Harry Helmsley started as a $12/week office boy in 1925. By the 1970s, he owned more real estate than anyone in America—the Empire State Building, 60+ office buildings, 30+ hotels, over $5 billion in assets.

His strategy? Buy quality buildings in quality locations. Never sell. Just compound.

No flipping. No syndicate exits. No IRR optimization. Just 40+ years of patient accumulation.

In this episode, we break down:

→ How Helmsley learned operations before ownership (and why it matters)

→ The "refinance, don't sell" approach that avoided capital gains for decades

→ Why transaction costs destroy more wealth than most investors realize

→ The crown jewel acquisitions: Empire State Building, Helmsley Building, the hotel empire

→ What happened when it almost all fell apart (and the lesson in who you marry)

The greatest real estate fortunes weren't built by flipping. They were built by holding.

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00:00 - Introduction: $5 Billion Empire from Nothing

02:15 - The Office Boy Years (1925-1935)

05:30 - Buying the Brokerage with Sweat Equity

08:45 - The Accumulation Strategy: Buy, Hold, Never Sell

12:20 - Why Refinancing Beats Selling (The Math)

16:00 - The Crown Jewels: Empire State Building & Beyond

19:30 - The Fall: Leona and the Collapse

22:00 - Timeless Lessons for Modern Investors

#realestateinvesting #wealthbuilding #harryhelmsely #empirestatebuilding #buyandhold #passiveincome #realestate #investing #financialhistory

A SPECIAL REPORT:

Last December, I published a 23-page report predicting what would happen in 2025 — treasury yields, inflation, GDP, housing supply. Today, I'm grading myself in public.

Predicted 10Y Treasury: 4.1% → Actual: 4.11%

Predicted Seattle Permits: -36% → Actual: -50%

Predicted Inflation: 2.5% → Actual: 2.7%

Most predictions were directionally right. Some were wrong. And 2025 threw curveballs nobody saw coming — $40B in wildfire losses by Week 2, a 43-day government shutdown, and a GDP path that broke every model.

This video covers:

→ The Six Forces scorecard (with grades)

→ Black swan events that blindsided everyone

→ The behavioral finance of 2025 (anchoring, recency bias, narrative fallacy)

→ What I'm watching for 2026

00:00 - What I Predicted

02:30 - The Six Forces Scorecard

12:00 - What Nobody Saw Coming

18:00 - Behavioral Finance Audit

26:00 - The Denver Deal I Didn't Do

30:00 - 2026 Watchlist

🔔 Subscribe for the 2026 Outlook Report (dropping January)

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📈 Accredited Investors — Work With Us:

https://lombardequities.com

#realestateinvesting #2025predictions #marketoutlook #multifamily

Notre-Dame Cathedral took 182 years to build. Your iPhone is designed to die in two.

The men who laid those first stones knew they would never see the finished building. They planted trees they would never sit under. They built something timeless.

We don't do that anymore. What changed?

One concept explains it all: Time Preference — the degree to which you discount the future relative to the present. It's the single most important idea I've encountered in my study of wealth across civilizations, and almost nobody talks about it.

In this episode, I break down:

• What time preference is and why it shapes the fate of nations
• How hard money created the Eiffel Tower, the Brooklyn Bridge, and dynastic fortunes
• What happened on August 15, 1971 — and why everything changed
• Rome vs. Byzantium: same empire, different money, 500 years vs. 1,000 years
• How Spain's silver fortune destroyed them from the inside
• Why your buildings, products, relationships, and attention span have all degraded
• Why low time preference is now a superpower in a world optimized for immediacy
• 8 practical ways to build low time preference into your life and investments

The cathedral builders knew something we've forgotten: patience isn't passive. It's the most aggressive long-term strategy there is.

What are you building that will exist in 100 years?

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Learn more about Lombard Equities Group: https://www.lombardequities.com