Here's Why This Billionaire Doesn’t Own A Single Stock Or Bond

Forbes

“I like controlling my own future,” says the former Florida state legislator turned homebuilding mogul.  Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/monicahunter-hart/2025/07/03/why-this-billionaire-pat-neal-doesnt-own-a-single-stock-or-bond/  Subscribe to FORBES: https://www.youtube.com/user/Forbes?sub_confirmation=1  Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:  https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript  Stay Connected Forbes newsletters: https://newsletters.editorial.forbes.com Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes More From Forbes:  http://forbes.com  Forbes covers the intersection of entrepreneurship, wealth, technology, business and lifestyle with a focus on people and success.

Transcript

00:00Today on Forbes, why this billionaire doesn't own a single stock or bond.

00:06On an average weekday morning at 5 a.m., home-building billionaire Pat Neal starts

00:11readying himself for work while mulling over the stock and bond markets. He says, quote,

00:17thought processes usually begin in the shower and are completed by 8 in the morning.

00:21He also says he asks himself, quote, what is the 10-year T-bill going to do today?

00:26But Neal doesn't hold any T-bills, that is, treasury bills. In fact, he doesn't own any

00:33bonds at all, or any public stocks. He follows those markets to predict how their activities

00:39will impact the spending patterns of homebuyers. As for himself, though, nearly all of his $1.2

00:45billion fortune is parked in his home-building company, Neal Communities, which has put up

00:5025,000 houses, all in Florida. Neal, who is 76 years old, has been reinvesting in the business

00:57since founding it in 1970. He explains, quote, I like controlling my own future. I don't live

01:04an expensive lifestyle, and my retirement is my business. We don't need retirement funds

01:09because we're not going to retire. When Neal, who pays himself a $150,000 salary, requires additional

01:17cash. He sells undeveloped home lots. He owns about $26,000, some in joint ventures or with

01:23his sons, and estimates their average value at $50,000 to $150,000 a piece.

01:29Neal's earliest forays into investing were more diversified. The former Florida state senator

01:35learned myriad ways to make a buck while growing up in Des Moines, Iowa in the 1950s and 60s.

01:41He bottled and sold detergent. He mowed lawns. He had paper routes. He used his truck to drive

01:47around a handful of peers and rent out their cleaning and hauling services. By the time he

01:52was in high school, he was earning thousands of dollars a year, sometimes more than his mother,

01:57a schoolteacher. He made his first investment in the mid-1960s, around age 16. 100 shares of Iowa

02:04beef packers, the meatpacking pioneer. He remembers buying them for about $1,500, or roughly $15,400

02:12in today's dollars, or $15 a piece, in the mid-60s. He held the stock until his sophomore year of college,

02:20when he estimates that he sold it for about $3,000, which is about $26,900 today. That, of course,

02:27doubled his investment. His luck didn't hold. Neal's first stockbroker encouraged him to invest in the

02:34Delta Corporation of America, a mobile home loan servicer based in Florida in the early 1970s.

02:40He purchased 100 shares at $28. After briefly hitting $34.50 in October 1971, the stock tumbled

02:48following a bad earnings report and just kept falling. The broker encouraged Neal to lean in,

02:54so he did, right up until Delta dissolved in the middle of the decade. Neal says, quote,

02:59He asked me to buy an average down at $14. I bought that, and I wrote it down to $0.

03:06His broker left the business and became a butcher. Neal says he did, quote, just as well with his

03:12second broker, and so he stopped buying into the market altogether after 1972. The strategy he now

03:19prefers is to invest solely in the industry that he knows best, home building. He says, quote,

03:25My sons and I know more about land buying opportunities than anybody. We spend our days

03:30driving properties, calling friends, watching the obituaries, listening to what's happening

03:35to make sure that we can make good land purchases. My investment strategy is to buy land ahead of

03:41growth. That tactic brought him one of his best ever purchases, 1,087 acres at the Labambi Hunting

03:49Preserve in Sarasota County, which he bought in the late 1980s for about $0.10 per square foot

03:54and sold in the 90s and early 2000s. He says, quote, They didn't know the interstate was coming,

04:01and when the adjoining roads got through, I was able to sell some of the property at $57 a square foot.

04:08Neal recommends the books of investors Seth Klarman and Peter Lynch for treatises supporting

04:13the following motto, quote, Investing is a knowledge business. He adds, quote, Unique knowledge should

04:20allow you to have better than average returns. For full coverage, check out Monica Hunter Hart's

04:26piece on Forbes.com. This is Kieran Meadows from Forbes. Thanks for tuning in.

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