Charlie Munger built his first fortune flipping real estate five projects in Southern California in the 1960s that made him three to four million dollars while he was still practicing law. That money is what let him quit the law firm and go full time into investing alongside Warren Buffett. And yet at Berkshire Hathaway's 2002 annual meeting, Munger stood up in front of thousands of shareholders and called real estate "a very lousy investment." How does the guy who got rich off real estate call it lousy? The answer is one of the most important lessons in all of investing: the same asset can be brilliant in one structure and terrible in another. Munger was crystal clear about what he meant. Real estate is a lousy investment specifically for companies taxed under Subchapter C of the tax code traditional C-corporations like Berkshire Hathaway. Why? Because a C-corp buying real estate gets hit with a whole extra layer of corporate tax on top of what an individual investor or a REIT would p...