Bob Jones Quotes
120 Bob Jones Quotes
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If a man wants his dreams to come true then he must first wake up.
Bob Jones
One of the most appealing aspects about private commercial property investment is the liberty to turn off, to cease new acquisition activity without any loss of income should the mood so take one, or if market conditions suggest a period of inactivity to be prudent. Few other commercial undertakings offer the same freedom.
Bob Jones
Investing has always been a secondary preoccupation with me because, enjoyable and interesting though it is, I have always sought to taste every experience and have had long periods focusing on other activities whether it be travel, politics… writing…
Bob Jones
On my observation, the one characteristic seasoned investors share is a conservative restraint, which is probably why they’re hesitant when asked for advice.
Bob Jones
I actually know very little about buildings in any technical sense. Lots of property people, but specially developers and traders, are enormously knowledgeable about such details and I have never met one in that category who is seriously rich. To repeat, it’s a big picture business and seeing the woods for the trees is the trick in ascertaining what knowledge is important, which, more than anything else, is trying to predict the future market trends.
Bob Jones
All booms ultimately end, but not necessarily in a crash. In the case of property booms, they most sink a little initially then plateau to a stable price period for four or five years, before starting a new run.
Bob Jones
[On youth complaining about high house prices] Young couples have no greater moral claim to housing than they have to a year long world trip honeymoon at taxpayers’ expense.
Bob Jones
It means merely that they must lower their first-run expectation on the housing ladder, either by location choice or house size. But young couples, having secured their foot on the ladder, and given a continuation of the process in the future that the empirical evidence says is probable, can look forward to periodic upwards housing improvement steps, just like their preceding generations, on whose behalf the same bleating was echoed.
Bob Jones
I’m truly puzzled as to why some people choose their particular professions. For example, what on earth inspires one to be a dentist, to wake each morning to another day of peering into a stranger’s mouth and going through the same mechanical motions, which technology has now made fairly elementary?
Bob Jones
I acquire existing buildings rather than build my own.
Bob Jones
The purpose… is not to explain human irrationality but to show how to profit from it.
Bob Jones
[Property] Investors view developers as our worst enemy, for the very reason that they increase supply. Investors seek a shortage of space, not an oversupply, which these financial lunatics persist in delivering.
Bob Jones
[Property] Developers are the ultimate optimists. When cleaned out, after a pause all seems forgotten and they re-emerge and start all over again. They never learn from their past failures because they’re doers, not contemplative thinkers, and tend to put past disasters down to bad luck.
Bob Jones
You may be assured that if research scientists required funding to create a death-dealing virus affecting only property developers, they would be swamped with money from existing building owners.
Bob Jones
In an age of central and local government busybodyism, in which the assumption is that everyone is deaf, dumb, blind, intellectually retarded, wheel-chair bound and at risk of their life from the second they step out of bed, obtaining planning permission for major [property] developments nowadays often takes longer than the construction time, and that’s long enough anyway with a large building.
Bob Jones
Developers are practical people, with a passion for building things and with their thoughts bound up with design issues. They are bellowing-into-cellphone-in-waterfront-restaurant types, not contemplative thinkers. I’ve known dozens of them and I’ve yet to meet one who doesn’t think and act as if today’s market conditions, whatever they are, are carved in stone.
Bob Jones
Just as time is the investor’s friend, conversely it is the developer’s foe.
Bob Jones
Developers lose any sensitivity to ever-changing market conditions, not that this contingency is ever exactly prevalent in their thoughts, and take on more and more projects, motivated by a need to keep their employees busy. …This is explicable human conduct when things go well and to some extent we all behave similarly. The difference with developers is that their activity, far more than any other, allows no room for error.
Bob Jones
Reverting to developers, why do they do it? The answer is for exactly the same reason as the blackjack bunnies do – it’s an addiction. Ego doubtless plays a part as well, and there’s nothing wrong with that, although I’d have thought that quite natural emotion would be more gratified by owning a major [building] tower than creating it.
Bob Jones
Developing is akin to playing Russian roulette. You can pull the trigger and draw a blank, although why you would want to I can’t imagine, but, because of the addiction factor, developers keep on doing so until sooner or later inevitably they draw the bullet.
