Frank Rolfe, co-owner of the 5th largest mobile home park portfolio in the U.S., went from buying a run-down Dallas park with crime, failing utilities, and even a wrestling ring to building over 250 thriving communities in 25 states. Nearly two decades later, he’s an industry leader, educator, and champion of affordable housing.
Here’s some of the topics we covered:
- From Building Billboards to Building a Mobile Home Park Empire
- The First Deal That Made Frank Shout and Why It Was Practically Risk-Free
- Red Flags You Can’t Ignore When Buying a Mobile Home Park
- How Warren Buffett Quietly Shaped the Mobile Home Park Industry
- Proven Ways to Keep Tenants Loyal and Happy Year After Year
- The Government Rules That Can Make or Break Your Park Purchase
- The Harsh Truths About Owning Mobile Home Parks in 2025
- Insider Secrets to Spotting and Scoring the Best Park Deals
- Frank’s Most Jaw-Dropping, Heart-Stopping Mobile Home Park Horror Story
To find out more about partnering or investing in a multifamily deal: Text Partner to 72345 or email Partner@RodKhleif.com
Full Transcript Below
01:20:07:29 – 01:20:25:13
Rod
Welcome back to lifetime cash flow to real estate investing. I’m Rod Cleef, and I’m thrilled you’re here. And I’m really going to enjoy today’s interview. With an icon in the mobile home park space. His name is Frank Roth, and I actually went to Frank’s boot camps twice in a year. Two times? In a couple of years.
01:20:25:13 – 01:20:45:22
Rod
Back in Denver, a lifetime ago, because I was going to get into the mobile home park space in a big way. Now, Frank was Frank and his partner, Dave were the largest, well, fifth largest operators in the country at one time with 250 parks. And I sold off a bunch of them since then. And, and teaches this stuff has forgotten more about mobile home parks than probably anybody in the country.
01:20:45:22 – 01:20:51:07
Rod
And so we’re going to have a wide ranging conversation about mobile home parks today. Welcome to the show, brother.
01:20:51:09 – 01:20:52:22
Frank
Thanks very much for the thanks for having me.
01:20:52:22 – 01:21:00:25
Rod
Of course. Now, of course. So, I know you can do a much better job with that bio than I did, but, maybe you can just tell. Tell your story. Start with your story,
01:21:01:01 – 01:21:27:12
Frank
Sure. I was a guy who basically, started off in, in out of college with a starting to build billboards on the highway. And, along the way, I built two billboards on a mobile home park called Glen Haven down in Dallas and out and about in my car. I would sometimes get a call from the owner of the mobile home park, asking me if I could go over and knock on the manager’s door and ask him why he won’t answer the phone.
01:21:27:14 – 01:21:27:26
Rod
Wow.
01:21:27:26 – 01:21:49:25
Frank
So I was going over to Glen Haven. Not all the time, but probably I get this call once a quarter to go bang on the guy’s door. Guy would come out of the door, typically in his underwear, half asleep. Want to know why I was banging on his door? I said, hey, you know, rod wants you to, to call him and, tell him tell us why you want to answer the phone.
01:21:49:27 – 01:22:16:08
Frank
And in my continual driving through of the park, I found it like most Americans, kind of gross. But kind of interesting that there was this business model that I knew absolutely nothing about, just as weird as billboards. And I realized one item, which is the things were scarce because in the billboard business, you build on certain zones and the mobile home park zoning, which allowed for billboards.
01:22:16:11 – 01:22:39:27
Frank
I could only find it on the entire Dallas map maybe 15 times. Wow. And I thought, this is this is strange stuff. So I kept doing the billboard thing, sold out to a public company, had to restart my life over from scratch from a business perspective. Started calling up some of these many. I had 300 billboards. I was calling people to say, hey, how’s your business work?
01:22:39:28 – 01:22:42:17
Frank
Trying to figure out if it’s profitable, if that’s something that mobile.
01:22:42:17 – 01:22:42:27
Rod
Home park.
01:22:42:28 – 01:23:02:21
Frank
Owners? No. Just anybody. Okay. Dairy Queen, anybody don’t know anyone that I had a billboard on the property. Okay. And, so I call up this guy, and, and he said, hey, you know, I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll show you the mobile home park right now over the phone. And I’m like, I don’t know anything about mobile home parks.
01:23:02:21 – 01:23:20:28
Frank
I’m just trying to on a fact finding mission. The guy said, no, no, no, no, you’ll be great at it. It’s just as weird as billboards. You just you just jump into it. I’ll make you a deal you can’t refuse. Say what? Say? Says I’ll sell to you for 400 grand. 10,000 down. I’ll carry the paper. 390,000 of paper for 30 years.
01:23:21:00 – 01:23:43:25
Frank
Wow, I thought I have nothing at risk here, right? 10,000 bucks if I get it. How many it, it had about 83 pads. Yeah, sandwiched in about six acres of land. And I thought, you know what? I’ll give it a whirl. Dali. Okay. So I said, okay, okay, I’ll do it. And since I knew nothing of the business or anything, I didn’t do any due diligence.
01:23:43:25 – 01:24:01:26
Frank
Well, I didn’t do a phase one. Any of the things you normally should do didn’t do it, didn’t do a survey, didn’t do anything at all. Well, right. Basically just bought this thing, with no more knowledge than a normal person would have. Plus driving through it a few times. And of course, I knew there was a problem with it or he wouldn’t sell it that cheap.
01:24:01:26 – 01:24:23:27
Frank
So I said, you know, on the friend and what’s what’s my hurdle here? And he said, well, you’re losing two grand a month, just so you know that from, from closing, you’ll be losing two grand a month. And I thought, okay. So I looked through his stuff and his rents are crazy low is charging like one fifth, 150 to 170 a month in Dallas, right?
01:24:23:27 – 01:24:45:02
Frank
That’s crazy. But I noticed he had a cable contract that he was paying for. It was like back then, $30 a month for every pad, whether it was vacant or occupied. And I thought, well, that’s stupid. He’s only half occupied. So how does this make any sense? So what if the cable company, they said, oh, yeah, you could terminate this at any time.
01:24:45:04 – 01:25:05:02
Frank
So I terminated that. Wow. Back to back to even started raising the rents. They shut up another mobile home park down to build the Dallas jail. Believe it or not. Wow. They had to cut loose. 100 people went to that owner. So I saw in the paper he was he was kicking everyone out. I said I got 40 vacant lots.
01:25:05:05 – 01:25:17:15
Frank
I’ll take 40 of your people. He was ecstatic because he had to. As part of his agree with Dallas, he had to find a way to move all of them out. Wow. Okay, so that took me to fall. Wow. So now I’m full, I start.
01:25:17:18 – 01:25:20:05
Rod
Did you move the homes swarm or how did you handle that piece?
01:25:20:06 – 01:25:26:19
Frank
No, he actually paid to move the homes because that was part of his agreement with Dallas. They give you a stipend of a certain thousand.
01:25:26:19 – 01:25:31:11
Rod
By the way, guys, it cost a lot of money to move a home. So it was 2500 back in the days, right? Yeah.
01:25:31:12 – 01:25:36:20
Frank
Back then when you get done with the home and the security and the though it was probably more along the lines of five grand.
01:25:36:20 – 01:25:43:04
Rod
Five grand to move a mobile home, which is why, you know, they’re landlocked. Okay. When they put a home in your park, for the most part anyway. Continue. Sorry.
01:25:43:04 – 01:25:52:11
Frank
Okay. So there. So Glen Haven is now working pretty good. Okay. Yeah. And I’ve been self managing it. Oh I was the manager I went out to Glen Haven every day.
01:25:52:11 – 01:25:53:10
Rod
Was it near your home then.
01:25:53:13 – 01:26:15:26
Frank
Yeah. It’s 50 minutes from my house okay. But that was a miserable job. Oh yeah. And I thought, okay, you know what? I’ve turned the thing around. I hired someone who already lived there to be manager. And then I came upon another deal, just as wacky. 65,000, 5000 down. They’d carry 60. But this park, he did not even know who the people are, what their names were.
01:26:15:26 – 01:26:32:11
Frank
He’d collected no red. He had inherited this. Oh my God. And he was afraid of it. And he wanted to sell it just as a bag of parts for me to. Wow, explore. Right? Got that one. And and I just kept doing it. Turn around, turn around. All broken merchandise. I had to go in there and fix it.
01:26:32:14 – 01:26:44:02
Frank
And that was kind of the start. And then just kept on. Did you enjoy doing that? Well, I, I enjoyed the idea that I was building a really good asset base for my daughter.
01:26:44:06 – 01:26:45:19
Rod
Okay.
01:26:45:21 – 01:26:57:06
Frank
It’s fun being an industry that people don’t know anything about. You feel like Christopher Columbus? You’re kind of an explorer, right? Right. I, I had a lot of interesting times as a manager.
