This week, we speak with Jonathan Miller, founder and CEO of Miller Samuel, a real estate appraisal & consulting firm founded in 1986. His weekly Housing Notes is widely read among the real estate community of appraisers and agents. We discuss the state of both commercial and residential real estate across the country, the environment for mortgage rates, New York City housing, and his favorite penthouse apartments.
Miller explains how the inventory shortfall has distorted the entire market, driving prices higher. In nearly every market he tracks, sales are down 25% because inventory is 60% below the pre-pandemic levels. Today, only 35% of homes in the USA have owners that have a mortgage.
We also discuss why the current cycle is so different from the GFC; the banks “did not lose their minds” and only made loans to qualified buyers.
A list of his favorite books is here; A transcript of our conversation is available here Tuesday.
You can stream and download our full conversation, including any podcast extras, on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Google, YouTube, and Bloomberg. All of our earlier podcasts on your favorite pod hosts can be found here.
You can hear our previous interviews from 2014, 2016, 2020, 2021 and 2022.
Be sure to check out our Masters in Business next week with Jon McAuliffe co-founder and Chief Investment Officer at the Voleon Group. Voleon was one of the first hedge funds to use AI as a core of its investing model. Previously, he was at D. E. Shaw & Co., where he researched, developed, and managed statistical arbitrage trading strategies. Dr. McAuliffe also helped to build the recommender system at Amazon.com. He is an Adjunct Professor of Statistics at the University of California, Berkeley.
Jonathan Miller’s Current Reading
Billionaires’ Row: Tycoons, High Rollers, and the Epic Race to Build the World’s Most Exclusive Skyscrapers by Katherine Clark
Easy Money: Cryptocurrency, Casino Capitalism, and the Golden Age of Fraud by Ben McKenzie with Jacob Silverman
The Slip: The New York City Street That Changed American Art Forever by Prudence Peiffer
These Are the Plunderers: How Private Equity Runs―and Wrecks―America by Gretchen Morgenson and Joshua Rosner
