Land
The Take-Away: Scott Cox Offers 10 Gems Of Timely Wisdom And Wit
From business, investment, and real estate's rich trove of quotable quotes, Scott picks 10 of his favorites, and adds a dispassionate, clear-eyed view of how each applies to the present-day wild ride.

[Editor's Note: SLC Advisors principal Scott Cox needs no introduction. We don't call his perspective on land, capital, and strategy a MasterClass for nothing. At a moment of racing change and even higher stakes – inflation, a mixed-signals economy, a Fed monetary policy pivot and a macro demographic inflection – Scott channels 10 sage quotes from real estate's book of wisdom, and annotates each with a punchline every vested and invested stakeholder should hear to try to filter biases, fallacies, and pattern recognition into smarter decision-making. Here are the 10 take-aways, with due respect to those who originally spoke these words of wisdom.]
Signal Vs. Noise
Assumptions
“It’s a rare person who wants to hear what he doesn’t want to hear”
Trends
“If enough people believe something cannot happen – it will. Because their actions will alter the environment”
Perspective
False Binary
“Cognitive dissonance is the inability to hold two or more conflicting ideas”
Illusions of Causality
Prediction Bias
Reduction Fallacy
“Too much capital availability makes money flow to the wrong places. When capital goes to where it should not, bad things happen”
Model Vs. Real World
“If every asset has multiple bidders, what’s the chance it sells for a fair price?”
Data, Data everywhere
Join the conversation
MORE IN Land
To Get Out Of Housing's Echo Chamber ... How About A Plan?
It would be naïve to think there is an argument that will win over most of these folks. But we need to convince some and at least lessen the negative passion of a material proportion of the rest.
Laser-Focused Opportunism Seen As Strategic Plan Of Action
On the plus side for a "growth" strategy, present absorption rates, pricing trends, and traffic, and interest have arced determinedly upward through April.
A Land 'Reload' Is A Pain Point Builders Did Not Expect In 2023
Having to go out now – in a business backdrop where land sellers never got the memo that they'd better concede on lot pricing – and buy land feels, to some of the builder execs we've heard from, just wrong. That doesn't mean they won't do it.