Roger King: How Mobile Park Home Investing Made him Wealthy

With nearly three decades in the Real Estate Investing game, starting from grassroots wholesaling to owning 14 mobile home parks, Roger King has mastered the art of real estate investing. Tune in to "The Gould Mine" to hear how Roger transitioned from his early days of doing wholesale deals through bandit signs to strategically pivoting to mobile home park investing which has taken him to the next level. Welcome Roger, to The Gould Mine...

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Transcript

•  What's up gold miners. Today we welcome Roger King to the show. Roger is a real estate investor who currently owns 14 mobile home parks and has spent almost the last three decades of his life as a real estate investor. So needless to say Roger has a plethora of experience to draw from and he shares it all on this episode. At the beginning of the episode. We spent some time going over the earlier years of Rogers investing Journey as a wholesaler as well as doing lease options and really spending some time going over the lessons that he learned leading into and up to the o08 crash. Later on in the episode we talk about opportunity vehicles and how Roger successfully identified some softening in the flipping Market in the mid 2010s and transitioned from flipping homes to mobile home parking vesting. We dig into the psychology of why he opted to do that when he opted to do that and why he might be thinking about getting out of Mobile Home Park investing now in 2024 and then finally throughout this episode Roger does an incredible job of displaying and talking about the emotions involved in real estate investing and and the psychology of a nearly three decades long experience the lessons that he's learned and he really just does a wonderful job of not just talking about the nuts and bolts of real estate investing but also explaining to the audience the emotional and psychological components of his journey as well. It was a beautiful episode. I can't wait for you to listen and tune to this one so without further Ado everyone. Let's welcome to the show Roger K Roger welcome to gold mine thanks Danny I'm so happy to be here is that a beach back there dude like that is totally the Atlantic Ocean 85 Degrees oh man yeah oh my God that is that is absurd hey man me. It's taken me several de to get to this point so yeah yeah yeah. No that's that's awesome though I mean I I've got is was Puerto Rico like a conscious decision for the tax purposes or um. Was it just like more of a because I I don't know like. I feel like the taxes are going to happen regardless because of like you know the real estate being like you know where you're going to get taxed where the property is right. So yeah I mean you know in in as much as tax you know Ling your tax burden is a really important tool in being successful investor over the long term. It's probably one of three reasons that I moved here. The first is I've got about 50 friends kind of all from the Tony Robbins community that have moved down here in the last three or four years um I've been in Palm Springs California and Las Vegas for 11 out of the last 20 years and I just missed the water and and a bu mine said hey. Let's you know come down here and let's build a community of cool people and I thought yeah and uh it's been. It's. It has been cathartic. It has been uh you know en energizing and it's been just fun because like after we're done. I'm gonna take Daisy my dog on a walk on the beac um. If I said the word she would start barking and freaking out because she loves it so much so yeah. It's just one of those things that I didn't know uh how much I would love being here until I've been here for probably eight months and uh it's just been amazing. That's awesome man yeah. That's awesome well look you have a rather fascinating background. You know just kind of like going back in in time and and whatnot and and learning more about your journey yeah. You were a rock drummer. At one point I started as a rock drummer and then I got into the Jazz drumming thing which essentially made me start all over like I've been playing drums from like 13 years old. Then I got to to Berkeley College of Music and the the the Trump teachers were like. Hey man you're not very good at the Jazz thing you know. I'm like huh okay so really you know going from playing Rush songs left-handed. You know right-handed left-handed to going into playing ding ding a ding ding a ding and trying to play it as quietly as possible was a whole different attitude and that took years a decade. It took me an entire decade to figure that out um so it's just. It's a really weird path man. But I figure. If a drummer can do what I've done anybody can do what I've done and uh I mean I saw the the guy that was 23 years old on your on your podcast and I'm like way to go man way to go. That's awesome yeah well. I think you're selling yourself short there. Roger because for people that don't know Berkeley College of Music is one of the most prestigious music schools out there I mean it's like right up there with like juliard. You know like in terms of like the prestigiousness. So yeah um. You definitely had Talent