Bill Nickerson Quotes

102 Bill Nickerson Quotes

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Of a group of men who retired at sixty, the average rocking-chair addict dropped dead at sixty-three, probably of boredom and penury. Most of those with productive interests were enjoying life well past seventy. [Bill Nickerson lived till he was 91 years of age passing away in 1999.]
Bill Nickerson

To build an estate large enough to assure financial independence, you must have the courage to pledge your embryo savings in order to utilize borrowed money, made available by the savings of others.
Bill Nickerson

In depression years I took out my accumulated savings to buy my first income property. Sincerely perturbed about my welfare, my banker forecast, ‘If you buy rental property during the depression you’ll probably lose everything. Of course what you do with your money is up to you, but I would advise keeping it in savings. If you put it in those flats you won’t be able to collect enough rent to pay the mortgage.’ If I had followed this admonition I would still be treadmilling for the telephone company. Instead of retiring financially independent at forty-two, I would be looking forward to a pensioner’s modest existence at sixty-five.
Bill Nickerson

When you start out to invest, steady employment greatly enhances your opportunities for borrowing.
Bill Nickerson

Much of the news in 1968 were the spectacular realty exploits of billionaire Howard Hughes, busily converting into Nevada Hotel casinos and other real estate a major portion of the $546.5 million in cash realized from the 1966 sale of his TWA stock.
Bill Nickerson

When I borrowed to buy more property in the wartime my banker said, ‘Better not buy any more income property during the war. You’ll go broke trying to operate with taxes and other expenses going up, and income held down by rent control.’ Again my banker’s advice went unheeded… With the economy booming I have heard bankers advise, ‘Better not buy while times are good. You might lose out because prices are bound to go down.’
Bill Nickerson

Borrow the maximum that can safely be repaid. Buy only property that needs improvement. Make selective improvements that increase value. Keep selling at a profit and reinvesting.
Bill Nickerson

I started my pyramiding with only $1,000… reinvested on a spasmodic rather than a constant basis, and still surpassed a million within seventeen years. My net estate has tripled to over three million in the last ten years [To 1969] in the last ten years even though my realty investments have remained a part-time endeavor.
Bill Nickerson

Most forms of investment accumulate by simple arithmetic.
Bill Nickerson

The chief attributes of successful realty [real estate] investors are imagination, enterprise and persistence. Imagination means the vision to see the inherent potentialities of property investment. Enterprise means the willingness to venture both capital and effort in pursuit of a worth-while goal. Persistence means the ability to adhere to a program till the goal is achieved or surpassed.
Bill Nickerson



Of course other roads besides real estate may lead to riches, but with most of them the odds are heavy that you will be led astray. These roads may depend chiefly on Lady Luck, like uranium hunting or buying speculative oil stocks. Or they may offer more chances of failure than success…
Bill Nickerson

I have know of speculative land purchases which have proved worthless, yet owners have continued throwing good money after bad by keeping up taxes and assessments. This is like buying oats for a dead horse.
Bill Nickerson

Many misguided do-it-yourselfers fail to value their personal labor when planning work projects.
Bill Nickerson

Acrimony often develops in a partnership between relatives or friends when one puts up all the money and the other puts up all the experience.
Bill Nickerson

It is amazing how many city dwellers who have never lived on a farm succumb to the beckoning country life of gentlemanly ease of which they dream.
Bill Nickerson

It is has to run a farm successfully without working your shirttail off doing the tilling, planting, weeding, pruning, spraying and harvesting, the seasons for which seem to overlap one another in an endless chain; not to mention the handling of stock, which continues throughout the year.
Bill Nickerson

Successful investors have lost out by following the advice of those who have failed in their personal ventures or who have never ventured at all. Many who have never succeeded in personal investments are eager to tell you how to conduct your affairs.
Bill Nickerson

A vacant building invites vandalism.
Bill Nickerson

Desirable property should be situated in a location considered good by the average potential tenant.
Bill Nickerson

Neighborhoods do not decay merely because of age.
Bill Nickerson



Tactful negotiation usually earns better deals.
Bill Nickerson

Opportunity knocks not just once, but many times. All you have to do is open the door that is offered to you.
Bill Nickerson



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