I.H.6.Warren Buffett.Real Estate Agent
1、《1992 Steve Jobs.MIT Distinguished Speaker Series》
A software-only company could never afford to field a direct sales force. With average selling prices of $500 a software package, you could never afford 130 professionals in the field. With an average selling price of $5,000, you can. And that's why I don't think we're going to see any more systems software companies succeed. I don't think it's possible to fund the efforts to educate the market about a revolutionary product with ASPs that low.
一家仅靠软件的公司永远无法负担直接销售团队。软件包的平均售价为 500 美元时，你根本无法负担 130 名专业人员在现场工作。而当平均售价为 5000 美元时，你就可以。因此，我认为我们不会再看到任何系统软件公司成功。我认为以如此低的平均售价来资助市场教育一款革命性产品的努力是不可能的。
2、《2002-05-04 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting》
55. “Hard to find real estate that’s really mispriced”
“很难找到真正定价错误的房地产”
WARREN BUFFETT: Number 2.
沃伦·巴菲特：第二个问题。
AUDIENCE MEMBER: I’m Bob Kline (PH), from Los Angeles.
听众：我是洛杉矶的Bob Kline（音译）。
I wonder if you could give us a glimpse into your investment process, the way you approach looking at a particular industry. And I wonder if you could use real estate as an example.
我想知道你们的投资过程是什么样的，如何评估一个特定行业。如果可以的话，能否以房地产为例进行说明？
I know real estate hasn’t been a big, huge part of Berkshire’s portfolio over the years. And I wonder if that’s because you view real estate as a commodity business or if, maybe, the cash flows from real estate tend to be more predictable than, perhaps, from some other industries, and thus, it tends to be less likely to be mispriced, and therefore less likely to find terrific bargains in real estate. So —
我知道房地产多年来并不是伯克希尔投资组合的核心部分。我想知道这是否因为你们认为房地产是一个商品型业务，或者是因为房地产的现金流比其他一些行业更加可预测，因此，房地产更难定价错误，也就更难找到真正划算的投资机会。
WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, you’re — go ahead.
沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，你说吧。
AUDIENCE MEMBER: So, just wondering if we could — if we were watching a discussion between you and Charlie hashing out the merits of real estate, [tell us] how it would go.
那么，如果我们看到你和查理讨论房地产的优缺点，讨论过程大概是怎样的？
WARREN BUFFETT: Well, it would go like all our other conversations. He would say no for about 15 minutes — (laughter) — and I would gauge by the degree to which he — the emotion he put into his ’no’s as to whether he really liked the deal or not. (Laughter) But the —
沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，这就像我们平时的所有对话。他大概会说“不要”大约15分钟——（笑声）——我会通过他“不要”的语气和情绪，判断他到底是否真的喜欢这个交易。（笑声）不过——
We’ve both had a fair amount of experience in real estate, and Charlie made his early money in real estate. The second point is the more important point.
我们俩在房地产方面都有相当多的经验，查理早期的财富就是通过房地产赚到的。第二点是更重要的。
Real estate is not a commodity, but I think it tends to be more accurately priced — particularly developed real estate — more accurately priced most of the time.
房地产不是商品，但我认为它通常更精确地定价——特别是已开发的房地产——大多数时候价格更加精准。
Now, during the RTC period, when you had huge amounts of transactions and you had an owner that didn’t want to be an owner in a very big way, and they didn’t know what the hell they owned, and all of that sort of thing, I mean, you had a lot of mispricing then. And I know a few people in this room that made a lot of money off of that.
然而，在RTC时期，当大量交易发生时，拥有者并不愿意继续持有，甚至不清楚自己拥有什么财产等等，那时候确实有很多定价错误。我知道这里有一些人从中赚了不少钱。
But under most conditions, it’s hard to find real estate that’s really mispriced.