01:26:57:08 – 01:26:58:12
Rod
You know,
01:26:58:14 – 01:27:00:01
Frank
I felt a lot of. No, we.
01:27:00:01 – 01:27:02:28
Rod
Could trade stories on crazy, crazy, crazy stuff.
01:27:03:06 – 01:27:17:07
Frank
A lot of a lot of nice people along the way. Sure. Probably 95% of my customers, even though they didn’t have a lot of money. Good, good moral sensibility. And and we’re trying really hard. Had some bad apples. Oh, sure everyone does. Sure.
01:27:17:07 – 01:27:18:25
Rod
You mess with me. You mess with the whole part.
01:27:18:25 – 01:27:32:23
Frank
Yeah, but I but I realized this was my new thing. So, Bill, billboards have been my first 14 years of my life. And I realized, look, you know, maybe, maybe my movie was really the mobile home park movie, not the Billboard movie. Maybe I’ve been wrong and I’ve just stuck with that ever since.
01:27:32:23 – 01:27:34:07
Rod
No kid was 30 years.
01:27:34:07 – 01:27:34:17
Frank
Yep.
01:27:34:23 – 01:27:37:27
Rod
Holy cow, 250 parks. That’s a lot of parts.
01:27:37:27 – 01:27:39:21
Frank
A lot of parks. Wow.
01:27:39:23 – 01:27:59:09
Rod
And so, you know, and and and to share, I was telling you before we started recording, you know, I went to your event, I was I was getting back into real estate and I was exploring different asset classes, and I was exploring mobile home parks and, and, it was very intrigued with mobile home parks. My good friend Kevin Bumpus is he’s got a lot of parks now.
01:27:59:09 – 01:28:19:16
Rod
My brother was very interested in parks and had owned some parks, and so I, I hired, virtual assistants to geocode the whole country where you could, like, go on Google Earth and you could, like, hover near other mobile home parks and find ones that weren’t really classified properly. And, and we would geocode them, get the ownership information.
01:28:19:16 – 01:28:36:14
Rod
Had six virtual assistants in the Philippines doing this. I was paying each one $1.93 an hour. So I had six people working for 12 bucks an hour, and they loved. And that wasn’t cheating them or anything. They were happy and, and, but then I, you know, and I went to you and I, you know, I reminded Dave of this, that I I’m sorry.
01:28:36:14 – 01:28:50:22
Rod
Dave. Frank. Forgive me. I reminded Frank of this, that we went to lunch at one of his boot camps, and I said, remember me? Because I’m we big in this space one day. And of course, I wasn’t. I ended up being big in the multifamily space, but I remember telling you that I was like, because, you know, declaration’s work, guys.
01:28:50:22 – 01:29:06:28
Rod
You know, when you declare something, you know, you put it out to the universe. You know, things happen. I share a story of, Demi Lovato, you know, on her social media said, hey, one day I’m going to sing the National anthem at the Super Bowl. And she sang The National when she was not known, sang the National and so declaration to work.
01:29:06:28 – 01:29:24:12
Rod
And so I did a declaration with Frank here and ended up just being the different asset class. But, yeah. But the Frank, by the way, they do a really nice, class on mobile home park investing. And, we’ll get the information on that for you before we end this thing today. And of course, it comes with my recommendation.
01:29:24:12 – 01:29:39:24
Rod
I went twice for a reason. But, but. Yeah, so, so. Well, let’s have some fun with some funny stories from mobile home parks, because, I mean, there’s some, some very unique things that you don’t find anywhere else, like talk about what a what a pond is.
01:29:39:27 – 01:29:42:18
Frank
Okay, well, I think when you say pond, you mean it again I.
01:29:42:18 – 01:29:43:15
Rod
Lagoon. Yeah. Lagoon.
01:29:43:21 – 01:30:04:10
Frank
Lagoon is a, it’s it’s basically a hole in the ground right where all of the park sewage goes, right where it sits in, it festers and it evaporates, and it’s just a nasty thing. I’ll tell you comical story on that, okay? Okay. Yeah. We we we we are very afraid of lagoons. Right. So most people don’t buy it, right?
01:30:04:10 – 01:30:30:24
Frank
Right. We knew an operator in, Colorado and we, toured, you may have been on that tour. Okay. We walked a mobile home park in Colorado, and this guy had a lagoon and the, he had an aerator in the middle, which is something that keeps the water flowing with evaporation. Whatever. And so we see a rowboat sitting there by the lagoon.
01:30:30:26 – 01:30:39:24
Frank
And I said, so, what do you do with the rowboat? He goes, we see that aerator. He says, sometimes it it gets clogged up, and I go out and I fix it.
01:30:39:25 – 01:30:40:16
Rod
Nice.
01:30:40:16 – 01:30:46:25
Frank
And I said, so you take the rowboat out and you fix it. But I said, part of it is under the water. And he said, yeah, I dive in.
01:30:46:29 – 01:30:48:19
Rod
Oh my God. Yeah.
01:30:48:21 – 01:30:57:28
Frank
Yeah. He basically rows out, dives, it goes under the sewage and he does it. Oh, but bottom line is, I think you have to be a Korean War veteran to the end of that kind.
01:30:58:01 – 01:31:20:07
Rod
That reminds me of a movie. Oh, God. What was that movie? Never mind. Indian movie with this. Never mind. Anyway, diving in the sewage laughs. Yeah. So that so avoid lagoons if you see a lagoon in a mobile home park. And you know, I know one of the things with mobile home parks, let’s talk about some of the things you have to be very careful of.
01:31:20:10 – 01:31:33:26
Rod
I know what they are, but I’d rather you just shared. So. So when you’re looking at a mobile home park, what are some of the things you look at, to, to immediately discount besides a lagoon, obviously. But what are the things you look at?
01:31:33:29 – 01:31:44:05
Frank
Okay. Well, basically there’s there’s five key things we look at. Okay. Look at the infrastructure density. Obviously the economics age of the homes and the location okay.
01:31:44:05 – 01:31:45:27
Rod
So let’s do each one of those okay.
01:31:45:27 – 01:32:06:11
Frank
Sure. The infrastructure we don’t want to buy a lagoon. Right, right. We want city sewer or we want packaging plant where you process the sewage yourself on site or septic. Those are kind of the best, right? Yeah. We prefer city water if we can get it right. You got to have pretty much paved roads or you pretty much can’t get a loan.
01:32:06:11 – 01:32:08:12
Frank
I see the banker bankers are pretty.
01:32:08:12 – 01:32:10:01
Rod
Pretty. Even banks won’t do them anymore.
01:32:10:01 – 01:32:20:21
Frank
Yeah. They don’t. They don’t want gravel roads. They want they want it paved. Or you maybe do chip and seal, which is a derivation of paving. Right. And then on density.
01:32:20:23 – 01:32:22:04
Rod
What about electric.
01:32:22:06 – 01:32:37:07
Frank
Well, the electric is you have master metered electric which is a no no. Okay. Master metered gas, which is a no no. Okay. Where it’s where you are the gas or the power company is that’s a bad thing, right. Okay. And on density.
01:32:37:07 – 01:32:38:00
Rod
You, you.
01:32:38:00 – 01:32:57:23
Frank
Don’t want to have a park that so dense that you can literally walk from rooftop to rooftop, right? Because even though mobile home parks are grandfathered, there’s no grandfathering on health and safety. So if now we’re talking one home catches fire, the whole place burns down. Fire marshal can shut you down. I think you have to be very careful on density.
01:32:57:23 – 01:33:18:04
Frank
The normal density in parks is about probably 10 to 15 units per acre. As you exceed that. And I’ve seen parks very dense here in Florida, there are parks which have 20 units, 22 units per acre. Then you have to check with the fire marshal whether it’s okay or not. I see you also have a problem with the like.
01:33:18:05 – 01:33:22:03
Frank
It’s so small. You can’t put modern mobile homes in them so that that it can be a problem.
01:33:22:10 – 01:33:26:07
Rod
And I’ve seen that here. Actually, I saw that on a park here. And I was looking at a parking.
01:33:26:08 – 01:33:51:16
Frank
Okay. On the economic side, the one thing that’s set in stone today and has always been is coverage ratio. So if you look at the net income a park can create, it can only handle so much of a mortgage, right. So it happens today with interest rates high and people trying to buy a mobile home parks, often they bridge the gap by putting in their own money to bridge the gap between how much the park can qualify for and what the what the guy.
01:33:51:16 – 01:33:53:12
Rod
You mean they put more down to get a lower loan?
01:33:53:19 – 01:33:56:09
Frank
Well, they put more down just just to get the deal done. Okay.