right. You just found a different you know and then you're you're taking that and you're you're bringing it over to the investing space so like what did that like you know when did that shift happen when did that transition happen obviously um. I don't think it's a surprise unless you're uh know recording record labels you know with like you know like the top of the top of the top or have your own. Like you know successful band that you're you're you're not making a lot of money as a Music musician. I'm assuming that played into it yeah. It played it played everything into it. You know and what's interesting is you grow up and you know you're 12 years old and you think oh my gosh. This is the most amazing thing ever and I am getting some attention for it at 14 years old because I'm sort of pretty good good now and then you're in competition with your you know your friends and you're like I can play this song but you can play you know and like this growing together uh and then you realize well wait a minute. If I'm you know I got to I got to college. Late I got to to Berkeley at 22 years old and some of my friends were like three or four years younger and one guy in particular I won't name his name uh. We were we were close back in in school and he'd already performed on The Tonight Show at 18 years old. You know know and and I'm just like it's it's virtually impossible to match that kind of talent um and and I you know part of my personality was. I would compare myself to some of these guys and I took that on board as to thinking wow I'm just never going to get there and part of that seeped into my psychology and it took me many years to figure out. Look. I cannot compare my internal stuff. I'm sorry my external stuff with somebody's internal stuff or my internal stuff with their external stuff. That guy you know was fighting his own battles just as I was fighting my own battles and he just happened to have you know other other skills and other gifts that developed more naturally and quickly for him. Uh he had other mentors that I never had and you know coming coming around to all of that has helped me understand that it doesn't matter.
•  If you have an aptitude for Real Estate you can learn real estate. It doesn't matter if you have a father that was investing when you were in your teens because it doesn't matter there's plenty of mentors out. There there are plenty of uh coaches who can guide you down the right path. There are plenty of motivators out there and Inspirations out there that you can find all of that stuff if you go searching for it. So it's available. The information is available putting it into practice. It's up to you yeah that's that's interesting right like kind of what I'm hearing you say and and correct me if I'm wrong. But what I'm hearing you say is that unlike the career path of the of of Music where there is a certain level of of talent SL god-given natural ability yeah that doesn't necessarily exist in the investing world or the real estate world where hey like at a certain point either you're doing the work and you're and you're committing or you're not going to reach the level of success like there's no amount of Talent OR aptitude as you put it that will catapult you or even you know external factors like you know you said folks or or like someone else being in it. So there there's yeah there's so many different um like the reasons why people will succeed in something outside of real estate investing or or like something where you need a lot of talent or like you know ins or like family connections um or just. Connections in general doesn't always necessarily. Those those same rules don't apply to real estate. Investing is that what you're saying I don't think so I I think hunger and drive are you far out way and I would I would honestly say that hunger and drive in the music B business are uh critical factors but there is a tremendous amount of luck in getting on a top touring band or being a part of a top touring. You know musical act that you help form and you're you know you grow up into. In you. Know. You look at the band Rush and you're like wow. They were around for almost 50 years and you know there was so much skill but also so much luck and it was you know. I don't know that you need that much luck in real estate. If you're persistent you can go find a deal. That's not the difficult thing you can go make a quarter of a million dollarss in a year or two or three. After starting real estate investing if you're just persistent yep you know doing that in the music business. Uh is difficult to say the least you know um and I've got friends that are that were I was at school. With that are worldclass players who still do major gigs with major artists and they still play the you know Sunday brunch gig for 150 bucks in Pasadena and because they they've got to eat they've got to feed their family and uh y you know they just come back from you know being on tour for six weeks with some major band and okay get back to work. So right can can you have success in real estate. Yeah I is it easier than music. I think so I think so sadly but you know. It's art. We're talking about art. Uh is simply Commerce and art is a different. I think art