但在大多数情况下，很难找到真正定价错误的房地产。
I mean, when I look at the transactions that REITs engage in currently — and you get a lot of information on that sort of thing — you know, they’re very similar. But it’s a competitive world and, you know, they all know about what a class A office building in, you know, in Chicago or wherever it may be, is going to produce.
我的意思是，当我看到目前REITs进行的交易时——你会得到很多关于这类信息——你会发现它们非常相似。但这是一个竞争激烈的市场，大家都知道，在芝加哥或任何地方，一座A级写字楼会产生什么样的收益。
So at least they have — they may all be wrong, as it turns out, because of some unusual events, but it’s hard to argue with the current conventional wisdom, most of the time, in the real estate world.
因此，至少他们有——虽然最终他们可能会因为某些不寻常的事件而都犯错，但大多数时候，很难反驳房地产行业的当前共识。
But occasionally there have been some, you know, there could be big opportunities in the field. But if they exist, it will certainly be because there’s a — there’ll probably be a lot of chaos in real estate financing for one reason or another.
但偶尔也有一些，比如说，这个领域可能会有大的机会。如果机会存在，肯定是因为某些原因，房地产融资可能会出现一些混乱。
We’ve done some real estate financing and you have to have the money shut off to quite a degree, probably, to get any big mispricing across the board.
我们做过一些房地产融资，你得在某种程度上限制资金流动，才可能在所有领域找到大规模的定价错误。
CHARLIE MUNGER: Yeah, we don’t have any competitive advantage over experienced real estate investors in the field, and we wouldn’t have if we were operating with our own money as a partnership.
查理·芒格：是的，我们在这个领域没有任何竞争优势，甚至如果我们作为合伙人用自己的资金进行操作，也不会有。
And if you operate as a corporation such as ours, which is taxable under Chapter C of the Internal Revenue Code, you’ve got a whole layer of corporate taxes between the real estate income and the use of the income by the people who own the real estate.
如果你像我们这样作为公司运营，按《国内税收法典》第C章缴税，你就会面临一层公司税收，将房地产收入与拥有房地产的人使用这些收入之间隔开。
So, by its nature, real estate tends to be a very lousy investment for people who are taxed under Subchapter C of the code relating to corporations.
因此，房地产天生对根据《国内税收法典》C章缴税的公司来说是非常糟糕的投资。
So, the combination of having it generally allows the activity for people with our tax structure, and having no special competence in the field means that we spend almost no time thinking about anything in real estate.
所以，结合我们税收结构下的税务规则，以及我们在这一领域没有特别的专长，意味着我们几乎不花时间去考虑房地产相关事务。
And then such real estate as we’ve actually done, like holding surplus real estate and trying to sell it off, I’d say we have a poor record at.
至于我们做过的房地产事务，比如持有多余的房地产并尝试出售，我得说我们在这方面的记录不佳。
WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, C corps really, it doesn’t make any sense. I mean, I know there are C corps around that are in real estate, but there are other structures that are more attractive.
沃伦·巴菲特：是的，C条款在房地产领域确实没有任何优势。我知道有些C条款涉足房地产，但实际上有其他结构在税务上更具吸引力。
There really aren’t other structures — I mean, Lloyd’s is an attempt at it, to some degree — but there aren’t other structures that work well for big insurance companies, or —
实际上没有其他结构——比如，Lloyd’s在某种程度上算是一个尝试——但没有其他结构能很好地适用于大型保险公司，或者——
I mean, you can’t have a Walmart very well that does not exist in a C corp. So, they are not subject to S corp, or partnership competition, that determines the returns on capital in the discount store field.
我的意思是，沃尔玛如果不是以C条款形式存在，几乎是不可能的。所以，它们不受S条款或合伙企业竞争的限制，这些竞争决定了折扣店领域的资本回报。
But if you’re competing with S — the equivalent of S corps — REITs or partnerships or individuals, you’ve just got an economic disadvantage as a C corp, which is, for those of you who don’t love reading the Internal Revenue Code, is just the standard vanilla corporation that you think of — all of the Dow Jones companies, all of the S&P companies, and so on.