01:33:56:11 – 01:34:05:23
Rod
And and to get the debt service coverage ratio that they need. Yeah. It’s the same thing in multifamily. Typically you need 1.25%. Is it similar in multiple parks.
01:34:05:26 – 01:34:06:14
Frank
Identical.
01:34:06:14 – 01:34:30:02
Rod
Yeah. And so you know what that means guys, is let’s say and you it’s an annual calculation. Let’s say the debt for the for the park in this case or the multifamily in this case is 100,000. The net income needs to be 125,000, if that makes sense. 1.25%. And it’s a very simple calculation, but, it’s, it’s, it’s one of the, one of the minimums that the banks require.
01:34:30:02 – 01:34:46:27
Rod
And sometimes they’ll even one higher than that, depending upon, you know, if it’s a tertiary market or what, you know, if it’s when they, they don’t consider a class A, I forgot what the term is. Premier. No, that’s not it either. But if it’s not one of those markets, it could be Biltmore net. So okay, so we talked about density in economics.
01:34:46:27 – 01:34:47:13
Rod
Was there anything.
01:34:47:13 – 01:35:03:00
Frank
Else. Well school reason I was a little more in depth. So, most park buyers, even private equity groups are trying to get to a 20% cash on cash return. And to get there, you have to have a three point spread between the interest rate and the cap rate.
01:35:03:06 – 01:35:03:24
Rod
01:35:03:26 – 01:35:23:25
Frank
And so in our industry, often, it’s like an action movie where the guy’s trying to jump on the back of the airplane. Me like Mission Impossible, right? He knows that he has to first get hold of the airplane, and then maybe he can figure out how to take control of it and fly it. A lot of times the park business, the hardest part is structuring the initial purchase because the park is so screwed up.
01:35:23:27 – 01:35:44:24
Frank
You have all this opportunity to fix it. You can raise the rent, fill it up, cut the cost. Right. But before you can do that, you got to get title to it. And so often being very creative is critical. It’s very critical 30 years ago because banks hated this stuff. Right. So back back then to do a deal, you had to come up with some kind of financing plan with seller Kerry and whatever.
01:35:45:01 – 01:36:02:13
Frank
Today, the banks like the industry a whole lot more Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac that’s out there can’t do it that. But still, when Mom and pop have this thing which they find very dear to their heart and they want, you know, $3 million for it and only pencils out to be worth a million in its current NOI. Right.
01:36:02:17 – 01:36:05:08
Frank
That’s that’s the challenge. And you got to be creative.
01:36:05:08 – 01:36:06:23
Rod
Are there still mom and pops out there?
01:36:06:23 – 01:36:16:13
Frank
Tons of them. Tons of for 44,000 parks in the U.S, only 4000 are institutionally. And no kidding. Yeah, we are the least consolidated segment of real estate. So.
01:36:16:20 – 01:36:24:24
Rod
But you know, I will tell you, some big players love the industry. Like, Warren talking about what Warren Buffett owns.
01:36:25:00 – 01:36:34:12
Frank
Yeah, Warren Buffett got it. A mobile home parks back in, 2003, I believe, when he bought up Clayton Homes. Now he he.
01:36:34:14 – 01:36:35:24
Rod
And what is Clayton Homes?
01:36:35:26 – 01:36:59:13
Frank
Clayton Homes is the largest manufacturer of mobile homes in the United States. And they also own their financing arm, which is 21st mortgage. And Vanderbilts are the largest financier of mobile homes. But Clayton was was a mobile home manufacturer, financial group. And they are also a park owner. And he had to spin the parks off. He’s not he’s not a REIT by structure.
01:36:59:13 – 01:37:10:19
Frank
He’s written articles on this. So he doesn’t own real estate through Berkshire Hathaway. But he is the largest builder of mobile homes and the largest financier of mobile homes in the US.
01:37:10:22 – 01:37:11:21
Rod
And thereby the world.
01:37:11:23 – 01:37:12:22
Frank
Yeah. Correct.
01:37:12:25 – 01:37:14:21
Rod
Okay. And so he believes in it.
01:37:14:27 – 01:37:15:19
Frank
Yeah.
01:37:15:21 – 01:37:21:23
Rod
And, yeah. So so what are some of the advantages of mobile home park ownership?
01:37:21:25 – 01:37:39:17
Frank
Well, probably the first thing that attracts people is we have a very advantageous supply versus demand positioning because even today, even today, you can’t build any more mobile home parks. And I’ve been in this for 30 years. And in 30 years, the net number of parks is decreased rather than gone up.
01:37:39:17 – 01:37:46:05
Rod
Yeah. Because they, they, they find a higher and better use maybe in some cases or they shut them down. That’s right. You don’t get any.
01:37:46:05 – 01:37:47:19
Frank
New permits because the city’s.
01:37:47:21 – 01:37:53:02
Rod
Like like the well goes out or the septic goes out and you’re not near city water and sewer. You’re done.
01:37:53:02 – 01:37:53:22
Frank
Yeah.
01:37:53:24 – 01:38:08:27
Rod
I remember Kevin told me that, you know, when he looks at a park, if he doesn’t have a plan B, if it’s one well and septic like a plan B to connect and escrow money in case that ever happens, he wasn’t doing it. So I don’t know if you had the same mindset on that.
01:38:08:27 – 01:38:13:22
Frank
Yeah. The the the problem you have is there’s a whole lot of hostility against the mobile home, right?
01:38:13:24 – 01:38:15:20
Rod
Nobody wants a mobile home in their backyard.
01:38:15:22 – 01:38:16:25
Frank
Nobody does. Nobody.
01:38:16:26 – 01:38:17:17
Rod
I don’t care who you are.
01:38:17:17 – 01:38:27:25
Frank
And the city doesn’t either. Even though the federal government talks a big game about creating affordable housing, right? Or not? No. And they can’t. And zoning is a local function, right? So it doesn’t ever even happen.
01:38:27:25 – 01:38:31:11
Rod
Yeah. Don’t even try to say, hey, I’m going to put a mobile home park in here in your neighborhood. Yeah.
01:38:31:12 – 01:38:39:09
Frank
Good luck with that then. Yeah. You know, the problem is apartments can be stacked, right? We’re on one level. Can’t go up two level. Apartments can go three level plus, I’ve.
01:38:39:09 – 01:38:41:21
Rod
Seen some funny pictures though of one where.
01:38:41:24 – 01:38:46:20
Frank
Yeah, you have it in your. That’s correct. There was a guy that tried to build a multi-story.
01:38:46:21 – 01:38:47:03
Rod
A mobile.
01:38:47:04 – 01:39:08:18
Frank
Mobile home park. He wanted to build a ten story tower in Chicago. Oh, God of mobile homes. He built a prototype three storeys high. And it it was a catastrophe. Oh, yeah. He held the program off. But, yeah, mobile home park locations are really good to redevelop, right? Right. The right size. Right frontage. Right. Utility access. And then, of course, the city will give you any permit you want to build anything other.
01:39:08:18 – 01:39:09:01
Rod
Than that.
01:39:09:01 – 01:39:31:20
Frank
Other than mobile home park. That’s that’s the problem, right. So, yeah. So supply and demand is a biggie. People like the fact you own a park. No one’s building one down the street or across the street, so that that that’s huge. People like the fact that there’s typically so much room to grow rents. I know it’s a sensitive topic, you know, in a country which is talking about we need rent control and stuff.
01:39:31:24 – 01:39:35:20
Rod
Kevin told me you made the paper on one of his. He raised the rents on. He got oh, he got.
01:39:35:23 – 01:39:55:15
Frank
This like I think he did. I remember reading that. Yeah. The you know, what’s unfair is the average mobile home park read in the US is about 3 to 400 a month. Okay. In the markets that the average mobile home park is located, the average home is anywhere from 200 to 400 grand. The average apartment is 1000 to $2000 a month.
01:39:55:15 – 01:39:57:23
Rod
It’s a fraction of what what? They were the cheapest.
01:39:57:23 – 01:39:58:19
Frank
Cheapest there is.
01:39:58:19 – 01:40:00:00
Rod
And they bitch. If you want to raise a.
01:40:00:00 – 01:40:02:27
Frank
Little bit because they only want to talk about percentage.
01:40:02:27 – 01:40:11:21
Rod
Now some some places will even limit you where you have to. I mean, but let’s stick with advantages. I do want to talk about disadvantages after that let’s stick with advantages.
01:40:11:21 – 01:40:22:13
Frank
Right. But so that’s another one is you typically you can buy a mobile home park. And you can find any number of things to improve on. Right. So that that’s a turn on because you always know there’s, there’s a where you can really jack up.
01:40:22:13 – 01:40:29:29
Rod
The right, you can raise the rents and, and there’s not a whole lot they can do unless they have a lot of money, unless they have five grand sitting to move, to go to another park.
