Sam Zell Quotes
110 Sam Zell Quotes
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[On being involved in the foreclosure market] I just don’t think that it’s the governments role.
Sam Zell
[In May 2012] If the government had of stayed out of it we would have had a lot of foreclosures, we would have had a lot of people losing their homes, but the same amount that would have lost it anyway. Except we would have a market. A clearing. And we could go on… I think we’ve still got two or three more years to go on the single family side.
Sam Zell
On the commercial real estate side it’s a similar but different situation…
Sam Zell
[In May 2012] I bought properties in 74, 75, 76, in early 80’s and very heavily in the early nineties… But at that time it was very simple. If I went to the bank and I agreed to buy an office building from them, the next thing they said was ‘How about another three?’ But then the cost of capital to the banks was seven percent, today the cost of capital for banks is half a percent. Therefore the banks have no incentive for anything other than slowly feeding out real estate. When it’s all said and done however, you’ve got to solve the overleveraged situation. And ultimately that means that people have to take losses.
Sam Zell
Dilution is probably the solution.
Sam Zell
We’re not going to have a vibrant real estate market until we can deal with the overleveraged situation.
Sam Zell
[In May 2012 on how to solve the commercial real estate market in the US] Interest rates are going to go up, as interest rates go up the cost to carry that real estate will go up significantly and in effect the system will force the properties out.
Sam Zell
[In May 2012] I not very active in the real estate market today, primarily because I don’t really see much opportunity.
Sam Zell
[In May 2012] The other day Blackstone raised $12 billion dollars for their next opportunity fund. I just would like to know what the opportunity is? Maybe they would let me know. That doesn’t make sense to me. I think there’s much better opportunity today in the non-realestate world.
Sam Zell
[On new government legislation in May 2012] If you’re a crook, you can write the best legislation in the world and you can either ignore it or get around it.
Sam Zell
[On government legislation] What could possibly make sense about a 2300 page bill?
Sam Zell
Has anyone read Obamacare?
Sam Zell
I pay $50 million dollars [a year] in taxes…
Sam Zell
Where is this equality that exists? It doesn’t. It doesn’t because we’re all part of a selective process…
Sam Zell
It is fair that your opportunities should be limited for the sake of an egalitarian society?
Sam Zell
History says that if you create a society with a maximum level of opportunity you will have the highest number of happy people, whether that’s quote unquote equal or not is irrelevant.
Sam Zell
[In May 2012 on the US government safety net] Fifty percent of the people don’t pay taxes already, how much of a safety net do you want?
Sam Zell
[On the budget deficit in a law university class in May 2012] I know you’re lawyers, but I think you can count.
Sam Zell
[In May 2012] I think the biggest single risk is the day where somebody says ‘I don’t want to buy US debt.’
Sam Zell
Do you really believe everything you read in the media?
Sam Zell
[On buying the Tribune] We looked at the performance of the Tribune for the seven years prior to the time we bought it. During that seven years average revenue declined three percent a year. When we underwrote the deal, we underwrote it at six percent decline each year going forward. And at the end of the first quarter of our ownership, revenue was down thirty percent. I may be a magician, a grave dancer… in an operating leveraged business, [a] thirty percent [decline] is terminal. And that’s what happened. Would I do it again? Absolutely, because the risk reward of the transaction was extraordinary both ways. And unfortunately it turned out to be binary.
Sam Zell
You can’t run a business where you pay for the production of the content and then give it away for free.
Sam Zell
[On being asked whether someone should go to university] Go to law school, what it does is it teaches you how to think.
Sam Zell
[To university students wanting to prepare themselves for the real world] The first thing you need to understand is how little you know.
Sam Zell
Everyone needs to be true to themselves.
Sam Zell
All my life I’ve wanted to test my limits. See how good I was. And I’m seventy years old and it hasn’t changed.
Sam Zell
[On immigration and business] You know what America is? We’re a country of immigrants. And you know what immigrants are? There a self-selecting group. I was born ninety days after my parents came to this country. My mother and father and older sister came here. There were six brothers and six sisters of my parents who all died in the holocaust, cause none of them, my parents pleaded with them to come with and they wouldn’t come… It’s that selective process multiplied millions of times is what America is all about. For us not to be a country of immigration I think that’s nuts, that’s crazy.
Sam Zell
Look for good companies with bad balance sheets.
Sam Zell
Everyday you are not looking to sell an asset in your portfolio, you are choosing to buy it.
Sam Zell
When everyone is going right, look left.
Sam Zell
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