但如果你与S条款——或者等同于S条款的——REITs、合伙企业或个人竞争，作为S条款，你将面临经济劣势。对于那些不喜欢读《国内税收法典》的人来说，S条款就是你们通常认为的标准公司——所有道琼斯公司、所有标准普尔公司等。
And as Charlie says, it’s unlikely that the disadvantage of our structure, combined with the competitive nature of people with better structures buying those kinds of assets, will ever lead to anything really interesting.
正如查理所说，结合我们结构的劣势以及那些拥有更好结构的人购买这些资产的竞争性，极不可能导致任何真正有趣的事情发生。
Although, I would say that we missed the boat, to some extent, during the RTC days. I mean, it was a sufficiently inefficient market at that time, and there was a lack of financing that— we could have made a lot of money if we were — had been geared up for it at that time.
尽管如此，我得说，在RTC时期，我们在某种程度上错失了良机。那时市场效率足够低，融资短缺——如果我们当时准备好了，我们本可以赚很多钱。
We actually had a few transactions that were pretty interesting, but not — but nothing that was significant in relation to our total capital.
实际上，我们确实做了一些非常有趣的交易，但并没有——但相对于我们总资本而言，并没有什么重大的交易。
CHARLIE MUNGER: We thought significantly about buying the Irvine Corporation —
查理·芒格：我们曾认真考虑收购Irvine公司——
WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah.
沃伦·巴菲特：是的。
CHARLIE MUNGER: — when it became available. So, but that’s the only big one I can remember that we seriously thought about.
查理·芒格：——当它开始出售时。但那是我记得的唯一一个我们认真考虑过的大交易。
WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, and that was in 1977 or so, as I remember?
沃伦·巴菲特：是的，我记得那是1977年左右？
CHARLIE MUNGER: Way back.
查理·芒格：很久以前了。
WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, Mobil Oil was interested, and you know, Don Bren ended up putting together a group for it.
沃伦·巴菲特：是的，美孚石油也感兴趣，后来你知道，Don Bren组建了一个团队。
And that kind of thing could conceivably happen, but it’s unlikely.
这种事情可能会发生，但不太可能。
3、《2005-04-30 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting》
61. Real estate brokerage will get a “lot bigger”
房地产经纪业务将会“变得更大”
WARREN BUFFETT: Number 8. (Laughter) But thank you.
沃伦·巴菲特：第八。（笑声）但谢谢你。
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Good afternoon. My name is Franklin Grin (PH). I’m from Philadelphia. And I’m interested in real estate.
观众成员：下午好。我的名字是富兰克林·格林（音）。我来自费城。我对房地产感兴趣。
You’ve already covered many different areas today about real estate, such as the real estate bubble, the long-run performance most people have obtained in their personal holdings of real estate, the GSEs, the REITs.
今天你已经讨论了许多关于房地产的不同领域，比如房地产泡沫、大多数人在个人房地产持有中获得的长期表现、政府资助企业（GSEs）、房地产投资信托基金（REITs）。
But one of the things that appears in today’s newspaper is quoting Mr. Buffett about building a brokerage powerhouse. And that seems to say that you envision changes in the way in which people buy and sell their houses and other kinds of related things.
但是今天的报纸上有一件事引用了巴菲特先生关于建立经纪业巨头的言论。这似乎表明您设想人们买卖房屋和其他相关事物的方式会发生变化。
So, I was wondering if you could tell me a little bit more about that area of where you envision Berkshire Hathaway going.
所以，我想知道您是否可以多告诉我一些关于您对伯克希尔哈撒韦未来发展的设想。
WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, I’ll be glad to. But the — we are hoping to build a powerhouse that’s built very much on the model of today. In other words, we do not envision big changes in residential real estate brokerage, which is what we’re in.
