In the early 80s [we] decid[ed] that, you know, capital was our beverage—our leverage was our beverage, to put it more bluntly—and that we needed to acquire a syndicator because syndication of real estate was becoming a big thing in the early 80s. And we finally made a deal with this one company and we began to do the due diligence. And the guy in my shop who was doing diligence calls me one day and said, "Sam, I've seen something that I think is really extraordinary. It's a mobile home park." I said "A mobile home park? That's Marlon Brando yelling, Stella, you know, that's the tumbleweed blowing and now rolling on the windy, barren site." He says, you don't understand what's happened. They've taken the mobile home park business and created these parks and the parks, just like single family subdivisions. They're beautifully maintained. And you are the owner of the land. And it's the most secure piece of real estate you could imagine. We ended up buying the company and that was 1984. And as far as I know, I don't think anybody else in the commercial real estate business knew anything about mobile homes. And when we started buying more mobile homes, there was always kind of the same story. There was a lawyer who was invited to help, owned this mobile home park and he had never owned anything that had, you know, consistent, predictable earnings. You didn't tell anybody about it then. And he ended up with this whole cadre of owners across the country that were not part of the conventional real estate business. Then we took the company public in 1993 and it included, you know, the total enterprise value was about two hundred and roughly 50 million dollars. Two hundred twenty five million dollars. It's 2021 and we've got a company today that's got an enterprise value I think of twelve and a half or 13 billion dollars, and it's been the number one growing REIT since the beginning of the modern REIT era. It's a very different perspective on, quote unquote, being in the real estate business than the guy with calluses on his hands, you know, holding up the studs and putting the deal together.

Instant Insights /

Sam Zell Reflects On His Decades-Long Career

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