01:40:30:03 – 01:40:53:24
Frank
Well actually what’s having more and more these days are what are called organic moves, okay. And organic move is where you go to a park resident who’s unhappy and say, I’ll move you from that park to my park, for no charge to you. Yeah. And we do probably 100, 200 organic moves a year in our portfolio, I see, and that’s how the business pretty much regulates itself.
01:40:53:24 – 01:41:15:10
Frank
It’s getting back to the free market, concept. But to get someone so mad they want to move, you have to have a huge rent increase. I’m talking I’ve had case in cases where the rent was 400 and the person went to 701 day. Oh, wow. Okay, that’s not cool. That’s that’s a little extreme. We try and hold it down and only about $50 annual.
01:41:15:10 – 01:41:16:05
Rod
Yeah, yeah yeah.
01:41:16:05 – 01:41:23:24
Frank
Right. But there are certain cases where the rent is so far behind you, you can’t. You got it. You ever get there at $50, right? Right.
01:41:23:27 – 01:41:29:05
Rod
But but that’s not fun when you have park homes pulled from your park. Bye bye bye. A complete no.
01:41:29:08 – 01:41:35:17
Frank
And you try and obviously retain all your customers. So you try to keep them happy, right? Right.
01:41:35:19 – 01:41:36:22
Rod
So how do you do that?
01:41:36:24 – 01:41:40:29
Frank
Yeah. Well by not going up more than maybe $50 annually.
01:41:40:29 – 01:41:57:19
Rod
And let’s talk about something. We, talk about park owned versus versus lot rent. Sure. Okay. Because, you know, a lot of people think when you buy a mobile home park, you know, you’re responsible for the homes and the maintenance on the homes, but the the model that you really want to adopt is to have them all be resident owned homes.
01:41:57:19 – 01:42:02:06
Rod
And you’re just collecting lot rent. Correct. You do not want park owned homes. No.
01:42:02:09 – 01:42:03:09
Frank
Not like our on homes.
01:42:03:09 – 01:42:07:14
Rod
We want them to own their own. However, right? Correct. And so you’ll buy a park that has them and convert them.
01:42:07:14 – 01:42:08:09
Frank
Correct. Exactly.
01:42:08:12 – 01:42:10:07
Rod
So speak to that dynamic for sure.
01:42:10:13 – 01:42:22:16
Frank
When what happens is when you have rental homes, you’re kind of in the apartment business, but in but not in the apartment business. The apartments are built well. There are a lot of nice solid things like concrete and steel.
01:42:22:16 – 01:42:24:04
Rod
They don’t have spongy floors.
01:42:24:06 – 01:42:34:19
Frank
Right. The mobile home is built on a boat trailer. Right? Basically. And and so they don’t last. They don’t they don’t wear. Well. Yeah. You can keep them perfect if you take.
01:42:34:19 – 01:42:35:05
Rod
Good care of.
01:42:35:05 – 01:42:50:25
Frank
China, like, you know, if you’re fine. China kept in the dishwasher. You got to wash them by hand. Right. People get lazy. Don’t want to do that. So the problem is when you when you as a park owner own the home, you’re you’re this this is an asset that will cost you an enormous monthly amount and repair. Right?
01:42:50:28 – 01:42:54:01
Frank
Right. Let’s say 2 to $300 a month and repair.
01:42:54:01 – 01:42:55:02
Rod
Right. Minimum.
01:42:55:08 – 01:42:56:15
Frank
Minimum. Well.
01:42:56:17 – 01:42:58:13
Rod
That’s actually light in my opinion, right?
01:42:58:15 – 01:43:04:15
Frank
There’s just no money in it. If I, if you gave the home away to somebody said, just pay me a lot rent. Yeah. You’re miles ahead, right.
01:43:04:17 – 01:43:22:22
Rod
So that’s that’s the model. You’ll buy the park and it may have park owned homes. You want the resident to buy them from you, and you can finance them on the purchase. Correct. And and so they’re paying you for the purchase of the home plus lot rent. And and that’s the model right there. Okay. So back to advantages.
01:43:22:24 – 01:43:24:01
Rod
The returns are pretty good.
01:43:24:08 – 01:43:35:21
Frank
He’s got to get good returns. Yeah. Right. Yeah. It’s very passive. It’s like a parking lot. Right? Right. So once, once somebody moves in, all you ask of them is they pay the rent every month, and.
01:43:35:21 – 01:43:38:23
Rod
They keep the place clean. Yeah. Park rules and.
01:43:38:25 – 01:43:47:13
Frank
And but it’s it’s not a lot of action. No, you don’t get a lot of repair calls on the lot. Right, right. So people, people like that aspect to it.
01:43:47:15 – 01:43:56:26
Rod
You’ll have sewer lane clogs, you’ll have water issues, you’ll have, you know, and, and, any other advantages? They’re not building them anymore.
01:43:56:26 – 01:44:02:11
Frank
Well, and there’s no technological risk. Right. It’s not like office where suddenly.
01:44:02:13 – 01:44:05:03
Rod
Oh, yeah. Yeah. You know, 50% the.
01:44:05:04 – 01:44:10:03
Frank
Great asset class. And then the internet steps in and destroys the right. Retail had the same issue.
01:44:10:03 – 01:44:14:20
Rod
And there’s a huge shortage of affordable housing in this country. And that’s about as affordable as you can get. That’s right.
01:44:14:20 – 01:44:16:07
Frank
Phone rings off the hook. Correct.
01:44:16:08 – 01:44:23:14
Rod
Okay. Well, let’s talk about disadvantages. The demographic is tough sometimes it it’s it’s it’s actually an economic.
01:44:23:15 – 01:44:24:14
Frank
It’s getting better though.
01:44:24:15 – 01:44:25:00
Rod
Getting better.
01:44:25:00 – 01:44:40:24
Frank
Okay. As the home prices have gone up, I’ll give you an example. I was in the park recently, and I saw a home, and a guy coming out of the home looked like an L.L.Bean catalog. Okay. He’s white shirt, wearing a blazer, khaki pants, top siders, driving a Volvo. Wow. You know, home. And I thought, you know what?
01:44:40:24 – 01:44:58:12
Frank
This is only possible because that guy 30 years ago would never have thought about living in a mobile home park. Yeah, but the houses in that market are 300 grand. He can’t. He can’t get to 300 grand. He doesn’t live in an apartment. So this is his. That’s interim. He probably won’t end up here, right? He’ll keep advancing in his career.
01:44:58:13 – 01:45:09:17
Frank
He’ll eventually sell the mobile home, buy a stick, build. All right. But our our clientele is getting better, I think simply because housing has escalated so high that a lot.
01:45:09:17 – 01:45:12:21
Rod
So what’s what’s below? Mobile home parks as far as living?
01:45:12:24 – 01:45:14:23
Frank
Well, the the lowest level is D-class.
01:45:14:23 – 01:45:15:23
Rod
D-class? We’re not talking.
01:45:15:23 – 01:45:38:20
Frank
Living in your car. Right. The the lowest thing I’ve ever seen in in in the low cost housing business. Yeah. Other than section eight, which, which okay. That’s another but but, travel trailers, you will have people who will buy these $500 travel trailers. Yeah. And put them in an old squalid RV park with dirt roads down by the river under the bridge.
01:45:38:20 – 01:45:40:15
Frank
No kidding. That’s that’s the that’s.
01:45:40:15 – 01:45:41:15
Rod
About that’s the bottom.
01:45:41:20 – 01:45:42:25
Frank
That’s where you fall too.
01:45:42:27 – 01:46:01:04
Rod
So disadvantages. This infrastructure is a big one. So you got to, you know, the whole water and sewer and all that. You need to be very, very careful if you’re not on city water and sewer, that you have a plan B, forget the lagoon business. And.
01:46:01:07 – 01:46:23:07
Frank
Well, let’s, let’s big. As simple as, you know, forget the lagoon business, right? Master metered power. Don’t do it. Master metered gas. Don’t do it. Hey, there’s. Why? Why? Well, the way you are, a gas company or a power company and. And most people should not go into that industry. It’s okay. Rough. I mean, if you have a guy, if you have master metered gas and you had an explosion or a fire, it’s on you.
01:46:23:09 – 01:46:27:22
Frank
If your power lines fall down in the storm, it’s on you. Oh, gotcha. It is.
01:46:27:26 – 01:46:29:01
Rod
It’s too much risk. Gotcha.
01:46:29:02 – 01:46:30:09
Frank
Okay. For the average person?
01:46:30:09 – 01:46:31:15
Rod
No, master. Okay.
01:46:31:16 – 01:46:32:15
Frank
Yeah, I you know, that’s,
01:46:32:17 – 01:46:37:17
Rod
And, you know, financing is better, but it still can be pretty good.
01:46:37:19 – 01:46:42:14
Frank
It’s pretty good, actually. You know, Fannie, Fannie, Freddie came in in the last few years, right?