沃伦·巴菲特：是的，我很乐意。但我们希望建立一个非常基于当今模式的强大企业。换句话说，我们不设想在住宅房地产经纪方面会有大的变化，这正是我们所从事的领域。
We — as we put in — they talk about sides in real estate, the buy side and the sell side. We participated in sides that totaled $50-odd billion last year. And we are the second largest residential real estate brokerage firm in the country.
我们——正如我们所说的——他们在房地产中谈论买方和卖方。去年我们参与的交易总额超过 500 亿美元。我们是全国第二大住宅房地产经纪公司。
But we expect that business really to be conducted quite similarly in the future to how it has been in the past. Now there are people that disagree with that and think that way more will happen via the internet.
但我们预计未来的业务将与过去的业务非常相似地进行。现在有些人不同意这一点，认为更多的事情将通过互联网发生。
But, you know, the purchase of a home is the single most important transaction for most people in their lifetimes. It’s — it can be partly emotional. It’s partly something that they appreciate people guiding them through.
但是，你知道，购买房屋是大多数人一生中最重要的交易。这在某种程度上可能是情感上的。在某种程度上，他们也欣赏有人引导他们完成这个过程。
It’s something where I think one-on-one will be very important in the future as it has been so far.
我认为一对一在未来会像迄今为止一样重要。
And in this country, there are going to be millions and millions and millions of homes that get sold every year. It’s — just in terms of people moving and dying and moving up in their economic potential.
在这个国家，每年将有成千上万的房屋被出售。这仅仅是因为人们的搬迁、去世以及经济潜力的提升。
So, there — the real estate brokerage business is going to be a very, very big business. And I think it will tend to be a very local business.
所以，房地产经纪业务将会成为一个非常非常大的行业。我认为它将倾向于成为一个非常本地化的业务。
And we have bought leading local firms in a number of markets. And they have retained their individual identity. We have not gone for a Century 21 or something approach, where we put them all under the umbrella of a single brand.
我们在多个市场收购了领先的本地公司，并且它们保留了各自的独立身份。我们没有采用类似 21 世纪不动产的方式，将它们全部置于单一品牌的旗下。
Rather we have these individual brands in given communities. And they’re usually very strong brands in each community. But we’ve only scratched the surface.
相反，我们在特定社区中拥有这些独立品牌。它们通常在每个社区中都是非常强大的品牌。但我们只是触及了表面。
And I would expect — and it has nothing to do with the potential for real estate or anything. It just relates to the fact that tens and tens and tens of millions of people own their own homes. And some are going to move around every year.
我预计——这与房地产的潜力或其他任何事情无关。这只是因为数以千万计的人拥有自己的房屋。而且每年都会有一些人搬家。
And there’s — I think that they’re going to continue to have a real estate broker involved in most of the transactions. And we would like to be very big in that business. We already are big, but we’re going to —
我认为他们会继续在大多数交易中涉及房地产经纪人。我们希望在这个行业中占据重要地位。我们已经很大，但我们将会——
I would think it’s almost certain that we will be a lot bigger in that business five or 10 years from now — I mean, a lot bigger — than we are now. And it’s a question of acquiring these firms.
我认为几乎可以肯定的是，五到十年后我们在那个业务上会比现在大得多——我的意思是，大得多。而这涉及到收购这些公司。
Generally, they’re — you know, they’re proprietorships. They’re owned by a single individual or a family. And they come up periodically because of the family circumstances or the individual circumstances of somebody.
一般来说，它们是——你知道，它们是独资企业。它们由个人或家庭拥有。由于家庭情况或某个人的个人情况，它们会定期出现。
But there’s a lot of them out there. And we’re a logical buyer. And we’ve been found to be a good owner. So I think it’s going to be a good-sized field for us over time.
但是外面有很多。而且我们是一个合乎逻辑的买家。我们被认为是一个好的所有者。所以我认为随着时间的推移，这对我们来说将是一个相当大的领域。
Charlie? 查理？
CHARLIE MUNGER: Yeah, we voted by buying the brokerage operation instead of the real estate. Obviously, we regard it as having better economics than the underlying real estate which Berkshire could buy.
