The Mobile Home Millions was simply awesome! Steve and I are so appreciative of everybody that participated in the Mobile Home Millions III Conference (over 220 strong!). It definitely takes a strong commitment to spend 3 days (did I mention long… some nights we did not leave until 11pm!) out of everybody’s busy schedule in order to come together to learn from the best and brightest minds in the mobile home park world and network with people from all over the country.
The speakers were absolutely amazing! We could not have asked for a better group of speakers. The information that each speaker presented was extremely well thought out and timely. Each speaker was extremely accessible to all participants (some speakers looked like they were weary fighters in the 10th round ready to fall over by the end of the day with all of the questions! 
We kicked off the conference with Florida’s finest Karl Warner telling us about how he transitioned from Lonnie deals into Terra Mar, an extremely large mobile home park deal in Florida (he raised the bar extremely high for others speakers to follow).
We learned so much from the ever knowledgable and extremely entertaining Frank Rolfe (he even gave us the Top Ten List of Stupid Tenants on the last day that had the group rolling). Frank has been in the mobile home park industry for over 10 years and has bought more mobile home parks than all of us in the conference TOGETHER! He is extremely humble and just one of the nicest people that you will ever meet. He spoke about the 10 things that you need to consider when buying a mobile home park.
Jim MacDonnell from Sheldon Good & Company spoke about the upcoming ARC auction of 71 properties. The auction to be held on December 15th in Chicago is going to be quite an event. I think that there is going to be some deals to be realized that day. Jim even brought one of their auctioneers from Chicago to give us a taste of what an auction is like. People were raising their hand bidding getting caught up in the auction emotion although I am not sure what they were bidding one (I don’t think they know either! lol)
Kyle Kazan (an ex teacher and police officer) wowed the crowd by sharing his secrets to raising private money. He has a portfolio of over $250 million of real estate (that’s right… $250 million!) using private investor money. By the way… he is only 37 and started 10 years ago buying real estate! After hearing Kyle nobody can ever say that money is a limiting factor in real estate! Kyle is living proof that anybody can do it… even when money is tight!
Bruce Norris, an absolute legend in the real estate world from Southern California provided his insights about what is about to happen to the California real estate market and also nationally. Bruce predicted the California market doubling back in 1996 and wrote the “California Comeback”. He now has predicted the market will come down 35%-40% by 2010. He has identified 6 states that will be the place to invest in the next 4-5 years.
Then there is Steve and myself. Steve as always is a crowd favorite. Steve talked about how Mobile Home Parks can set you free (did I mention that Steve is retiring from the military in less than 2 weeks!). He provided really good information for anyone that no longer wants to be an indentured servant and work the 9-5 grind. Steve also spoke about Due Diligence… he is an absolute master… We call him Dr. Due Diligence! Steve spoke about the importance of this ever critical process to ensure that you are buying a mobile home park that will not be a big dissapointment and money pit.
For myself, I spoke about the two mobile home parks that I have purchased in 2005 and how within a very short 12 months that there is a $1 million dollars of equity created (each park!). Not bad for a year’s worth of work! I also spoke about lessons learned from each park.
We also had some celebrity appearances… Sandra Tew (Ernest Tew’s daughter) and Cale (grandson), David Reynolds (MobileHomeParkStore.com), Mark Bower (MobileHomeRepair.com) and Sean Williams/Bill McMullen (Infinity REO).
One of the best parts of the Mobile Home Millions conference each year is to see some of the friendly faces from all over the county that we only get a chance to see on an annual basis… some of these friendly faces are the Stangeland’s (Gary/Donna), Brenn’s (Jim/Ellen), Krever’s (Michael/Jeannie), Jackson’s (Dave/Betty), Asplund’s (Bob/Danis), Lowe’s (Daphne/John), and many, many more! We also had 12 people from our the Mobile Home Bootcamps that we had in San Angelo, Texas this year attend that MHM III Conference that Steve and I consider near and dear friends with all of the time that we spent together.
Steve and I are definitely looking forward to Mobile Home Millions IV next year on the East Coast. I am getting sooo excited just thinking about it!
Corey
P.S. We are already going to start working on Greg Meade to speak at MHM IV even if we have to do it in his own town!