Quarterly Articles

 
  • Lessons from Wars, Office Buildings, and Inverted Thinking

    01/27/2023

    2022 was a brutal year for most investors as this headline conveys. And when bond returns are factored in, the loss of market value is even more dramatic.... Read More

  • An Anti-Curious Jay Powell and His Kamikaze Fed

    10/29/2022

    I’ve been wrestling with the outlook for 2023 for our apartment portfolio because of the highly unusual global economy as we come out of Covid, overlayed... Read More

  • Sun Showers

    07/29/2022

    If the tremendous demand for apartments is an economic indicator, then the weather conditions are quite pleasant and favorable to remain that way. This... Read More

  • Stress for Success

    04/29/2022

    In last quarter’s article I discussed how the operational trends we were experiencing were quite positive and that higher revenues should help offset rising... Read More

  • Passing the Baton

    01/28/2022

    In my 34 years at CWS I have never seen such significant rent increases as we are experiencing today. For example, in the fourth quarter of 2021 we had... Read More

  • Initial Conditions and the Road to Development

    10/30/2021

    We have been spending a lot of time internally discussing why there has been such a dramatic increase in rents throughout most of our portfolio, as well... Read More

  • Here Comes The Sun

    07/30/2021

    As we have communicated over the past year, we felt as if we had built up strong defenses to help weather the Covid storm. Of course when it started we... Read More

  • The CWS Platform - Addition Through the Elimination of Subtraction

    04/30/2021

    When people ask me if I have any advice for them as they contemplate starting a real estate company or have a relatively new one that is trying to gain... Read More

  • 2020 - The Year of Living Dangerously

    01/29/2021

    2020 was clearly a year that was unlike any I had experienced. We entered the start of the Roaring 20s in good shape economically. Unfortunately this was... Read More

  • The Right Stuff But Still More Questions Than Answers

    10/30/2020

    The situation we’re in today lends itself to thinking about the famous Donald Rumsfeld soliloquy about known knowns and known unknowns and unknown unknowns.... Read More

  • The Power of Resilience

    08/01/2020

    I don’t think one can overstate the importance and value of resilience in life. Events will take place that we are not prepared for financially, emotionally,... Read More

  • What did the farmer say when his horse dropped dead?

    04/24/2020

    …Never did that before. I think that is a trite, apt description about the economic and social impact of the response to COVID-19. Our economy had gone... Read More

  • The Roaring 2010s (For Apartments)

    01/31/2020

    One of the great things about CWS and our 50+ years of longevity is that we have a tremendous amount of content that we can fall back on to review the... Read More

  • Going with the Flow

    10/25/2019

    At CWS we subscribe to apartment market reports produced by Witten Advisors. Ron Witten, the principal of the firm, has spoken at our Annual Investor Meeting... Read More

  • Capitalizing on a Slow Down

    07/26/2019

    With approximately 75% of our loans at CWS being floating rate, we have a strong interest (pun intended) in following the direction of short term interest... Read More

  • 50 Years and Still Going Strong

    04/26/2019

    The following is an excerpt of my presentation at CWS’ annual investor meeting. 2019 is CWS’ 50th year. This is quite an accomplishment and worthy of celebration.... Read More

  • Positioned Well for a Slowdown

    01/25/2019

    Warren Buffett has dramatically outperformed the market and his peers over his 50+ year investment career. This has been the case more so because of his... Read More

  • In the Kingdom of the Blind, the 25 "I" Investor is King

    10/26/2018

    Bill Williams is fond of quoting Erasmus when he says “In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.” Of course this means that very few people... Read More

  • AIM 2018 Recap

    07/26/2018

    There has naturally been a lot of concern over rising interest rates as approximately 80% of our debt is variable-rate. Until this point we have been able... Read More

  • Lessons From The East

    04/23/2018

    One of the mantras we like to say at CWS that is borrowed from Buddhist thought is “Eat when we’re hungry and sleep when we’re tired.” We want to design... Read More

  • Tax Reform: Very Favorable for Renters

    01/26/2018

    Tax reform is a big deal and that is why it does not happen very frequently. It can also have some very large unintended consequences. The 1981 tax law... Read More

  • Houston: Back from the Abyss

    10/27/2017

    Some time has passed since the devastating flooding that took place in Houston. This has allowed us to wrap our arms around the damage and to formulate... Read More

  • Stay to Play

    07/28/2017

    I just celebrated my 30th year with CWS and I have been so fortunate to have worked in one place with such great people for all of these years. It has... Read More

  • The Next 30+ Years

    04/28/2017

    This is my 30th year at CWS so I thought this would be an appropriate time to look back on some important trends during my three decades at CWS and to... Read More

  • CWS - My Family Office

    01/27/2017

    2017 should be quite an interesting year. We have a new President for which there is very little historical parallel. Donald Trump has clearly shown he... Read More