is a different uh. There's a different aesthetic uh value to pleasing art on the mass scale. I can definitely you know and by the way I don't know like if you know my background. But I was uh. I did a lot of theater growing up. Musical theater had Broadway aspirations. Yeah Broadway aspirations Broadway dreams and you know reality starts to set in after a while and and I was fairly successful. Locally you know I was in a lot of I was you know. I was doing very um. High-end Productions Regional Productions was Landing lead roles in those Productions but still there there came a time where I realized like hey. This actor's lifestyle you know the Bohemian lifestyle it it starts to wear on you you know and and that's when I transition into real estate myself. So it's interesting that you kind of had that same like aha moment where you were like am. I really just am I really committing to this lifestyle forever because as you as you mentioned you have friends who to this day have reached a certain level of success but financially not not so much not so much and we all have the dream right oh I'm going to get in a band and literally sell 20 million albums and you know it's going to be. It's going to be what we all imagine it. It is and it is the furthest thing from that now some people obviously have that dream. They get to live that dream but the majority of us and there's millions of us we don't get to live that dream which is okay. It's you know it's part of just part of where we are and it's interesting that you went through the musical theater thing because it's a very similar um look. I love my art. I want to perform I I I love the energy of being creative and yet $500. A week is not nearly enough to live how I want to live or live in a clean apartment. You know uh. So what else can I do to offset some of those challenges. I I commend you for that. It's a tough you know. It's that's your part of your identity and to come to that realization and say okay. I can do something else as well as right. That's a big step. It is and and it's a difficult one. So I'm I'm wondering you know internally that dialogue. Obviously it sounds like you you work through some of those like existential questions where it's like like hey like what you know CU. That's a lot you know. It's a lot to kind of work through that yeah.
•  At some point though you made the decision what was that first step like and and what what did you what how did you first get into the investing side of things like when did you first kind of make that leap and and what what did that look like well. The first thing I did was I left College in 1995 and you know many people that were in Berkeley at the time weren't graduating uh that wasn't really the the ethos. If you will. I don't necessarily need my degree in order to go play the gig and and I realized okay. I you know the government's not going to give me any more money. I've tapped out at pel Grants. So I'm gonna go take my friend's uh cruise ship gig and I went around and and at the same time we're talking late 1995 like December of 95 and I did that cruise ship gig for a couple of months and just hated it um and then I my brother-in-law moved in he'd gotten out of the army. He had a newborn and my dad had been investing for about 15 years. At that point we've we kind of all met in Orlando and we started uh you know I started driving for dollars. I started driving around the neighborhoods um listening to Ron. Lran tapes CDs and like trying to figure all this out and really going out there to say okay. I'm going to do this and at some some point I'm also going to play the drums. So I had my drums in my bedroom. You know I was still practicing uh you. Know was much as I could but also still um going out and looking for properties and it took about six months to find the first property I put it under contract. I had this you know uh uh flyer made up for the real estate investor club in Orlando I met a contractor he bought the property bought the contract and in three weeks I'd had uh you know. We' made $25,000 on this contract and I'm like this is amazing so you know listening to Ron. The grand I'm getting bandit signs and you know literally. In three more weeks. We had three more deals from bandit signs. Oh wow that say We Buy Houses cash you know and I'd been like really just putting this stuff into my brain over and over. So when somebody called that phone number on the Bandit sign. They're like hey you know. I have this house and it it's worth this much. But I owe this much on it and you know and I I would just go into hey. Maybe I can at least option it from you or you know. I can't give you full price but I can give you this and I can guarantee to close in three weeks and you know just weighing out which is the best scenario for them and yeah. You know that that catapulted success right away just that one deal and then into the bandit signs and then fixing and flipping and then you know it takes off pretty quickly when you get a little momentum. So that's why I tell everybody look you can do. This just have some perseverance just learn this stuff. You know there's some education but you can do it y I can do it. Literally you can do it yeah that's it's