Warren, do you —do you still think a single family home is one of
the best investments around? And have you actually tried to figure out
a way to invest in that? You'd like to buy 100,000 —you've said that
you'd like to buy as many as you could, but they're impossible to
manage and you can't really do it. Have you figured...
BUFFETT: Yeah.
JOE: Have you tried to figure out a way to do it?
BUFFETT: Yeah. And I've had a lot of suggestions from people after I
made that statement. But it's not really feasible, certainly, compared
to other things we can do with money. They're —it's just too big a
problem to deal with small units like that and management problems
and human problems. So I think that anybody that knows where
they're going to want to live, has a reasonably assured income. I think
they're making a terrible mistake if they don't buy a single family
home now and get a mortgage at these rates. And they should get a
30-year mortgage. It's a —it's a —really a golden opportunity. It was a
little bit better six months ago, but it's still wonderful now. You're not
going to see a chance like this five years from now. I'll guarantee you
that.
BECKY: Five years from now it's going to be a different picture, and
that's interesting.
BUFFETT: Yeah. Rates will be higher and all kinds of things. I mean,
this is —this is the time to buy.
BECKY: And you think prices will rebound, too.
BUFFETT: If you know where you want —you've got to want to live
BUFFETT: If you know where you want —you've got to want to live
there, I mean, and a home's a wonderful thing.
BECKY: Hm.
BUFFETT: But I wouldn't buy one if I was going to move in six months
or something of the sort. And I wouldn't buy one if I was terribly nervous about my
job.
BECKY: Ted Weschler and Todd Combs talked about what they've
been doing as an investment cycle.
How much of that is yours? How much of that is theirs?
BUFFETT: Very little of it's mine. I mean, if it's Wells Fargo or IBM or
Coca-Cola, I mean, I've got four stocks that aggregate over 50 billion
that I manage. And then I've got a bunch of other things, too. But the
action is with Ted and Todd. And they're building up portfolios, and
they will buy $500 million at a time of something. And they're probably
more prone —one of the two is more prone to move around in
securities than I would be. But there's a lot of styles that work. So I
am enormously pleased.