01:46:42:14 – 01:46:49:02
Rod
I remember when I went to your to your bootcamp, the only way you could get Fannie, Freddie, you had to have paved roads. You had to have sidewalks. I think back.
01:46:49:02 – 01:46:50:02
Frank
Then. Yeah, it’s all changed.
01:46:50:02 – 01:46:50:22
Rod
That’s all changed.
01:46:50:22 – 01:47:08:03
Frank
All changed from Fannie. Freddie, they got on board with the idea that a mobile home park is not a typically a luxury right, retirement village. Right. And they now do over half of all mobile home park loans, and they do by volume. Yeah, they become a huge player on it. Okay. So the financing is actually gotten.
01:47:08:05 – 01:47:10:02
Rod
It’s still bank financing available as well.
01:47:10:02 – 01:47:21:06
Frank
Yes okay. There is a problem there right now our interest rates. Well sure. We say the downside. You know we are like any real estate susceptible to rates and rates are going up a ton since Jerome Powell went crazy in 22. Right, right.
01:47:21:06 – 01:47:22:21
Rod
Yeah. Yeah.
01:47:22:24 – 01:47:26:24
Frank
Another big disadvantage is, is rent control or even the.
01:47:26:29 – 01:47:41:04
Rod
So where where where is rent control most prevalent. I mean, I know, like here in Florida, if you raise the rents too much, do they talk about don’t they have like a, like you can they have an association they put together and what.
01:47:41:10 – 01:47:44:24
Frank
They you have two problems. We’ve we’ve only owned one park in Florida okay. But for.
01:47:44:24 – 01:47:45:08
Rod
That reason.
01:47:45:11 – 01:47:48:24
Frank
But you have two things in Florida. Number one, you have a thing called the prospectus.
01:47:48:27 – 01:47:49:11
Rod
Okay.
01:47:49:11 – 01:47:54:02
Frank
Over a certain number of lots, you have to give people a, a forward looking guidance of your rates.
01:47:54:05 – 01:47:56:11
Rod
Oh, I see you have to tell them what you’re going to do before you do it.
01:47:56:11 – 01:48:16:01
Frank
These are three correct. Wow. So that that’s problem. That’s not but but also you have some very liberal tenant laws and and a new one that just got signed into law is the tenants. Even though you do not have rent control in Florida, they have the right to file for mediation. When you raise the rent, if they’re unhappy with it.
01:48:16:04 – 01:48:30:06
Frank
And I think Ron DeSantis said that he thought it was important that everyone have a voice. But this is more than a voice, because file mediation that the park owner would have legal cost, to to be represented in said mediation. So, you know.
01:48:30:08 – 01:48:32:27
Rod
Basically this whole what states are the worst for this?
01:48:32:27 – 01:48:44:10
Frank
Well, you have seven states with rent control plus District of Columbia. Okay. You got California, of course, California. Oregon. You got Washington. Yeah. You got oh, help me out here. You’ve got.
01:48:44:12 – 01:48:45:09
Rod
New York. Yeah.
01:48:45:13 – 01:48:56:25
Frank
Right. And you have some little ones. I don’t know if new Jersey. I think they probably would. Yeah. Massachusetts has some. Oh yeah. Of course. Good lord. But yeah. So the those states we pretty much right off.
01:48:56:27 – 01:48:58:14
Rod
State stay away. Stay away.
01:48:58:14 – 01:49:02:25
Frank
The new thing is who’s next. Right. That’s the new question.
01:49:02:27 – 01:49:05:28
Rod
Well I don’t know. They got pretty red lately so I don’t know maybe.
01:49:05:28 – 01:49:28:15
Frank
Well see the rent control is only happen when you have the trifecta. You yet to have a blue House Senate and governor. So any any splitting that no one’s ever passed rent control okay. The only rent control right now in a split states in Pennsylvania that’s in under discussion. I don’t think it’ll go anywhere. They have very radically blue House in Pennsylvania.
01:49:28:18 – 01:49:35:28
Frank
But they have a very Republican Senate said I think they have 28 red senators versus 22 blue. And so I don’t know any.
01:49:35:28 – 01:49:37:23
Rod
Other states that have the trifecta.
01:49:37:26 – 01:49:45:09
Frank
There’s a bunch, there’s a, there’s Illinois’s trifecta. New Mexico is trifecta. Colorado is trifecta. There’s, there’s quite a few I see.
01:49:45:11 – 01:49:47:07
Rod
So so you got to worry about those states.
01:49:47:07 – 01:49:57:14
Frank
Yeah. The only thing is though, I think you also have to have not only a trifecta. But you have to have a state where the main driver is not real estate.
01:49:57:19 – 01:49:58:06
Rod
01:49:58:09 – 01:50:17:23
Frank
Right. And like Oregon, Washington, it’s not about real estate. It’s about technology. And stuff like that. And they could care less about landlords. Right. Illinois. Your governor is a real estate guy. Right. Colorado. The governor is the one who vetoed rent control. They actually passed it, the House and Senate. He veto it. Well and he’s Democrat.
01:50:17:23 – 01:50:21:02
Frank
Wow. I mean it’s not worked out for the states that have done it.
01:50:21:04 – 01:50:35:02
Rod
Oh no it’s terrible. Terrible. It’s a terrible plan. I mean, these idiots don’t realize it’s the same with the minimum wage thing. It’s it’s stupid because it kills business and he’s out there, right. But, you know, a lot of liberals aren’t aware of the stupidity of it, right? So.
01:50:35:02 – 01:50:49:26
Frank
Okay, but but if you own a park in a state that does pass it. Yeah. Has happened to a lot of park owners in New York who did not think it was happening right when he did the statewide rent control. It’s very punishing because now you’re frozen in time. You can only go up with inflation.
01:50:49:29 – 01:50:52:01
Rod
Values based on a.
01:50:52:04 – 01:50:52:16
Frank
Bad.
01:50:52:16 – 01:51:14:03
Rod
Yeah. You’re screwed. Right. So. So, so other disadvantages, I suppose, well, certainly the management can be a challenge. I mean, you know, don’t don’t buy a park that you cannot have an on site manager on. What would you say the minimum is for 40, 40 pads? What’s the minimum tax?
01:51:14:03 – 01:51:28:08
Frank
Well, you can have an on site even on a 10 or 15 space. Or you could. Yeah, but but you can’t get you can’t bring someone in from the outside till you get to 100. Okay. So under 100, it’s going to be someone who already lives in there. Right. You just going to have to work with what you got.
01:51:28:08 – 01:51:30:29
Frank
And you may not have anyone good and you got to work around it.
01:51:31:04 – 01:51:42:19
Rod
That works. Yeah. That’s that’s the biggest hurdle is the management. You know, and talk about, rent collection and eviction as it relates to a mobile home because it’s different than multifamily.
01:51:42:19 – 01:52:00:22
Frank
So, yeah. Well, our rent is due on the first, late after the fifth. You said that a demand letter typically on the seventh. Right. And if you don’t pay, it’s based on the state mandate, five day, three day, ten day, whatever your state says, then you file eviction. Yeah. And then you always win tonight never shows up anymore.
01:52:00:22 – 01:52:07:03
Frank
No. Okay. Then after you when you have the have the right to appeal for a few days, you can’t appeal unless you post the amount that you are.
01:52:07:03 – 01:52:09:01
Rod
The tenant can’t appeal unless they post the amount.
01:52:09:04 – 01:52:27:08
Frank
They’re never going to do that or they pay you right. And then and then you have to get what’s called a writ of possession or execution. Right. Since the mobile home, when the tenant is gone, becomes abandoned property. Right. You typically use abandoned property auction, okay. And then it recycles around into a new resident and restarts the process.
01:52:27:08 – 01:52:32:01
Rod
How long is that process including the the, you know, the the abandonment piece of it?
01:52:32:06 – 01:52:54:27
Frank
Well, the abandonment piece is really it takes a while. Right? That’s that’s what I was asking. You were in court at a red state. You’ll be in court within 30 to 60 days of the eviction filing in a blue court. It might be months. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Right. And the big problem you have the blue courts today are in a in a post-Covid world, after the eviction moratorium, the judges they grew to not like the idea of evictions.
01:52:54:27 – 01:53:02:06
Frank
I think they think there will be a viral video and or maybe that they it’ll hurt their reelection campaign I don’t know.
01:53:02:09 – 01:53:07:24
Rod
Yeah. My ex-partner bought some properties in Atlanta and you couldn’t evict people for upwards of a year or so.
01:53:07:25 – 01:53:13:16
Frank
Yes. We had the same problem. So market. So the way you get around that today is cash. Cash for cash for keys.