interesting to hear that your that your start was really in. Like the wholesaling and flipping like were you flipping. Those houses primarily or were you. I'm assuming that most you're saying you were paid an assignment fee so I'm assuming that those were mostly Wholesales yeah. I mean the first one was I I made Grand on the first one and then the the next few were all uh kind of a lease option. Each one. Uh there was one couple. They had two properties they were going on a mission. They're like take this house and this other property we have in West Palm Beach which is like three hours away and um and uh and so I would just go down to West Palm Beach on the weekend to go kind of uh flip that contract to somebody new um and then also we got another house from a different person that they knew and and so it it just kind of snowballed um and then we started buying other properties that we could Fix and Flip at the same time and so when there's three of you you know you can you can start tackling a few different things and I think that that's when I decided our first our one of our first fix and flips. We borrowed hard money 18% and six points on $100,000 and yeah totally and so I I remember I I know right. This is 1996 uh maybe 1997 and just remembering driving over to this. This lender's house you know um and he's driving this really cool. Silver Porsche and I'm like wow that's cool and then walking in and just signing some documents and thinking wow he just made like you know $40,000 for this year. Like wow that's cool you know yeah. I I just want to sign a couple. Documents make 40 Grand right not knowing the the full ramifications of you know and risks of being a private lender. Uh but it was just you know. It's just inspirational how you can maneuver throughout the the real estate. Uh markets and the the different sectors of investment strategies that you can go in and you know. When I when I moved to California. I got back into the mortgage game still playing gigs at night and uh trying to juggle you know making it in LA as a drummer but also you know hey. I still want to have a nice nice place to live and uh and then the market crash happens and losing everything losing all the equity in the company and some of my friends money and because my people that I was in business with were just not as um. Uh I wouldn't say that they were as experienced as they should have been for raising the amount of capital that they were raising so I I really learned that the hard way and the I think the change really occurred for me is when that happened and saying okay look I know what to do. I know how to do this I just have to have a little bit of courage and move forward. Somehow what would I do bandit signs so in 2010 well yeah. In in late 2009 2010 I started putting up bandit signs. We'll B you know we buy houses cash in Palm strings and I got a bunch of Tire kickers and then one summer one day in the summer somebody called me and said hey I've got this house tell me about a bit about what you do. We had a nice little chat and um in November of 2010. This lady calls me and she says hi Roger you spoke with my husband over the summer and he just passed away. Can you please buy my house and so we went through the whole process. I said look I'm here to make money and if you go to a real estate agent you're going to make more money. You're going to make more money. I know but my husband liked you okay um. How quickly can you buy my house. And I said 30 days and we figured it out and I gave her at the. You know on day 30 I gave her double what she was asking and I started my new business and it was one of those things where okay I I you know I could if you just start taking the action you're going to get the results you're just going to get the results so that's awesome yeah yeah and then from there you know it's grown quite a bit. So it sounds like you know you you had some you had some traction kind of earlier on you were still you know obviously juggling like your your your passion for for for music and then also doing uh wholesaling and then flipping and then getting into the mortgage game and then the crash happens and now you're getting back into the wholesaling SL flipping business yeah and you really start to hit your stride. Once you start investing in Mobile. Home pars I'd say a little bit before that you know I really started to hit my stride when I was providing capital for projects. Um I loan money on one and I I I basically met a professional borrower. I met two professional Borrowers who just took the cash and didn't finish the project and and I was stuck with the project uh on two of them and you know those lessons have become really hard and so then I figured out how can I take control of the property. If these people don't you know honor their side of their agreement. So I figured out how to do that using uh what you know. Florida has a land trust statute but how do you do it in California. You know going through the whole thing with the title companies and figing that out and understanding look uh I'm going to own the property and you can use. The you can get the profit when you're done with the property. If there's profit and that really kind of Twisted.
