Best Ever Recap of the Best Ever Conference (day 2)

Here’s day one if you missed it

Saturday (Day 2)

Champion’s Mindset

Terrell Fletcher – ex NFL running back for the Chargers, CEO of Wake Up Ur Dream

• Terell got us FIRED UP bright and early on day two, most of us still feeling a little hazy after a great after party in downtown Denver
• I asked Terell what he though separated guys like Rodney Harrison and Junior Seau from someone like Ryan Leaf (the former being NFL legends, the latter being the biggest draft bust of all time). Terell thought it came down to battling through adversity, and how you behaved when things went wrong. Guys like Rodney and Junior used it as fuel to get better, whereas Ryan tended to melt down and clam up, exacerbating the situation.
• For a former NFL star, he was super gracious with his time and hung around for the rest of the conference, chatting to everyone and taking pictures. Yes, I got one too.

Mobile Home Investing

Jorge Newbery – Founder and CEO of American Homeowner Preservation (moderator)

Kevin Bupp – Owner, Mobile Home Park Academy

Frank Rolfe – Co – Owner, CREUniversity

• Back to my shiny object syndrome… I think it may have spread to the audience, because I don’t think anyone in the building finished this panel without at least *thinking* that they wanted to start exploring mobile home park investing.
• Frank is a true legend of the mobile home park game, and is the SIXTH LARGEST owner of mobile home parks in the country.
• Kevin shared how winning deal sometimes comes down to the relationships you can build with the sellers. Most park owners are from the greatest generation, and place a big value on character. For many, who they choose to sell to is about more than just money. While true in most asset classes, this tends to be the case even more so with mobile home parks.
• Lot rents in parks have room to double in a short time horizon without having a significant impact on occupancy, Frank believes. Since so many parks are mom and pop owned, a lot of them haven’t kept up with inflation over the past 40-50 years. There is also no new supply of new parks coming online to re-set market rates, unlike multifamily or commercial developments where new construction can push rents higher across all classes.

Landlord Automation

Divyesh Panchal – CEO of Keybot:

• Cool product demo for Divyesh’s startup, Keybot, which helps automate keyless entry with a stronger value proposition than existing players
• Check out his project website for more details

Above the Line

Trevor McGregor – McGregor Consulting

• Trevor was a Master Coach with the great Tony Robbins before venturing out to start his own coaching business
• He is also an active real estate investor, meaning he brings both the Tony Robbins coaching foundation, and also understands the unique challenges and perspectives of a real estate investor from first hand experience
• I mean, this guy coached Joe Fairless and helped him grow from 4 SFRs to over $250,000,000 worth of real estate…
• He’s Canadian, so he’s obviously a super nice guy and very down to earth (unlike some coaches I’ve spoken with in the past)

Next Leap

Joe Fairless – Host of the Best Real Estate Investing Advice Ever Show (moderator)

Jason Yarusi – Managing Member of Yarusi Holdings

Danny Randazzo – Residential and Commercial Real Estate investor

Andrew Campbell – Windhorn Capital

Pancham Gupta – Mesos

• This panel was comprised of investors who had recent breakout success and recently completed their first one or two large deals
• Some key themes that the panelists pointed to in helping them breakthrough to the next level included hustle, persistence, and having someone hold you accountable to your plan (they were all coachees of Joe, and a few were also coachees of Trevor)

10 Tips for Better Negotiation

Jason Scott – Lish Properties

• This was the sparknotes version of the sparknotes version of the summary of Jay’s new book, The Book on Negotiating Real Estate

• Seriously.. the book is jammed pack with amazing tips and habbits you can start implementing immediately. Buy it!

• Jay gave us a great mix of overarching negotiating strategies, mixed in with some golden nuggets of wisdom from his experience that could make or break deal negotiations
• Of the 10 major points Jay went through, my favorites was also maybe the most obvious (but least applied) — ask for what you want, and don’t be afraid to hear no! Doing a bit of reflection.. there are definitely areas within real estate and life where I need to apply this principal.
• One simple to conceptualize (but difficult to implement) negotiating tip is to “let the silence do your work.” People HATE silence in conversations. It’s so uncomfortable. If you can let people continue to talk while you remain silent, even if for 30 seconds, a minute, two minutes… often times they will start negotiating against themselves. Jay has seen people negotiate with themselves and knock tens of thousands of dollars off of an asking price without having to say a word!

To Fund or Not to Fund

Kevin Bupp – Owner, Mobile Home Park Academy (moderator)

Amy Wan – Founder & CEO of Bootstrap Legal

Jeremy Roll – President, Roll Investment Group

Matthew Owens – Owner of OCG properties

• The discussion here was around the benefits and trade-offs of raising a blind / semi-blind fund vs. raising capital on a deal-by-deal basis
• The main considerations the panel suggested investors consider are:

1. Legal fees as a percentage of capital raise can significantly diminish returns and add complexity for smaller funds
2. Ability to execute and access to deal flow adds timing risk with a blind pool, where investors could theoretically commit their funds to escrow but not have them deployed or earn any return for 6-12 months. This is less of a risk for investors that participate in a syndication, as their capital is typically not committed until a deal is nearly at the closing table. Without adequate deal flow, investors could become irritated over their idle capital.
3. Track record –> more difficult to raise a fund with limited track record. Easier to start off raising capital on a deal by deal basis.

Debate – is residential real estate at it’s peak?

Dave Van Horn – CEO of PPR Note Co. (team Room to Run)

Kathy Fettke – co-CEO of the Real Wealth Network (team Room to Run)

Jorge Newbery – Founder and CEO of American Homeowner Preservation (team At the Peak)

Steve Baldus – Managing Partner of Elevation Realty Partners (team At the Peak)

• What better way to end then with a fiery debate over residential housing prices? Are they at the peak of the cycle or is there still room to run?
• Attendees voted on their initial opinion (I think it was like 60/40 thought we still had room to run… we were an optimistic crowd), and then the winners were measured based on who could swing the most percentage points when we voted again after the debate. The optimistic debaters won, and we finished with around 65/35 saying we are not yet at the peak.
• Kathy has done this on national TV quite a few times, so a bit of an unfair advantage to team “room to run”
• The main arguments of team At the Peak centered around the impact of raising interest while wage growth remains stagnant, and the general length of the current economic expansion
• Team Room to Run’s arguments were mainly around the supply and demand realities of the housing market, as well as the the role that tightened lending practices (as compared with 2006) have played in keeping affordability in check.
• I was hoping someone on the hot seat would have done some research and gone even further back in time than the last cycle, or the 1980s which I think was mentioned once. The housing market goes back a longggg time, and as Ray Dalio pointed out in Principals, we have extreme recency bias when trying to predict economic cycles. Everyone seems to want to compare right now with 2006ish as a baseline, when in reality there is probably another point in history with more applicable lessons.

Overall, this conference was a rousing success. It was a great mix of education, networking, and fun. The panelists were entertaining and engaging, the breakouts were a great change of pace, and I can’t remember feeling bored or eager for a break. I loved the in-house breakfasts and lunches where we met new people and recapped discussions. Compared to similar events I’ve been to, the crowd here was very impressive. It seemed like everyone I talked to was knowledgeable, experienced, and genuinely interested in helping others and learning more. Every other person I talked to could have been up on stage themselves. Another huge thank you to Joe, Ben Sam and all of the sponsors and panelists for putting on such an amazing conference!