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The American shopping mall is dead, right?
I mean, ask anybody: Amazon.com Inc. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. beat the mall to death, and there is no coming back.
No one goes to the mall, and they never will again, and all the real estate investment trusts (REITs) that own malls and shopping centers are going to zero.
At first, this, the conventional wisdom, makes a lot of sense - to me and every other investor.
After all, no one in my house went anywhere near a mall this holiday season. What shopping we did, we did online.
Why go to the mall and put up with all that traffic and the crowds?
Well, as it happens, while everyone has been declaring the mall dead and listing all the ways they'll never set foot in another one, a very specific kind of mall has been reinventing itself - and successfully, to boot.
In fact, I think it's the most unreasonably profitable investment on the market, in part because no one's looking at it.
About the Author
Tim Melvin is an unlikely investment expert by any measure. Raised in the "projects" of Baltimore by a single mother, he never attended college and started out as a door-to-door vacuum salesman. But he knew the real money was in the stock market, so he set sights on investing - and by sheer force of determination, he eventually became a financial advisor to millionaires. Today, after 30 years of managing money for some of the wealthiest people in the world, he draws on his experience to help investors find "unreasonably good" bargain stocks, multiply profits, and build their nest eggs. Tim tirelessly works to find overlooked "hidden gems" in the stock market, drawing on the research of legendary investors like Benjamin Graham, Walter Schloss, and Marty Whitman. He has written and lectured extensively on the markets, with work appearing on Benzinga, Real Money, Daily Speculations, and more. He has published several books in the "Little Book of" Investment Series and a "Junior Chamber Course" geared towards young adults that teaches Graham's principles and techniques to a new generation of investors. Today, he serves as the Special Situations Strategist at Money Morning and the editor of Peak Yield Investor.
I'm not so sanguine re; the death mall era……..while there is one of the most viable, enduring small malls in U.S. ( Stuyvestant Plaza….Albany, NY>..) nearby, i feel it is the exception, for sure. I have witnessed many other dead strip malls…..that-true- were in less than uber neighborhoods. If one re-purposes much like what you say-and i see,as well- into "strange" secular christian churches, dollar stores, low-stature beauty salons, tattoo/ink worlds, game parlors….etc……….that is not a demographic that generates nearly enough cash-flow or turnover to pay capex going forward–unless they are bought at extremely duress- pricing schema…..
but even then, pro-forma realizations for future positive results requires undue vigilance, luck, and possible miracle……
Most of us boomers are done shopping in increasing fashion, millenials dont make enough money to buy as we did, real inflation is vastly understated for all goods (never mind the convenient omission of food and various fuels/energy that our "gubmint" leaves out of reported inflation numbers….) etc. I think we are on/in THE paradigmatic shift in consumer activity in many new dimensions…
"Confused"??? No one goes to the Mall…because why put up with all the traffic and the Crowds? ..I missed something.