  • CWS and the Success of Founder-Led Firms

    10/28/2016

    “To live in a great idea means to treat the impossible as though it were possible. It is just the same with a strong character; and when an idea and a... Read More

  • $50 Million and Counting

    07/29/2016

    Since late 2011 I have been tracking how the cost of our variable rate loans have compared to the fixed-rate options we could have chosen at the time of... Read More

  • Better Than We Thought

    04/29/2016

    Over the years I have found that it is good discipline to take the time to articulate in writing the hypotheses that are the basis of making an investment.... Read More

  • Weathering the Storm

    01/29/2016

    2015 was a pretty interesting year and so is the beginning of 2016. 2015 was so challenging from an investment perspective that, according to a report... Read More

  • Lessons From Andrew Carnegie

    10/30/2015

    Over the years I have written about individuals who have had a great influence on my thinking in business and life. Examples include Shakespeare, Charlie... Read More

  • From Fare Thee Well to Keep on Truckin'

    07/31/2015

    In a recent blog post, I wrote about my trip to Santa Clara, CA to see one of the final "Fare Thee Well" shows for the Grateful Dead, commemorating their... Read More

  • Positive Optionality

    04/30/2015

    One of the most important pieces of advice that I could give for not only positioning oneself for success in the world of investing, but probably in life... Read More

  • Houston, Do We Have a Problem?

    01/30/2015

    It would be naïve and utterly foolish to believe that Houston won’t be negatively impacted by the significant drop in oil prices in such a short period... Read More

  • Cleaning the Fish

    10/31/2014

    It’s important to me that our investors, current and prospective, have an understanding of how CWS operates. A lot goes into making investment decisions... Read More

  • The CWS Circle of Life

    07/25/2014

    The focus of this article is to illuminate two important ways CWS generates long-term return for our investors. The first way is providing investors with... Read More

  • Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    04/25/2014

    I have heard someone ask the question, “How do you avoid an avalanche?...Don’t be on the mountain when one occurs.” If an investment drops by 50%, then... Read More

  • Is CWS Right for You?

    01/31/2014

    A few years ago I came across letters written by Warren Buffet to his investors prior to Berkshire Hathaway being his sole investment vehicle. Between... Read More

  • Let the Numbers Do the Talking

    10/25/2013

    This article will be shorter than others as I would like the numbers to do the talking as well as Bill Gross from PIMCO. For those of you who have paid... Read More

  • Shoot First, Ask Questions Later or Read My Lips: Stay the Course

    07/26/2013

    We had people over recently and I was distressed to pull a bottle of wine out of the wine cooler to find that it was not very cool. I impatiently tried... Read More

  • How Did We Do?

    04/26/2013

    There is a line from a Talking Heads song that says, “Say something once, why say it again?”. I am usually a firm believer in this “less is more” communication... Read More

  • Silver Linings Playbook

    01/25/2013

    I really enjoyed the movie Silver Linings Playbook. In fact, I saw it twice I liked it so much. Rather than discuss what the movie is about, I thought... Read More

  • Heraclitus, Jung, and the Road to Damascus

    10/26/2012

    The graph at the top of page 2 speaks volumes about the collapse in the lending market for owner-occupied home purchases in the United States. This picture... Read More

  • A Labour of Love 25 Years and Still Learning

    07/27/2012

    This July I will have completed my 25th year at CWS. Having just returned from a great trip to England that ended with a couple of days in Stratford-upon-Avon,... Read More

  • The Renter Generation

    04/27/2012

    The following article is a summary of the key points and charts I presented at our annual investor meeting that took place on April 2, 2012 Read More

  • A Political Calculation

    01/27/2012

    The economic system had pulled out of its sinking spell of 1929-33 only to become a chronic invalid, whose temperature was lower now in the mornings but... Read More

  • Collapse Into Now

    10/28/2011

    For many people in my world, the most shocking event of last quarter was the collapse of Treasury yields which led to the 10-year Treasury note yield dropping... Read More

  • Enhancing Lives the CWS Way

    07/29/2011

    For a long time I have felt that to be successful in business, and in life for that matter, one of the necessary traits is to be an effective hypothesis... Read More

  • Tectonic Shift

    04/29/2011

    Note: If you attended our Annual Investor Meeting then this article may be repetitive since it was the basis of my presentation.​ Read More

  • A Picture Worth 1,000 Words

    01/28/2011

    Sometimes there is a picture that really is worth 1,000 words, or in my case, closer to 1,400. CWS has owned apartments on an uninterrupted basis since... Read More

  • A Paper Blog

    10/29/2010

    I’ve been thinking about starting a blog. Blogging is pretty much a 24/7 endeavor for it to be relevant and fresh. So rather than doing that right now,... Read More