Morganton

mobile home university
1

Tony

Thanks for taking the time to put on the event in Morganton. The event was great. You have a beautiful family and a lot to be proud of. My take on the outlook, attitude and future plans of the attendees is mixed. There is definitely no hoorah hoorah drink my kool aid and you will be successful being passed around. No false messages were sent. What we do to be successful in this business requires change at times and refinement of business practice, which most of us already know. A get together like Morganton helps.

The most inspiring thing to me was that the majority of the investor s and business owners wanted to grow their businesses and only a few were dazed and confused with mind bog and as Lonnie would say “negativity brain cancer”. For those that have moved on to other ventures and life passions I say fantastic. For those that are dazed and confused I hope you stop the mind frick and get back on track, whatever track that may be. Barring health issues or a catastrophic natural disaster we will all be here tomorrow and I would rather be creating and building something than sitting around waiting and worrying. Life goes on and I choose to live mine. I refuse to sit around in fear and mind freeze.

We are all in different chapters and phases of life and therefore I would naturally expect our choices to be different.

I am thankful to Lonnie who continues to pass on wisdom and life experience so freely. Lonnie uses the word attitude often which is something I check every day.

Attitude, vision and focus are the key to our successes no matter what we decide to do with life.

Thanks you to everyone who attended.

The Best to All

Rick Ewens

2

The meeting in Morganton, NC this memorial day weekend was as much a reunion of old friends as it was a meeting of mobile home investors. People from this site and others traveled to share ideas, experiences and thoughts on this niche and the economy. People from all over the country doing big and small deals, people of faith and those with other beliefs, and as Bernd and Mike reminded us

3

We thought the group in Morganton was a great mix of people. We had pure lonnie dealers, rehabbers, hard-money lenders, land-home holders and owners of various-sized parks. Everyone had something to contribute to the group; I don’t think anyone went home empty-headed!

Jim and I specifically had a few things on our minds before we went. First and foremost was the necessity to refinance the park since we are closing in on our 5-year balloon. We have contacted several local banks but nobody is interested, or they are unable, to do our refinance (regardless of the fact that it is now almost full and cashflowing well.) We had come to the realization that we were with the one game in town. (Variable rate interest with an 8% floor, 5-year call, amortized over 12 years.) We had been trying, unsuccessfully, to get a fixed rate loan.

The group agreed with our thinking, and we have decided that although the bank will amortize over 12 years we will pay as a 10-year loan, thus necessitating only one more renewal PLUS paying down as much principal as possible before interest rates begin to rise.

It also caused us to firm up our thoughts that we need to move the financing of the homes that are currently with the same bank to more private sources. We do currently use IRA monies from others to finance many of our homes, but we need to move the bank-financed homes to private notes as well. Paying a higher fixed-rate is preferable to being caught in the escalation of interest rates which is sure to come.

Consumer debt was discussed by many, at many different times and I think all of us agreed that those of us who hold it should do everything in their power to bring that debt to a zero balance.

We will continue our in-fill program with the expectation of having every lot in our park filled by income-tax season 2012. We fully realize that some churning will continue, but our minds are on the ultimate goal of a full park.

Since everyone attending were in different places in their investing careers, all of us took away the pieces that were relevant to us individually. At the very least, it made everyone think and reflect on their own business model as well as giving others ideas for theirs.

Thanks, Tony and everyone else who attended.