Warren Buffett Explains Why He Prefers Stocks Over Real Estate | Berkshire 2025

Good morning, Warren, Greg, and Ajit. My

name is Jackie Han. I'm from China and now work in Toronto, Canada. This is my eighth Birkshshire house meetings at this point. I've probably spent more

this point. I've probably spent more time with you than most people spend on Netflix. As you might guess, coming from

Netflix. As you might guess, coming from a Chinese family, we've always had a soft spot for real estate. So, the your question isn't why don't you own a

house, it's why are you still buying stocks instead of more property? Well,

in respect to real estate, it's so much harder than stocks in terms of negotiation of deals,

time spent, the involvement of multiple parties in the ownership usually when when when real estate gets in trouble.

So, you find out you're dealing with more than the equity holder. But there

have been times when large amounts of real estate have changed hands at bargain prices, but usually stocks were cheaper. But they were a lot easier to

cheaper. But they were a lot easier to do. So, uh,

do. So, uh, Charlie did more real estate. Charlie

enjoyed real estate transactions.

Uh, and and he actually did a fair number of them in the last 5 years of his life. Uh, but he was, you know, he

his life. Uh, but he was, you know, he was playing a game that it was an interesting game to him. Uh but I think if he you'd asked him to make a choice

when he was 21 and he had to either be in stocks exclusively the rest of his life or real estate the rest of his life he would have chose the stocks of the second

the there's just so much more opportunity at least in the United States there's so much more opportunity

that presents itself in security market than it does in real estate. state and

in real estate you're dealing with a usually dealing with a single owner or a family that owns maybe a large property they've had a long time. Maybe they've

borrowed too much of money against it.

Maybe the population trends are against them. But but to them it's an enormous

them. But but to them it's an enormous decision. When you walk down to the New

decision. When you walk down to the New York Stock Exchange, you can do billions of dollars worth of business, totally anonymous, and you can do it in five minutes. And the trades are complete

minutes. And the trades are complete when they're complete. In real estate, when you make a deal, a big deal with a distress lender, it you know, when you

sign the deal, then you go into another phase. I mean, then people start

phase. I mean, then people start negotiating more things and more things and it's it's it's a whole different game and a different type of person. to

some extent enjoys the game. Uh we we did a few real estate deals that came our way in 2008 and n but the amount of

time that they would take us compared to doing something intelligent and probably better uh and securities

uh there was just no comparison. I mean,

in a real estate deal, every every sentence is as important to the person and and in stocks, uh, if somebody needs to sell 20,000 shares of Berkshire or something and

they call us and the price is right, it's done in 5 seconds and and it closes all the time. that uh uh people who you certainly wouldn't want to have marry

your daughter or they behave well actually um in in in in socks. Partly that's

because that they're probably having their their wires or phones or whatever it is uh recorded as to what they've

said and everything. But the the completion rate for working on anything in stocks is assuming you're got a meeting of the minds on prices

essentially 100% in real estate. It just

begins when you agree on deals and then they they take forever. So that for guy 94 it's it's not it's not the most interesting thing to get involved in

something where the where the negotiations could take years. uh and uh we we have the capability.

There have been some huge failures in in in fact if you go all the way back to Zechonorf in the 1960s he was going to change the world and Century City out in

California is a product of his and so people tend to get in trouble in that business. Uh

business. Uh the banks usually don't want to recognize it, but that takes a long time to go through the through the bank

processes. They just got through redoing

processes. They just got through redoing the Musk loan that he made when he was buying it three years ago of the company

that's now X. And you know, 3 years to work out a transaction that uh where you've got parties on both sides that

aren't ready to act that we find it much better when people are just ready to pick up the phone and you can do hundreds of millions of dollars worth of

business in the day. I've been spoiled, but I like being spoiled, so we'll keep it that way.