News flash: I am content exactly where I'm at

A surreal experience: Last week I went to the national mobile home park conference in Chicago and I did not feel envy or self-doubt.

Stuff that *used* to make me jealous at mobile home park conferences:

• "Hi, I'm new in this asset class. I've bought 80 parks this year."
• "I have trained a team of clairvoyant ninjas to detect off-market opportunities, so we mostly just buy 15 caps.?With upside."
• "We get debt at 1% interest because we're giant/famous/good-looking.?So yeah, we can outbid you on any deal ever."
• "We've figured out how to do all our construction in-house so an asphalt job that costs you $100k costs me $20k."
• "Remember Aladdin's Cave of Wonders??That's my equity partner."?

But this time around something was different.?Partly the shift was external (the market is cooling and the whole mood at the conference was more sober).?

But mostly the shift was in my own mind and soul.??I saw my friends and competitors who are growing their businesses. Each one has their own team and strategy and capital sources.??I saw them….and I traded scuttlebutt with them...and I was happy for them….and I thought about how much I love my company and my team…and the thoughts about my competitors just floated down the river.???No pang of wanting or envy.?The experience was calm and placid.

It was like mindfulness meditation, where a thought enters your head, and you acknowledge the thought,?you notice the thought, and then you watch it float away.?That was me with my competitors at NCC in Chicago last week.?

I think I've gotten to this point (at least temporarily) because Yoel Kelman and I have built exactly the company we wanted to build.?We take care of both Residents and Investors.?We have managed to attract incredible teammates who are bought into our mission (huge shout-out to Corey Wikstrom , Mike Skoczylas , Alfred Walls , George Han , Ethan Slack , Robyn Adams , Jaclyn Rice-Eassa , Madison Rodne , Hollee Harbison , Ruby Verma , Mindy Haus , and the whole rest of the gang).?We have a generational perspective, so we have structured our company to hold our communities for decades, which is an anomaly in #commercialrealestate and #privateequity even though it's intuitively the best strategy.?We love our investors, many of whom have become friends and mentors, and we are democratizing access to private investments by bringing lots of smaller investors into the fold.? We don't have a boss.??We get to do cutting-edge work which directly benefits individuals, families, and communities (like building brand new affordable neighborhoods on raw land).? We have stable fixed-rate debt and we're not over-levered.? We're in an asset class that I fundamentally believe in, both in terms of social mission and long-term financial performance.??

So I literally would not want to switch places with anyone in the #manufacturedhousing industry, whether it's the big boys like Blackstone , RHP Properties , Sun Communities & Sun Outdoors , Equity LifeStyle Properties, Inc. , or UMH Properties, Inc. , or my "upstart" peers whom I respect so deeply like Sam Hales or Andrew Keel or Brad Turner (BTW, so much love to you guys if you happen to read this).?

And that's because Yoel and I have had this amazing unbelievable privilege of building exactly the company we want to build.

Cue patriotic music…because only in America. No joke, I freaking love this country. General Washington's insurgency, the Constitution, separation of powers, the right to vote, equal protection under the law, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, property rights, federalism, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. My mother moved here with nothing and Yoel Kelman 's mother moved here with nothing and now we run a $500,000,000 real estate company which we built by working really hard and raising money from investors. We are passionately grateful to the United States of America.

A final point: Man plans and G-d laughs.?I am keenly aware that there are an unlimited number of things that could go wrong at any time.??We could get knocked off our horse.?And in the scheme of things our horse is probably more of a donkey.? After all, we're just acquiring, renovating, and developing manufactured housing communities over here.? It's a business. We do our best to do a good job for our Residents and Investors, and we try to learn from our mistakes and to get better every day.

But for now...at this moment...it feels really good to love exactly what I have, and to be content exactly where I'm at.