Beating the Market. 📈💰📊

Brock's newsletter | march 27th, 2026

Beating the Market.

Lori and I have one week to spend $1.4 million dollars.

We are trying to find a property to buy before our 1031 exchange timer runs out and we get hit with a monster tax bill – we had a replacement property, but the deal just fell apart (ugh). Never a dull moment.

Of course, we'd love to find a screaming deal. You can’t go wrong buying things that are undervalued.

The problem is that buying under-market is hard. Why? Because everyone is trying to buy under-market. And in doing so, they drive prices up. Or at least normalize them.

Another way to think of it is this: it’s hard to beat the stock market because what we call the “market” is just a bunch of people all trying to beat the market.

You can spend your entire life never buying anything, waiting for a 10% discount.

Back to our 1031: We will find something, but we have a week to do so. This means we are absolutely going to pay full price (maybe even over-market). Tough to make a deal when you’re in a rush.

But I've never been bothered paying full price for a great house in a great area. Frankly, in my full portfolio, I'd say only one building was a screaming deal.

And at this stage in my investing journey, I'm only buying what I've dubbed heirloom quality real estate (historic properties in great areas). We are going to pay full price for something incredible, so we don't mind.

Because what I know as a 25+ year real estate investor, everything seems like a screaming deal in hindsight. Especially in this time of persistent inflation, you want to own assets, and not have cash burning a hole in your pocket.

I’ve said this before, and it’s worth repeating – looking back on decades of real estate buying and investing, I should have bought the nicest, most expensive pieces of real estate I could get my hands on. Which I did, sometimes. Could have done more.

There's always barriers to entry: now it's competition and high interests rates. But I just finished and loved this incredible investing book: Just Keep Buying. The title says it all. Full steam ahead.

If you know of a trophy investment property (ideally a commercial property in Silver Lake or Los Feliz) around $4mil, hit me up.

-Brock

P.S. We are busy painting, staging, landscaping, and renovating our clients' homes – 8 homes hitting the market in April alone. Reach out to buy your trophy property!