10 Comment

• Cody December 10, 2014 at 9:11 am

  They bought the Main building for $350m, sold it only two years later for $550m. $200 MILLION dollar return in 2 years. Not that shabby. I’m in the wrong business.
  .
  (The market for those buildings really went up by that % in two years?)
• commonsense December 10, 2014 at 9:39 am

  Cody, deals like that with way out of standard deviation returns have to do with luck and not foresight.
• ShadyHeightster December 10, 2014 at 9:49 am

  Cody, it sold for $450m, so a $100m return, but still, I’d take it!
  The curious thing will be what valuation HCAD assigns to this property next year, since commercial structures like this usually get low-balled, while residential inner loop stuff they try to over-value.
• Phil Aphonic December 10, 2014 at 10:05 am

  Cody, it sold for $450M, not 550. So “only” $100M profit. Notice how they managed to enrich themselves by not doign anything positive for society. No goods or services produced (unless I’m missign something).
• canceco December 10, 2014 at 10:27 am

  I used to work in 1000 Main, and it wasn’t anything special. Typical cube farm with an open trading floor on 11. I think this is telling of the need for Office Space.
• GoogleMaster December 10, 2014 at 10:44 am

  @Phil Aphonic, you’re free to make money the same way without producing goods and services. No one’s stopping you.
• Spoonman. December 10, 2014 at 11:04 am

  @Phil Aphonic – Well, they managed the building or paid for it to be managed, so that’s one thing.
  But even assuming they put in no effort, do you believe that making money off of passive investments is morally wrong? Did the HR person at your employer look at you funny when you said you think 401k plans are evil? Do you make sure to only keep your savings in non-interest-bearing accounts so you don’t accidentally make any money without doing something of benefit to society?

  Or are you just whining?
• HeyHeyHouston December 10, 2014 at 12:08 pm

  @Phil Aphonic
  All aboard the commie train. As this transaction was completed on free will, who is to blame for the profit? Let’s find this person and blame them for doing something they wanted and chose to do.
  .
  “Capitalism: God’s way of determining who is smart and who is poor.”
• joel December 10, 2014 at 12:52 pm

  Phil, you sound like you have issues with rentier capitalism. when you have such large concentrations of wealth, just merely pushing the money around is enough to fuel the economy. they still had to take on risk and deploy large sums of money, which feeds the banking system and many peoples salaries, in order to turn such a profit. they’re rewarded for risk, not labor, which is still a very important aspect of any economy. spending the money itself is a representation of labor that will still lead to the production of new goods and services. of course the full sum of this can’t be determined until we see how much the last person holding the ball gets from it, but for the present time the impact is certainly positive.
  ***
  however, it’s worth remembering that the stock market went up more than their profit margin in the same time span. real estate is not a good vehicle for gambling or luck.
• Bernard December 10, 2014 at 1:21 pm

  Of course you are missing something, Phil. The goods and services are the building itself. It was build by real people earning real wages and with real materials that cost real money. Then it was sold. Now it’s being sold again. By your logic, it’s somehow unethical, distasteful or non-economically beneficial for any homeowner to sell his/her home for more than he/she paid for it.

  It’s not like the $450 million purchase price just disappears into thin air. The government takes a big bite for taxes. Then the remainder is available to the seller for future investment or consumption. The wheel keeps turning…