01:53:13:16 – 01:53:29:21
Rod
Yeah. Hey, I, I did that on an asset in, Louisiana, and I don’t recommend this, but it was these problem tenants, and they got in a shootout between themselves, and I was walking through the park with the manager, and I heard them blaring the music, and I pounded on the door. Boom! As an a guy came and I wasn’t strapped or anything.
01:53:29:21 – 01:53:44:20
Rod
I’m usually strapped, but you can’t carry the gun to other states and and, guy came to the door. I said, listen, I’m going to evict you and you’ll never rent again. Or if you’re out of here by tomorrow, I’ll give you $1,500 cash if the place is cleaned out. He took it two of the other people, there were actually three units.
01:53:44:20 – 01:54:03:01
Rod
They all took it and they were gone. Now, I don’t recommend that in some states you actually there’s housing laws where you have if you’re going to do that, if dude, for everybody. So be careful of your housing laws. I’m not promoting that. And don’t do it the way I did it. You get shot. But but cash for keys is is is really it can be a great solution.
01:54:03:01 – 01:54:08:13
Rod
You’re right. Yeah. Okay. So other what other disadvantages are there? Two mobile home parks.
01:54:08:13 – 01:54:12:18
Frank
Man I’ll tell you, the technology’s been helping a lot of the disadvantages.
01:54:12:18 – 01:54:13:19
Rod
Really. For example.
01:54:13:21 – 01:54:22:18
Frank
Well, going back to the managers today, all of our major calls are recorded, okay. They’re tracked. We know the number coming in. We know how long they were on the phone. We know what was said.
01:54:22:18 – 01:54:26:17
Rod
Okay. So you mean calls to them from prospective tenants? Yeah. Everything is sorted.
01:54:26:21 – 01:54:31:12
Frank
Reported through a recording service. Gotcha. That’s right. Okay. And then, we do.
01:54:31:13 – 01:54:34:04
Rod
So you know what’s going on? Basically what you didn’t before.
01:54:34:06 – 01:54:54:09
Frank
I can scientifically track. In fact, it’s not not not like the old days of how many calls do we get for that? That home where that lot. I know how many calls we had. I even know how many they answered. And I even know what they said. Okay, okay, so that’s better. HD videos just get a GoPro suction cup mount, put on the roof of your car, drive through the park.
01:54:54:09 – 01:55:00:19
Frank
They can send you that recording, and you can go to a go to meeting webinar, and you can actually drive the park with them virtually.
01:55:00:22 – 01:55:04:06
Rod
And see what’s going on. You see what’s not to worry versus the car.
01:55:04:06 – 01:55:04:26
Frank
Whatever you want to do.
01:55:04:26 – 01:55:06:23
Rod
Whatever, whatever you know. Home may need.
01:55:06:29 – 01:55:07:14
Frank
Direct.
01:55:07:14 – 01:55:20:08
Rod
New, sighting around the bottom. What do you call that, skirting. Skirting might be skirting, you know, or painted or cleaned up or yards not taken care of or whatever. Do do you take care of the landscaping or the the.
01:55:20:08 – 01:55:21:06
Frank
We do common area.
01:55:21:06 – 01:55:22:09
Rod
You do common area we.
01:55:22:09 – 01:55:35:01
Frank
Do the entrance. But to be honest with you, we’re also out there pitching in on people who can’t seem to help people or whatever. You figure it out sometimes. Well, we’ll have our mower edge their yard right where we did it.
01:55:35:01 – 01:55:39:28
Rod
It serves, you know, that’s a win win because it keeps your park looking good. That’s good. And cost that much money.
01:55:40:04 – 01:55:47:07
Frank
That’s correct. And so a lot of our collections there okay. So we are our portfolio. We’re 95% roughly.
01:55:47:07 – 01:55:48:27
Rod
ACH, we’re all kidding you.
01:55:48:27 – 01:55:52:09
Frank
Oh, yeah. Wow. So the manager’s not really collecting money like they used to.
01:55:52:11 – 01:55:54:05
Rod
Okay, so it comes right out of the checking account.
01:55:54:05 – 01:56:04:04
Frank
Yes. And sometimes if we want to look at something in the park, we’ll call the manager and go to FaceTime. Right. Have them walk over and show us what it is okay. So all these technology.
01:56:04:04 – 01:56:06:24
Rod
Yeah, this is all brand new. So since since I went to you.
01:56:06:24 – 01:56:11:15
Frank
That’s correct. It made everything much, much easier for the.
01:56:11:17 – 01:56:17:02
Rod
So what do you do? I mean, you’ve got a website that people will put parks on. Yeah.
01:56:17:03 – 01:56:18:02
Frank
Mobile mobile home park.
01:56:18:02 – 01:56:23:29
Rod
Store mobile home parks direct. But. But how are you finding park? I used to, you’re probably not in acquisition mode right now.
01:56:23:29 – 01:56:47:01
Frank
Well, we still we we’re still buying. You still buy. They’re just not at one time we bought two a week. Well, that I don’t recommend that. That’s not okay. But the, the number one place we find parks is are the brokers. So over half of our stuff came from brokers. So we’re big on brokers. Okay. Okay, then you have the remaining half of the stuff we’ve bought.
01:56:47:03 – 01:56:55:13
Frank
It’s kind of a toss up of of, cold calling and direct mail. And then the smallest fraction is, is online.
01:56:55:15 – 01:56:57:05
Rod
Online. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
01:56:57:06 – 01:57:04:02
Frank
A lot of times online becomes like the, the, you know the, the elephant final resting spot. Right. I mean it’s stuff that.
01:57:04:02 – 01:57:06:20
Rod
Yeah everybody’s looked at it. There’s a reason they haven’t bought it.
01:57:06:21 – 01:57:11:26
Frank
Exactly. Right. You see things others sit around for years. There’s a reason for that.
01:57:11:29 – 01:57:16:17
Rod
What’s the scariest situation you ever encountered with a park?
01:57:16:19 – 01:57:36:19
Frank
Scariest situation where I thought I was actually maybe. Maybe in deep trouble. Yeah. Actually happened when I would least expect it back at my first park. Oh, after we turned it around and everything was going great. I was just over there meeting with my manager named Stephanie. Husband was in the VA hospital. And she was there for it.
01:57:36:20 – 01:58:00:22
Frank
She’s now since moved on, but I was just at the office. Just saying. Stephanie, man, you’re doing great places. Looking great. And suddenly, three guys come in the office and they don’t even say a word, and they start ransacking it with us just sitting there going through every cabinet. And we were in a mobile home. We office, they our office was in a mobile home, and they had one guy just stand right in front of us.
01:58:00:22 – 01:58:09:26
Frank
I assume he had a pistol. He never showed any weaponry and they just ransacked the entire house. And then they looked at each other and they was like, there’s nothing here. And they just left.
01:58:09:26 – 01:58:10:15
Rod
Wow.
01:58:10:15 – 01:58:14:17
Frank
And that I think what it was about is they knew that typically.
01:58:14:17 – 01:58:15:12
Rod
Might be some cash.
01:58:15:18 – 01:58:31:17
Frank
Right. You know, it’s collections time at the start of the month. And they had a new plan, which was to go rob mobile home park offices at the start of the month. What they didn’t know is we’d already made the deposit, and even if we had made the deposit, all we had were checks and money orders. We don’t take cash, right?
01:58:31:20 – 01:58:46:25
Frank
But there’s one benefit of ACH, right? Is it’s is taking the money out of the office. Right. So that was probably my scariest moment. Wow. I was attacked by a dog. Believe it or not. Again, just dropping by a park. Wow. To tell the lady how great it was looking, and I got out of my car.
01:58:46:27 – 01:58:48:25
Rod
So no good deed goes unpunished, you know?
01:58:48:25 – 01:59:04:09
Frank
And it wasn’t even a dog in the park. It was a dog that’s been running loose for another property. Big old German Shepherd. And it just decided he wanted to eat my leg. Got a buffet? Yeah. Then. Then came the issue that I needed had been rabies shot and they had to send the dog into me, you know?
01:59:04:09 – 01:59:14:12
Frank
Whatever. So nice. Finalize. That was bad. Yeah. Wow. But, you know, I haven’t had any really, terrifying business things. Just mostly been terrifying. Things you never know. So.
01:59:14:12 – 01:59:23:27
Rod
So you haven’t. So, really, the question was more geared towards scary business. Like like, have you have you had a park where an infrastructure went out and you’re like, Holy crap.
01:59:24:02 – 01:59:31:08
Frank
Oh, yeah. My, my, tell me the worst one. Okay. First scary infrastructure story. My very first park, Glen Haven.
01:59:31:08 – 01:59:31:29
Rod
Oh, the same one.
01:59:31:29 – 01:59:48:15
Frank
Yeah. Middle of middle of the, winter. Right. I get a call from the manager. Hey, we got a problem. We got no gas, and I thought maybe I’d not paid the bill, so I called up the gas company and said, hey, you know, get this mobile home park. Are you. Should I owe any money on it?
