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The election is over and the President-elect is Barrack Obama. While that ends a lot of uncertainty over the general direction of the government, it only opens new worries over what this means to the economy and, on the micro scale, the mobile home park industry.

Mobilehomeparkstore.com, America's most popular website devoted to the mobile home park industry, is hosting a conference on February 20 - 22 in Anaheim, California entitled "Successful Mobile Home Park Strategies for the U.S. Recession".

Am I supposed to take the roof off and smell manufactured homes to see if they've spoiled like milk? Do they have an expiration date stamped on the frame? Can you fit one in a curbside polycart?

Everyone knows that commercial air travel is the safest in the world. But that's because of the high level of training of the pilots. From the pre-flight checklist, to the flight plan, to dealing with problems in the air, the pilot knows everything about what they're doing.

The mobile home park industry is terribly misunderstood. There is massive opportunity, but everybody is looking in all the wrong places. Why? Because mobile home park investing, properly done, requires trusting in the opposite of what your initial instincts are.

Any idiot can buy a mobile home park. And many do. But if your goal is to make money with it, then there are some simple rules that you must consider before taking that step. If you follow these guidelines, your chance for success is 1,000% greater, and your chance for failure is virtually eliminated.

With single-family homes, a legitimate zero down deal is about as likely as sleet in San Diego. However, with mobile home parks, they are as common as rain. of the 25 mobile home parks I've bought, about five of them or 20% -- were zero down.

Mobile home parks sometimes come with the strangest assets. I have wound up as the owner of everything ranging from used car lots to commercial laundries, and from apartments to single-family homes. How does this happen?

Most mobile home park owners tend to amass a portfolio of several parks, simply because, after acquiring the skill sets, it seems wasteful not to buy "just one more". But, in reality, they only need to buy one mobile home park to be set for life. How can this be?

Our industry continues to be plagued by declining sales of new manufactured homes going into mobile home parks and communities nationwide.