Forbes India 15th Anniversary Special

Thoughts on real estate

Published: Jul 2, 2021 04:52:09 PM IST
Updated: Jul 2, 2021 04:57:35 PM IST

Image: Stock Montage / Getty Images

I would give a thousand furlongs of sea for an acre of barren ground.
—William Shakespeare
English playwright


Buy land, they’re not making it anymore.
—Mark Twain
American writer and humourist


Landlords grow rich in their sleep without working, risking or economising.
—John Stuart Mill
English political economist


In my experience, in the real estate business, past success stories are generally not applicable to new situations. We must continually reinvent ourselves, responding to changing times with innovative new business models.
—Akira Mori
Japanese real estate developer


But land is land, and it’s safer than the stocks and bonds of Wall Street swindlers.
—Eugene O’Neill
American playwright


What we call real estate—the solid ground to build a house on—is the broad foundation on which nearly all the guilt of this world rests.
—Nathaniel Hawthorne
American novelist

Real estate is the key cost of physical retailers. That’s why there’s the old saw: Location, location, location.
—Jeff Bezos
American businessman

Buy on the fringe and wait. Buy land near a growing city!
Buy real estate when other people want to sell. Hold what you buy!
—John Jacob Astor
American businessman


The problem with real estate is that it’s local. You have to understand the
local market.
—Robert Kiyosaki
American businessman


Ninety percent of all millionaires become so through owning real estate.
—Andrew Carnegie
Scottish-American industrialist


Perhaps the secret to making a billion dollars in real estate is that there is no secret.
—David Lichtenstein
American entrepreneur


Find out where people are going and buy land
before they get there.
—William Penn Adair
Leader of the Cherokee Nation



(This story appears in the 02 July, 2021 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)