I’m drawn to emerging markets because of their built-in demand. I’ve always believed in buying into in-place demand rather than trying to create it. - Sam Zell

We believed the real money in real estate came from borrowing long-term, fixed-rate debt in an inflationary scenario that ultimately depreciated the value of the loan and increased the position of the borrower.

Boards that don’t exercise an ownership approach are complicit in poor-performing companies.

My takeaway was a whole new respect for simplicity. Development required multiple steps, and every step meant one more chance for something to go wrong. When Jay and I liquidated the Tahoe investment years later, I noticed that we had forgotten something critical, so I called him. “Listen,” I said, “the deal is closed, but I just realized we never drew up a formal partnership agreement between the two of us. If the IRS comes and reviews this thing, we’re going to look like idiots if we don’t have documents.” “Yeah, yeah,” he said, not really interested. That was indicative of Jay. Trust was one of his abiding principles. He’d always bet a lot more on the person than on the deal.