Warren Buffet, Ron Peltier: "This is a time of opportunity"

Team spirit turns hockey star into real estate czar
By Noelle Knox, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — Lenders are collapsing, home sales and prices in many markets are falling and lots of investors are panicking. Not Warren Buffett. He told a group of his real estate managers late last month in Omaha that he sees this as a time of opportunity.
The man who will try to seize some of those opportunities for him is Ron Peltier, CEO of HomeServices of America, the real estate arm of Berkshire Hathaway (BRKA, BRKB) and the nation's second-largest residential brokerage firm. It's Peltier's task to scope out deals with high-quality, but beaten-down, realty firms that might be ripe for acquisition.
"We want to be in the top 60 markets in America in the next five years," Peltier says. "And we want to be the No. 1 or No. 2" real estate company in those areas.
Since Buffett bought HomeServices seven years ago, the Minneapolis-based company has shot up from about 4,000 agents in three markets to 20,000 agents in 20 markets, including Prudential California and Edina Realty in Minneapolis. HomeServices also offers homeowners insurance and title services, and it runs a mortgage venture with Wells Fargo.
In keeping with Buffett's conservative approach, Peltier's lending division, which accounts for about 15% of the company's profits, avoided offering the kind of risky adjustable-rate loans that have burned many lenders.
"I don't want to sound holier-than-thou, but it was irritating when there were all kinds of players out there in the market offering all kinds of products that were questionable," says Peltier, 58.
HomeServices has a broad reach
HomeServices of America is the nation's second-largest real estate brokerage firm, with about 20,000 agents in 20 markets across the country.



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