Bob Jones
Developers see no profit in permanent retention. In their eyes, if no further immediate value can be added, then the asset has reached its permanent optimum worth. In short, they ignore history.
Bob Jones
Patience is an absolute pre-requisite for successful investing, well-evidenced by the all-time investment champion. Warren Buffett, who in 2005 was sitting on tens of billions of dollars in cash because he considered the stock markets to be hugely over-valued.
Bob Jones
An investor has little interest in today, only tomorrow, and always with one eye on the past.
Bob Jones
[On sharemarket booms in 2005] Whenever they’ve occurred over the past century, the ever-present doomsdayist commentators who always emerge are matched by the doubtless sincere ‘this time it’s different’ proponents. They point to factors that are different from past booms to explain why the wheels won’t fall off this time. History has always proven the optimists wrong, which is why I do not accept that low interest rates are a permanent fixture.
Bob Jones
A prudent investor first seeks security of his capital, then income on his investment, and, finally, capital growth. By having a leverage factor, an investor reduces the security and heightens the income and capital growth elements.
Bob Jones
Debt is the vehicle to great wealth and also the cause of disaster, so striking the right balance requires sound judgment, with a constant eye on the broader macro-economic trends.
Bob Jones
Bankers have short memories, a view with which I concur, as I watch some of them advancing against property propositions that history, let alone commonsense, shows are doomed. Often the cause of this lies in the youthful inexperience of their lending officers.
Bob Jones
[Kerry] Packer famously remarked, ‘Everyone deserves one Alan Bond in their life’. Whether everyone is entitled to such good fortune is debatable, but I’ve certainly had my Bondy, in the form of AMP.
Bob Jones
He always tried to discover through sharebrokers what the AMP was buying or selling. It was absolutely gilt-edged, he claimed – just do the opposite and it’s virtually free money.
Bob Jones
Institutions are notorious for buying at the top of the market and selling at the bottom – their investment management staff lack the aptitude to foresee market movements. They can only react to market trends once they’re well and truly established and probably at their zenith, or, all too often, have turned the corner and are waning.
Bob Jones
One of the best ways to know what is going on, and also to think about things, is to sight every payment going out. This is time-consuming, but nevertheless… it is amazing how this leads to first questioning and then clear thinking.
Bob Jones
[On a practical example of saving costs] The only possible justification for retaining a Post Office box [As opposed to having mail addressed to your office] is if one is either a raincoat-wearing sexual deviant receiving plain paper-wrapped material under a false name, or is engaged in criminal activity. In those circumstances it’s reasonable.
Bob Jones
Some countries, notably in Asia, allow foreign commercial property ownership only where there is a 50 percent partnership with a local. Every account I’ve heard of where some brave soul has done this has been a tale of distress.
Bob Jones
The case for going abroad is overwhelming. But confine it to the same cultures and pull back from any romantic or carpet-bagging thoughts to avoid the prospect of a heavy financial flogging.
Bob Jones
An international air hostess once told me that, with exceptions, of course, economy-class passengers watch films, business-class gaze at computers and first-class passengers read books. Because the latter category can afford to pay about five times the economy fare simply for greater comfort, that surely demonstrates the pay-off that reading and thinking yields.
Bob Jones
We don’t sell quality – It’s too hard to replace.
Bob Jones
The absence of clear thinking can usually be attributed to a lack of thinking altogether, the blame for which lies with people being too busy and not reflecting enough.
Bob Jones
It cannot be denied that we property investors derive a peculiar thrill from building an ever-bigger portfolio, irrational though it may be. It’s simply what we do… all driven by an ever bigger or better quest that somehow in its pursuit brings its own satisfaction.
Bob Jones
Half a century’s experience has taught me that, profit-wise, less is more. In other word’s, do less and think more and in the process make every post a winning post.
Bob Jones
I bought my first commercial building in 1962 at the age of 22, when probably most readers of this… weren’t born. Yet here I am 43 years later [In 2005], still acquiring buildings and sometimes I’m damned if I know why. It’s certainly not for the money – I have more than enough and in any event that’s never been a driving force since I cracked it in my 21st year. But I concede I have the bug…
Bob Jones
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