查理·芒格：是的，我们通过购买经纪业务而不是房地产来投票。显然，我们认为它的经济性比伯克希尔可以购买的基础房地产更好。
4、《2018-05-05 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting》
31. No “unusual profits involved in being a real estate agent”
作为房地产经纪人没有“异常利润”
CAROL LOOMIS: This question is from Daniel Kane (PH) of Atlanta.
卡罗尔·卢米斯：这个问题来自亚特兰大的丹尼尔·凯恩（PH）。
“Your annual letter this year pointed out that Berkshire has become a leader in real estate brokerage in the United States. Congratulations. That is a significant feat in less than 20 years.
“您今年的年度信函指出，伯克希尔已成为美国房地产经纪行业的领导者。恭喜。这在不到 20 年的时间里是一个重要的成就。”
“But let me mention a sticky point. If fees charged by stock market active managers are a drag on investor performance, I would argue that real estate commissions are no different, and perhaps more detrimental, especially when one considers the lifetime effects of large, forgone, upfront cash flows and the power of compounding interest. I would be pleased to hear your rejoinder on the points I’ve raised.”
“但让我提到一个棘手的问题。如果股票市场的主动管理者收取的费用对投资者的表现造成拖累，那么我认为房地产佣金也没有不同，甚至可能更具破坏性，尤其是考虑到大量被放弃的前期现金流和复利的终生效应。我很乐意听听你对我提出的观点的回应。”
WARREN BUFFETT: Well, the purchase of a home is the largest financial transaction, for a significant percentage of the population, that they make. And — people — a lot of people need a lot of attention. And you can show a lot of houses before you sell one.
沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，购买房屋是大多数人进行的最大金融交易。而且——人们——很多人需要很多关注。在你卖出一套房子之前，你可能会展示很多房子。
I would say this. If you look at our close to 50,000 agents now, I think they make a good living — or a decent living. But I would say that that people who manage money make a whole lot more money with perhaps less contribution to the welfare of the person that they are dealing with.
我会说，如果你看看我们现在接近50,000名经纪人，我认为他们赚得很好——或者说赚得体面。但我会说，管理资金的人赚的钱多得多，也许对他们所接触的人的福利贡献更少。
So I don’t think that there are unusual profits involved in being a real estate agent. I don’t think there are unusual profits involved in the ownership. We like it because it’s fundamentally a good business.
所以，我不认为做房地产经纪人有异常的利润。我不认为拥有房地产会有异常的利润。我们喜欢它，因为它从根本上是一个好生意。
But here we are, doing 3 percent of all the real estate transactions in the United States, and we’re making, maybe, $200 million a year — which — well, we won’t get into what the comparative efforts are in Wall Street to earn $200 million. But —
但我们在这里，完成美国所有房地产交易的 3%，每年赚大约 2 亿美元——这——好吧，我们就不讨论华尔街为了赚取 2 亿美元所付出的相对努力了。不过——
I think I have to tell them about Roy Tolles a little bit on this. Roy Tolles, for example — Charlie’s partner — many, many, many years ago, decided he was going to want to buy a house in San Marino. He’s going to have a number of kids.
我认为我必须稍微谈谈罗伊·托尔斯（Roy Tolles）这个例子。比如说，查理的合伙人——很多年前，决定他要在圣马力诺买一套房子。他将有几个孩子。
So he sent his wonderful wife, Martha, out. And for six months, he had her look at houses in San Marino. And this was many years ago. And if they were priced at 150,000, she would offer (inaudible), or offer 75,000. And of course, the real estate agents were going crazy because they’re never going to get something listed at 150 sold at 75.
