Kyle Bass, the billionaire investor who once entered the housing market, has revealed in an interview the three states where he is snapping up real estate.
Texas, Florida and Tennessee are the ideal places to invest right now, Bass told Clay Fink on The Investor’s Podcast.
Bass’ decision to short the real estate market in 2008 raised eyebrows, while many other investors were deeply skeptical of his strategy.
Then the bubble burst and Bass was proven right, and his story was chronicled in Michael Lewis’s bestseller The Big Short, which was later adapted into a film of the same name.
Now Kyle Bass is considered a market soothsayer, with many investors hanging on his every word and eager to follow his sometimes surprising advice.
Kyle Bass, pictured above, said he is investing in Texas, Florida and Tennessee
Bass said the northeast and west coasts are regions with “very high costs and very high taxes.”
During the chat, Bass told Fink that the West Coast and the Northeast are “very high-cost, very high-tax, you might say poorly managed jurisdictions.”
As a result of these adverse business conditions, workers and companies are moving toward “pro-business, lower cost, lower or no tax jurisdictions,” he said.
“You have to move real companies to places where it’s affordable, where there’s expansive activity, where there are natural resources to enable those moves,” said the billionaire founder of Hayman Capital.
Bass noted that it is important to be at the forefront of the macro movement of people and businesses.
By doing this, an investor can use migration trends to their advantage.
“I want to use that property. And I want to use cautious leverage.”
From 2022 to 2023, Florida’s population grew by 365,000, while Texas grew by more than 473,000.
Tennessee’s population grew by 77,513, a significant number.
Florida, Texas and Tennessee have all shown significant population growth
For Bass, the three states offer a more “pro-business” environment
Bass’ real estate purchases are complemented by his massive carbon credit purchases
Together, Florida, Texas and Tennessee are bucking the trend plaguing states like New York and California, where a significant number of large companies are fleeing in favor of more business-friendly states.
An estimated $1 trillion in assets have left New York and California in the past three years alone
Bass isn’t just interested in acquiring real estate in Florida, Tennessee and Texas.
He also buys “carbon credits” and “layers them on top of owning the property.”
In 2021, Bass founded Conservation Equity Management, an environmental sustainability private equity firm that specializes in selling federal credits in exchange for conservation services such as wetland restoration on properties.
It’s a very rewarding – and lucrative – venture for Bass.
“To protect myself and build wetlands and rebuild streams, creeks and rivers and make the people who influence these markets pay enormous amounts of money for their impacts by selling them actual federally regulated credits,” he said.
‘It’s a great company. It is super fun. You put on your snake boots, your waterproof snake boots, and you go.”