S.E.C. Real Estate Observer

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RENO Educational Foundation Editorial Staff
Favorite Real Estate Quotes

Editor’s Note:  These quotes were originally published in the Real Estate News Observer in 1975.

Theodore Roosevelt:  “Every person who invests in well-selected real estate in a growing section of a prosperous community adopts the surest and safest method of becoming independent, for real estate is the basis of wealth.”  Theodore Roosevelt Jr., often referred to as Teddy Roosevelt or his initials T. R., was an American statesman, conservationist, naturalist, historian, and writer who served as the 26th president of the United States from 1901 to 1909.

Bruce Barton:  “There was a vacant lot opposite my home which could have been bought for five thousand dollars.  A month ago, a man bought it for twenty-five thousand dollars, and two weeks later he sold it for sixty thousand dollars.  I take off my hat to him!  He saw it was a gold mine!  It didn’t look to me like anything more than a vacant lot.”   Bruce Fairchild Barton was an American author, advertising executive, and politician. He served in the U.S. Congress from 1937 to 1940 as a Republican from New York.

Andrew Carnegie:  “Ninety percent of all millionaires become so through owning real estate.  More money has been made in real estate than in all industrial investments.  The wise young man or wage earner of today invests his money in real estate.”  Andrew Carnegie was a Scottish-American industrialist and philanthropist. Carnegie led the expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century and became one of the richest Americans in history. 

Hetty Green:  “Real estate is an imperishable asset, ever increasing in value.  It is the most solid security that human ingenuity has devised.  It is the collateral to be preferred above all others, and the safest means of investing money.”  Hetty Green, nicknamed the “Witch of Wall Street,” was an American businesswoman and financier known as the richest woman in America during the Gilded Age.

Henry Ward Beecher:  “Land is part of God’s estate in the glove; and when a parcel of ground is deeded to you, and you walk over it, and call it your own, it seems as if you had come into partnership with the original proprietor of the earth.”  Henry Ward Beecher was regarded as the most popular Christian minister in the United States for more than 30 years of his life. From the 1850s to the 1880s, Beecher spoke to large congregations every week.

Senator W.E. Brock:  “In buying real estate, you have a freedom of possession which other investments do not give.  No one can freeze you out.  No one can run you off.  It is yours.  I made a real estate deal 16 years ago against a banker’s advice, and sold the property in five years for over $100,000 profit, plus 6% net income.  If I had put the profit back into stocks, I would have lost practically all of it.”   William Emerson Brock III is a former American Republican politician who served in both chambers of the United States Congress from 1963 to 1977 and later in the United States Cabinet from 1981 to 1987. He is the grandson of William Emerson Brock Sr., a Democratic U.S. senator who represented Tennessee from 1929 to 1931.