01:59:48:17 – 02:00:05:15
Frank
No, you’re you’re paying for, Well, then, gosh darn it, my gas is out. Well, hold on, let me connect you over to this other thing. And the guy says, dude, we turned your gas off because there’s leaks in it. And I said, well, what do I do? He says, you got to you got to fix the leaks pressure test and we’ll restart you.
02:00:05:17 – 02:00:15:12
Frank
So I had no gas and I call a plumber. He goes out, he excavates and says, we can’t fix this thing. You’ve got millions of little pinhole, right? Leaks in your pipe.
02:00:15:13 – 02:00:16:15
Rod
You had to run all new line.
02:00:16:15 – 02:00:29:01
Frank
Right? And I said, well, how long will that take? Oh, we it probably take us months. I said, well what do I do in the interim? Because I have no idea. And I called up the guy and bought it from where I put the ten grand down. And I said, dude, I think I’m going to give this back to you, right?
02:00:29:07 – 02:00:49:23
Frank
Because I got no, no, no, he no hot water, no way for 80 people to, to survive in the dead of the winter. And he, like your story with Kevin up in the plan B said, oh, no, I already got this figured out. We’re going to change to propane. Okay. Yeah, I’m a neophyte. At that time, I don’t know anything about mobile home parks.
02:00:49:23 – 02:01:07:03
Frank
And I’m like, well, I don’t even know what that means, because here called Northwest Propane. Tell him to bring over 83 tanks, start installing them. So he already had pre masterminded. Well that’s when this happened. Never told me about it. Wow. Obviously. Right. Want to. Yeah. So. Right. But then the problem is I had to keep the people happy for a month.
02:01:07:06 – 02:01:14:20
Frank
Well, he can only do two tanks a day. Wow. How do you keep people happy for a month without any heat, hot water, whatever. We did it.
02:01:14:22 – 02:01:18:09
Rod
You were able to pull it off, pull it out. Free rent, whatever. I mean, that’s correct.
02:01:18:09 – 02:01:44:23
Frank
I had I had, my manager, Stephanie, she was great with people. And she would go around to people and say, look, I’m really sorry we got nothing, but here’s what we’re doing. I’m bringing in Domino’s Pizza. She would build bonfires. They would cook hot dogs at the bonfire. And every day, two homes had heat. She would then tell people, hey, would you mind if people came over and, like, shower in your house?
02:01:44:25 – 02:01:46:13
Frank
Would you mind if they could, like, hang out?
02:01:46:15 – 02:01:47:16
Rod
So she did all that for you?
02:01:47:17 – 02:01:48:08
Frank
She saved the day.
02:01:48:08 – 02:01:48:23
Rod
Wow.
02:01:48:24 – 02:01:56:12
Frank
She’s my MVP from the early years. No. Nobody else could pull that off at her or anyone else. I would have been up in the newspaper. Oh, yeah. Shut down. Wow.
02:01:56:12 – 02:01:57:24
Rod
Yeah. They’ll shut you down for stuff.
02:01:57:25 – 02:01:58:18
Frank
Absolutely true.
02:01:58:18 – 02:02:22:25
Rod
God, that’s a nightmare. Well, that’s a that’s a good one. That’s a good one. Well, you know, like I said, I, I believe in the asset class, for sure. And, you know, but but, you know, you’ve got to you’ve got to be aware of the, the pitfalls and the advantages and, and, you know, knowing what you know now about the business, would you do anything else differently in this trajectory that you’ve had?
02:02:22:28 – 02:02:31:24
Frank
Well, first thing, don’t ever buy a park like I bought my first one. You got to do due diligence. You got to know what the heck you’re buying.
02:02:31:26 – 02:02:52:22
Rod
Yeah, like you talked about that, like, by the way, if you don’t know what a phase one is, guys, that’s an environmental report. You know, if you get seller financing, you don’t have to have any bank will require it. They’ll require a survey as well. But if you get self financing, which is very common in the mobile home park space because of the high debt and costs and everything, right now, it’s probably even more prevalent right now being doing creative deals.
02:02:52:24 – 02:03:11:11
Rod
But but here’s the problem. If there was ever a dry cleaner there, if there was ever a gas station or was ever any any problem, if the EPA comes in, let’s say you bought the house. Yes. Or bought the property yesterday. It comes in today. You’re responsible. Doesn’t matter what happened. Who owned it prior. And so you’re crazy not to do a phase.
02:03:11:11 – 02:03:20:07
Rod
One second thing is a survey. You don’t know if you’re encroaching on other people’s land or they’re encroaching on you. And, so those are. Yeah. So do tell them.
02:03:20:07 – 02:03:22:22
Frank
To start a survey. Okay. About a park in Missouri.
02:03:22:23 – 02:03:23:06
Rod
Okay.
02:03:23:10 – 02:03:48:00
Frank
And went to refinance it years later. And they said, you don’t actually own that park. The the neighbor owns a third of your park, including your entrance. And you on the other part. And what had happened is this was a, a deal was with a seller. Kerry. Wow. With a survey. And I had never gone out to actually check the boundary because I was getting I was an idiot.
02:03:48:00 – 02:04:04:17
Frank
Didn’t know what I was doing. Wow. And it turned out that his boundary, the park was not on, his land was on the neighbor. Now, the crazy ending to this was I had a lawyer go to the neighbor, okay? And say, look, we don’t know if you know this or not, but but this park is apparently on your land.
02:04:04:19 – 02:04:12:02
Frank
He, the neighbor who was a farmer, was concerned this would cause title problems for him when he died. So he gave us. He gifted us.
02:04:12:02 – 02:04:13:15
Rod
Oh, thank God, that portion.
02:04:13:15 – 02:04:21:15
Frank
We didn’t know that worked. What a mess. Otherwise, I had no entrance and. Right. So. Yeah, you got you got to have it. You got to have a survey, you got to have a face and.
02:04:21:15 – 02:04:22:09
Rod
You got to look at it.
02:04:22:09 – 02:04:39:16
Frank
Title. You got to have all that stuff, a title, title. Some old guy says, I’ll sell you this thing, right. You know, here’s a bill of sale, right? No, you can’t do it. You got it. You got to do it, right? Yeah. A lot of the old timers, they were of a different era in American history. You know, the World War Two generation, right?
02:04:39:16 – 02:04:47:00
Frank
People didn’t sue each other, right? People were reasonable. You handshake deal. Right. Shake deals. It’s all over now. It’s got to play it. Play it by.
02:04:47:01 – 02:05:04:26
Rod
Yeah, yeah. And I’m I’m on the tip edge of the baby boomers. I turned 65 in January and there’s 10,000 of us turning 50. Turning 65 a day. Right? Every day. That’s where I’m getting into senior housing. I’m really excited about that asset class. But, okay, so do your due diligence basically, is what you do differently?
02:05:04:26 – 02:05:07:15
Rod
Would you do anything differently in the growth piece of this.
02:05:07:19 – 02:05:10:05
Frank
Of what you mean as far as how big we grew?
02:05:10:05 – 02:05:14:02
Rod
Yeah. How big you grew or would you do larger parks. Would you do anything differently?
02:05:14:04 – 02:05:33:24
Frank
No. I mean, our average park size has been about 100 lots. Okay. And that’s a pretty good size. Yeah, it’s a good right. The markets we were in, we were lucky we stuck with the Great Plains of the Midwest. Middle of America. No. No giant peaks, but also no giant gullies in the performance. So that’s been good.
02:05:33:27 – 02:05:51:19
Frank
So, you know, life is a tapestry of all your little lessons learned, right? And so clearly, there were parks in the early days, it would never. But today. Right, because I’ve learned too much. Right. But I could have never gotten to today if I hadn’t bought those early parks. Right. So I can’t really say I want to win the clock.
02:05:51:22 – 02:05:53:19
Frank
Yeah. Back at all, to be honest with you.
02:05:53:19 – 02:06:12:16
Rod
So so, you know, you’ve coached a lot of people like I have now. And, you know, I’ve had almost 17,000 people attend my boot camps. You know, what suggestions. And so I’d love to hear your take on this question. What suggestions would you have for someone that want, you know, they’ve got a job. They know they want more out of life.
02:06:12:21 – 02:06:21:02
Rod
Yep. You know, they may be happy with the job, but they don’t have the freedom that they want for themselves in their family. You know, speak to them. What what what would you suggest?
02:06:21:02 – 02:06:44:20
Frank
Yeah, the first thing is if you if you really think about your time. Right. America’s waste a ton of time. If you look back at how it used to be in the olden days, the average American basically worked probably 12 hours a day, six and seven times a week, right? Today we’re pretty soft compared to the old days where the average person is working eight hours, five.