所以他让他那位了不起的妻子玛莎出去。六个月内，她看了很多房子。如果房子的标价是15万美元，她会出（不清楚的数字），或者出7.5万美元。当然，房地产经纪人们都疯了，因为他们永远不会把150000美元的房子以75000美元的价格卖掉。
And then finally, when she found one that they both really liked, he had her offer something like 120 and the real estate was so happy to get a bid that was in the general area — (laughs) — of the offering price that he would work very hard on the seller to take that bid. Because he knew what — (laughs) — he did not want six more months of Roy bidding at the lower prices. So you don’t sell them on the first trip.
然后最后，当她找到他们都真的喜欢的房子时，他让她出120000美元的价格，房地产经纪人非常高兴能够收到一个接近要价的报价——（笑声）——他们会非常努力地说服卖家接受这个报价。因为他知道——（笑声）——他不想再经历六个月的低价竞标。因此，你不能在第一次出价时就卖掉它。
Incidentally, I had Roy buy a house for me, sight unseen, because this was a guy that — (laughs) — knew human nature.
顺便说一下，我让罗伊为我买了一栋房子，没看过，因为这个家伙——（笑）——懂人性。
You don’t get rich — real estate agency — you know, the people earn their money, and they earn it in a perfectly respectable and honorable manner in terms of what they get paid. And as in every single industry there is, you know, there can be excesses or mistakes or that sort of thing.
你不会通过房地产中介致富，你知道，人们赚他们的钱，他们以一种完全体面和光荣的方式获得报酬。就像每个行业一样，可能会有过度或错误之类的事情。
But we will continue to buy more brokers. In fact, we’ll probably have another couple to announce before long.
但我们将继续收购更多的经纪人。实际上，我们可能很快会再宣布几家。
And we will feel that if we get to where we’re doing 10 percent of the real estate brokerage business in the country and we’re making 6- or $700 million a year, pretax, we will not think that’s a crazy amount of money to make for enabling 10 percent of 5 million people to change their homes every year in the United States.
我们会觉得，如果我们做到美国房地产经纪业务的10%，每年赚取6亿到7亿美元的税前利润，我们不会认为这是一个疯狂的金额，来帮助10%的人每年更换他们的房子。
Charlie? 查理？
CHARLIE MUNGER: Well, the commissions in real estate may get unreasonable if you’re talking about $20 million houses. It seems a little ridiculous to pay a 5 percent commission on a $20 million transaction.
查理·芒格：嗯，如果你谈论的是 2000 万美元的房子，房地产的佣金可能会变得不合理。在 2000 万美元的交易中支付 5%的佣金似乎有点荒谬。
But do any of us really care if the kind of people who pay $20 million for a house have a slightly higher commission? (Laughter)
但我们当中有谁真的在乎那些花 2000 万美元买房的人是否有稍高的佣金呢？（笑声）
The ordinary commission is pretty well-earned.
普通的佣金是相当合理的。
WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. We have a number of brokerage firms. So the highest has their average transaction — in one section of the country — would be close to $600,000 a unit. But the — in terms of the sales price of the house. But the — in most of our real estate operations — the average price is more like $250,000 or something in that area. And you can show a lot of houses to make one $250,000 sale.
沃伦·巴菲特：是的。我们有一些经纪公司。所以，最高的平均交易——在某个地区——会接近60万美元。但在我们大多数房地产操作中——房子的平均价格更像是25万美元左右。你可以展示很多房子才能成交一套25万美元的房子。
And of course, you split — the listing company and the selling company are usually two different companies. So it’s — it does not strike me as excessive.
当然，上市公司和销售公司通常是两个不同的公司。所以——这在我看来并不算过分。
And incidentally, it doesn’t strike the people in the industry that way either. It has not been particularly susceptible to online-type substitution or something of the sort. The real estate agent earns their commission in most cases.
顺便提一下，行业内的人们也并不这样认为。它并没有特别容易受到在线替代或类似事物的影响。在大多数情况下，房地产经纪人会赚取他们的佣金。
But Charlie’s had more experience with $20 million houses. So he will comment on that area. (Laughter)
但查理在 2000 万美元的房子方面有更多的经验。所以他会对此领域发表评论。（笑声）
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