Warren Buffett Goes Into Real Estate
Warren Buffett is going into real estate ~ in a big way.
Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway Company has acquired the Prudential and Real Living real estate organizations and will fold them into a new company called Berkshire Hathaway Home Services next year.
The new entity will have roughly 91,000 agents in the U.S. and Canada.
Given Berkshire Hathaway’s existing business that include furniture (think R.C. Willey), insurance (think Geico), and other businesses, we can expect a good deal of cross marketing from the new firm.
Berkshire Hathaway invested $5 BILLION in Bank of America last year and increased its stake in Wells Fargo Bank on October 24th of this year.
The company also owns Clayton Homes, a manufactured homes company.
Buffett is clearly making a huge bet on a real estate comeback.
hmmmm . . . . wonder if their next move will be to acquire a major title & escrow company?
This is potentially serious competition for other major real estate organizations; especially Keller Williams and the various brands owned by Realogy (Coldwell Banker, Century 21, Sotheby’s, etc.).
RE/MAX should be able to compete well with the new organization, given its established, strong international presence with nearly 89,000 agents in 6,314 offices located in 91 countries around the world.
November 1st, 2012 Posted in Inside Real Estate
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