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That might surprise you. We do the the highest percentage in Omaha. And what's interesting is that that uh we uh I won't give you the exact numbers, but it's large. We do a significant with dollar volume but a a very significant portion of that volume, people come to the store to pick up. So, that they they will order something from us online, but they they don't mind they don't seem to mind at all.
Uh and they don't have to do it, but they they uh they get a pick up at the store. So, you know, you you learn what customers like, just like people learned in fast food, you know, that that people would buy a lot of food by going through a drive-in that they don't want to stop and go into the place.
We learn about customer behavior as it as it unfolds, but we did do now uh on Tuesday, we did 9. 2 million of or 9.3 million of profitable volume at the Nebraska Furniture Mart, and I think that company had paid in capital of $2,500, and I don't think anything's been added since. So, it's uh it's working so far.
The first quarter is interesting. The first quarter was weak at all four of our furniture operations. Uh but there's certain other parts of the economy uh well, there's home building generally. Uh uh it's considerably below what you would have expected considering the recovery we have had from the 2008-9 period.
I mean, if you look at you look at single-family home construction, uh the model has shifted um more to people living in apartment rentals. I think it I think it's gone from 69 and a fraction percent. It got down to 63%. It's bounced up a little bit, but people are uh they're just not building or moving to houses uh as rapidly as I would have guessed they would have based on figures prior to 2008 and 9 and considering the recovery we've had and considering the fact that money is so cheap.
Uh and that has some effect on our on our furniture stores that uh uh I I think we've got a very very good furniture operation. Uh not only the Nebraska Furniture Mart, but but at other furniture operations. And we will see whether uh the models work um in the long run, but they uh but they uh I I think you know, they have a reasonable chance.
Some things people people we we're learning that people will buy some things that they've always gone to uh the mall or to a retail outlet to buy that they will do it online and others don't don't work so well. Charlie? I think that we'll do better than most furniture retailers. I think that's a certainty.
Yeah. Uh overall. Yeah, overall. Uh we've got we've got some good good good operations there and um but we don't want to become a showroom for the for the online operations and have people coming look around the place and then order someplace else. So, we have to have the right prices and and [clears throat] uh we're good at that at the Furniture mart.
Station four. Warren and Charlie. My name is Brent Mulloy. I'm from Winnipeg, Canada. First, thank you for devoting so much time and energy to education. I'm a better investor because of your efforts. But more importantly, I'm a better partner, friend, son, brother, and soon-to-be first-time father.
There's nothing more important than these relationships, and my life is better because you're willing to pass on your experience and wisdom. My path into finance was unconventional. I worked as an engineer for 12 years, while 2 years ago I began a career in finance working for the Civil Service Superannuation Board, a $7 billion public pension fund in Winnipeg.
I work on alternative investments, which include infrastructure, private equity, and private credit. I go to work every day knowing that I'm there to benefit the hard-working current and future beneficiaries of the fund. Like most asset classes, alternative purchase multiples have increased. More of these assets are funded with borrowed money, and the terms and covenants on this debt are essentially nonexistent.
With this in mind, and knowing the constraints of illiquid closed-end funds, please give me your thoughts on private alternative investments, their relevancy in public pension funds, and your view on long-term return expectations. Yeah, if you would leveraged up investments uh in just common stocks, uh and you'd figured a way so that that uh you would have staying power if there were any market dip.
I mean, you'd you'd obviously have re- obtained extraordinary returns. I pointed out in my investing lifetime, You know, an index fund would do 11%. Well, imagine how you'd have done if you'd leveraged that up 50% whatever the prevailing rates were over time. So, a leveraged investment in a business is going to beat an unleveraged investment in a good business a good bit of the time.
But, as you point out, the covenants to protect debt holders have really deteriorated in the business. And of course, you've been in an up market for businesses and you've got a period of low interest rates. So, it's been a very good time for it. I My personal opinion is if you take if you take unleveraged returns against unleveraged common stocks, uh I do not think what is being purchased today and marketed today would work well.
But if If you can borrow money, you can buy assets that will yield 7 or 8% and you can borrow enough money at 4 or 5% and you don't have any covenants to meet, you're going to have some bankruptcies, but you're going to also, uh have better results in many cases. It's not a It's not something that interests us at all.
We We are not going to leverage up Berkshire. If we leveraged up Berkshire, we'd have made a whole lot more money obviously over the years, but uh both Charlie and I probably have seen some more high IQ people really extraordinarily high IQ people destroyed by leverage. We saw Long-Term Capital Management where we had people who could do in their sleep math that we couldn't do, at least I couldn't do in a working total time at a during the day.
And I mean, really, really smart people working with their own money and with years and years of experience of what they were doing and and uh you know, it all turned to pumpkins and mice in 1998. And and it actually was a source of national concern uh just a few hundred people and then we saw some of those same people after that happened to them once go out and do the same thing again.
So, it's uh uh I would I would not get excited about so-called alternative investments. There's You can get all kinds of different figures, but there may be there's probably at least a trillion dollars committed uh to buying in effect buying businesses. And if you figure they're going to leverage them you know, two for one on that, you may have three trillion of buying power trying to buy businesses in a well, the US market maybe something over 30 trillion now, but there's all kinds of businesses that aren't for sale in that thing.
So, the supply demand situation for buying businesses privately and leveraging them up has changed dramatically from what it was 10 or 20 years ago and I'm sure it doesn't happen with your Winnipeg operation, but but we have seen a number of proposals uh from private equity funds where the returns are really not calculated in a in a manner that uh well, I they're not calculated in a manner that I would regard as honest and uh uh uh So, I it it's it's it's it's not something I if I were running a pension fund, I would be very careful about what was being uh offered to me.
If you going to a choice in Wall Street between being a great analyst or being a great salesperson, uh the salesperson is the way to make it. If you can If you can raise $10 billion in a fund and you get a 1 and 1/2% fee and you lock people up for 10 years, you know, you and your children and your grandchildren will never have to do a thing if you were the dumbest investor in the world. But Charlie?
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