so decisions. Periodic moments of brilliance. And a long-term patient outlook. These are, I think, important things to keep in mind. It's okay to make mistakes; you just have to keep going.

Each year in March, Knight Frank publishes something called, The Wealth Report, which typically includes things like its Prime International Residential Index (PIRI) and a general overview of what ultra high-net-worth individuals (UHNWIs) are up to with their money.

(An UHNWI is typically defined as someone with a net worth greater than $30 million. And as of last year, there were nearly 400,000 of them around the world, with Hong Kong being the city with the most.)

In anticipation of this year's report, Knight Frank has just published the key findings of an "Attitudes Survey." This is them talking with and surveying private bankers, wealth advisors and family offices about some of the key themes for 2023.

Here are a few of my takeaways:

• Globally, about 1/3 of UHNWI wealth is allocated to primary and secondary homes. This is expected. Generally the richer you become, the more your net worth gets diversified away from your primary residence. It is also worth noting that of this 1/3 allocation, more than a quarter is being held outside of their country of residence. This outside-of-country-of-residence percentage is highest for UHNWIs in the Middle East (41%).