02:06:44:20 – 02:06:47:19
Rod
If that, and they’re and they’re really actually working for five of those hours.
02:06:47:19 – 02:07:10:08
Frank
So you only spend one third of your, of your time on a weekday working. Right? Right. So then you got 16 hours to kill. What are you doing with that. Well, you’re going to sleep eight to that. Hopefully you need to to be healthy. Right. But leaves you eight and people squander that eight. Right? Right. So what I would first proposed of people is stop squandering your eight hours.
02:07:10:10 – 02:07:33:22
Frank
Stop squandering all of your entire weekend and and put it to good use right in the time that you’re watching TV or something, which doesn’t it’s not good for you physically is not good for you mentally apply it to trying to make money or do something. Yeah, right. I mean, you need multiple streams of income. I know it’s a bit cliche, but it’s so true today when America is so screwed up, you never know what’s going to happen, right?
02:07:33:22 – 02:07:48:16
Frank
You don’t want to be all all in on one thing. You want to have diversity. But when someone tells me I don’t have the time, yeah, that’s the worst. I don’t care if it’s a manager or anyone that never used that phrase. It. You look like a moron. Yeah, when you say I don’t have the time, like, oh, I didn’t call you back.
02:07:48:16 – 02:08:06:02
Frank
I don’t have the time to call you back. Everyone has the time to do these things. So you got to get more, more mastery in your time. Yeah. Then you got to find something you really believe in. Because if you’re not enthusiastic, it’s not going to work out. And I know people tell people, oh, you know, follow follow your your passion.
02:08:06:02 – 02:08:23:14
Frank
Well, sometimes your passion has no money in it. Like my passion is to is to, you know, play a harmonica. I’m probably not going to be able to make it Nashville. Let’s, let’s. But real estate is something that most people have the aptitude to do. Yeah, right. And the nice thing to me about real estate is it’s it’s not employee heavy.
02:08:23:18 – 02:08:29:03
Frank
Right. Which is one big problem in today’s world. Employees are maybe more toxic than the residents, a pain in the ass.
02:08:29:03 – 02:08:33:19
Rod
A lot of times I happen to have an incredible team. Those. So those of you listening well.
02:08:33:19 – 02:08:53:09
Frank
But I’m just saying that. Right. You know, if you’re someone with the day job, you can do real estate. Yeah, you can pull this off. I mean, you can’t maybe open a subway sandwich shop employee. Does it show up your day job? What do you do, go bankrupt? But real estate, as far as that extra income stream, it’s it’s the track record proven winner.
02:08:53:09 – 02:08:54:20
Frank
Yeah, right. I mean, it’s.
02:08:54:25 – 02:09:14:19
Rod
90% of the world’s millionaires either made it in real estate or invest in real estate. There you go, Rizzo. And and correct. You know, I’ve got scores of students that had full time jobs, kids, families, soccer. Yeah. And they did this on the side and eclipsed their W-2 income and retired from the W-2 job. So, you know, don’t tell me you can’t do thank you.
02:09:14:19 – 02:09:22:15
Rod
Don’t tell me you don’t have time. I agree with that 100%. Do you think there’s a certain kind of person that’s better than another that’s suited for this business?
02:09:22:18 – 02:09:31:12
Frank
You know, they’re the the key attributes of the people I see that succeed. And mobile home parks and other stuff for people were very persistent. Yeah.
02:09:31:14 – 02:09:33:13
Rod
Yeah. Right. That’s it. They just do it.
02:09:33:15 – 02:09:40:04
Frank
And I don’t know what makes some people persistent and some give up so easily. Yeah, I really don’t I mean I see it it’s not.
02:09:40:04 – 02:09:40:21
Rod
IQ.
02:09:40:23 – 02:09:41:21
Frank
Not it’s not money.
02:09:41:21 – 02:09:42:20
Rod
It’s not where they live.
02:09:42:20 – 02:09:50:19
Frank
It’s not background. This is an internal. Yeah. Fight mechanism. Yeah. I guess you have more caveman fight or flight going on that’s refused to quit.
02:09:50:19 – 02:10:06:02
Rod
That’s why the first thing we do in my boot camps is goal setting. Because you got to figure out what you want and why you want it. So that’s how you push through those those, those setbacks and that because, you know, life’s going to punch you in the nose. Period. It’s to kind of happen. Yeah. It’s not a matter of if it’s a matter when.
02:10:06:02 – 02:10:16:06
Rod
But if you’ve, you know, if you’ve got enough motivation to push through because you’re clear on what you want. Yeah. So let me ask you this. Did you have any mentors at all in your roles here?
02:10:16:06 – 02:10:27:19
Frank
You know, my my, I used to read a lot of biographies and that was kind of my hobby. Yeah. And but mostly business and military stand out. Gosh. All so.
02:10:27:19 – 02:10:28:03
Rod
Many.
02:10:28:08 – 02:10:30:00
Frank
Okay. You know,
02:10:30:03 – 02:10:32:03
Rod
You saw my library downstairs and you see I do.
02:10:32:07 – 02:10:51:26
Frank
Same I mean, I’m a bit I’m a big reader. Yeah. I didn’t really have a real mentor, but I had a lot of people that helped me. Yeah. I mean, even in the billboard business, I had people who were very, very nice to me when I was starting out and didn’t know what I was doing. My first billboard was a veterinarian who said to me, look, you don’t know what you’re doing, but you need a break.
02:10:51:26 – 02:11:08:03
Frank
So, yeah, I’ll sign your lease. And then he said, here, call my dad. I called his dad is dead. So, yeah, here, you can put it on my land, I don’t care. Wow. So I think all of us in business, you know, our we have a huge support network of people who were just nice to us. Yeah. Right there they were normally all.
02:11:08:03 – 02:11:31:12
Frank
I think the Greatest Generation people were phenomenal, right? My people who helped me the most, starting out where people are defined as greatest generation. So people born back in the 20s, oh, 20s. Yeah. You know, and earlier. Yeah. World War Two veteran people. Yeah. And, very nice. All right. And in the park business, I mean, everybody played a role, right.
02:11:31:15 – 02:11:41:12
Frank
And, so I didn’t have a mentor like I didn’t have someone say, okay, here you do this. It was like a continual deal. But I had lots of a big support network of just normal nice people.
02:11:41:12 – 02:11:57:09
Rod
Gotcha. You know, I do clips every week, called on your power to motivate people. There are five minute clips about motivation, mindset, taking action. What’s been the driver for you to to to work as hard as you’ve worked and create a fifth largest mobile home park, ownership in the country. What’s been the.
02:11:57:09 – 02:12:24:24
Frank
Driver? Well, one, I get bored easy. Okay. That’s one of my superhuman skills. I can’t I can’t sit down. I like to keep going, and I like to multitask, so I always have to have something I’m working on. And I’ve always had a fascination with with fixing stuff. Right. Yeah. I enjoy that too. You know, mobile home parks when you buy them they’re not normally always screwed up and you fix them.
02:12:24:28 – 02:12:44:18
Frank
Yeah. And even in the billboard business, you know, most of my billboards came from buying billboards during the savings loan crash, trying to solve them, like, you know, how do I fix this? I have to go back and renegotiate the ground, read or do something differently. So I’ve always been a fixer kind of person. Gotcha. And this industry, since is screwed up, is there’s a lot of fixing potential in it.
02:12:44:18 – 02:12:57:05
Frank
Okay. So, and then I just like, I, I really enjoy the people aspect of it. Yeah. What kind of a salesman by nature. And I enjoy trying to fix stuff. I like teaching. I just like all that kind of stuff.
02:12:57:05 – 02:13:04:03
Rod
Yeah. Got it, got it. So how do people, find out about your, Because I know your coach and you do virtual events. How do people find you?
02:13:04:05 – 02:13:10:02
Frank
Yeah, you just go to MH ew.com match you. Yeah. For mobile home university.com.
02:13:10:02 – 02:13:10:22
Rod
Okay. And it’s.
02:13:10:22 – 02:13:12:04
Frank
All there. Everything is there.
02:13:12:04 – 02:13:18:06
Rod
Fantastic. Fantastic. Well, I appreciate you coming down here, brother. It’s good to see you again. I know you don’t remember me, but I remember faces.
02:13:18:06 – 02:13:19:25
Frank
I know your face. Okay.
02:13:19:28 – 02:13:28:19
Rod
Fair enough, fair enough. Well, I’m saying, I mean, when you’ve thousand that you’ve been in front of thousands of people like I have it. Yeah, it all runs together. But, thanks for coming down. It’s been a lot of fun.
02:13:28:20 – 02:13:29:23
Frank
Thanks for having me. And, of course.
02:13:29:24 – 02:13:31:24
Rod
Thank you for listening to the lifetime catch.
