Buy real estate as a business

[Rita Olsson]

I just finished Robert Kiyosaki's book "Rich Dad's Guide to Investing". He keeps repeating this sentence that supposedly his rich dad told him when walking down a piece of ocean front land in Hawaii:

"I can't afford this land, but my business can"

Me and my husband have been discussing this statement at length. What exactly do you suppose he means? 

It can't be a tax write off, right? (because you can't depreciate land, only improvements) 

This sentence is the core of the whole book but is not explained in detail. I should mention that I have read an old issue of the book so it might be that some laws have changed.