•  We were doing you know from like 2013 through 2015 we're doing at least seven or eight we well. We had about 15 houses at any given month uh that we in process somehow so we had a nice little system. There yeah. It was it was good for a minute and and then I realized in the 20156 that properties these projects were taking a bit longer three months longer than we thought six months longer than we thought a year longer than we thought and like this is not sustainable because all the profits didn't shwed up an interest. Then I started to think okay if if I'm doing this now and then there's a correction you know because everybody was saying oh. We're you know the Market's slowing down. We're we're due for a recession in 200 16 you know eight eight years n years after I that talk yep right and and thinking okay if there's recession. What's a better investment vehicle well mobile home parks because if the economy tanks then more people move from sea property down to dty. And if we can buy these parks in good locations then we're going to do okay. We may not have a a grand slam home run on any of them right away but over time these things will appreciate a a lot and so we started. In 2018 we bought our first we currently have 14. We got rid of our first one about a year ago. We sold it and bought a new one uh in November yeah. That's amazing so I I I I understand the logic there right so you're you're basically picking an asset class that is Recession Proof and you pick that at a time where things were still really good right so a lot of people don't have that kind of discipline right because they they put they they it's always hindsight's 2020. You're you you probably were now. I can understand some of these projects the turnaround time was longer now. Why was that Roger was it. You didn't have the infrastructure in place to handle the volume that you were doing at that point was it think like things were just taking like things weren't taking longer to sell at that point um yeah. They were they were they were taking longer to sell the marketing time and prices were um fairly stagnant for a couple of years. The contractors that we were hiring were just like they're starting their cycle of I'm gonna take this job. I'm gonna take that job. I'm gon take this job and this job and and then just everything drags out and so they're starting to just like not get a a three-week project done for nine or 10 weeks and would you stack that into 17 other trades in a house you know everything just takes forever and and that's when I made that decision. Look I I don't think that I know too much but I know enough that says look there's some problems with this particular sector right. Now The Fix and Flip model. It's running into some challenges. What else can I do and then how long you know. H how quickly can I get into that next uh sector. So I'm looking today at what's the next thing because there's a lot of people in the mobile home space a lot of people coming into the mobile home space and it's like okay. Prices are going a little too high can I keep keep doing that or should I pivot to something else ever thought about hotels sure yeah yeah for sure. There's there's lots of opportunity. There we should talk about that later but what I really want to dig into right. Now. Yeah is this idea and by the way you just like what you just said right now. I'm like this. This resonates a lot with me a lot of what you're talking about like right. Now Roger is like dude. I have gone through some of these like some of the same things. For example residential real estate about a year and a half ago I had a 35 person team um. We're doing you know almost nine nine figures worth of volume. At that point. We were like going to Eclipse it the next year yeah um and you know really kind of hitting hitting my stride on that and and at the same time I noticed that like the res the commission lawsuit was going on at that point so that was already kind of like percolating in the background. But more more than that were just like the margins were getting squeezed out of real estate. Um teams the um the you know margins. Margins get squeeze number. One number two notice that there was like a consolidation on the lead side of things and so like getting access to high quality clients was getting harder and harder to do yeah uh and so there were just so many little things that didn't sit well with me at that time. And so I made a hard pivot at that point and I always wanted to get into hotels. But the reason that I did that or one of the things that spoke to me um was there was a video do you watch. Any of Alex Hero's content sure yeah okay so he there was a video that he talked about Warren Buffett where he kind of recounts this uh this time when he was in college or like grad school and there's another guy that he thought was way smarter than him way more talented than him. You know and should be way wealthier than him. But after school that guy I believe he got into the steel business or something which was a dying opportunity vehicle and he got into obviously what he got into right and so right now looking back Warren Buffett says hey to me it. It was just as much about picking the right opportunity vehicle as anything else yeah and so what you're talking about right now is exactly that you got into the mobile home sector before it was you know as it was a rising opportunity. Vehicle really use that to kind of like get yourself to that next level yeah and you ditch the fix Fix and Flip which by the way I have a lot of friends right now who were flippers that are just got completely creamed over the last couple of years and them went went BK. You know so it's it's interesting that you that you saw it and you did not listen to your gut. And I think that's what a lot of people don't do and so for anyone out. There you know opportunity Vehicles listening to your gut and knowing when to Pivot. Those are all things that are very integral to success. Yeah sounds like you sounds like you were able to do that Roger sounds like you were able to to successfully navigate. We'll see right you know I I hope so gosh. You know I don't want to start over again but you know you said you said something. I mean time tell time will tell uh did. I make the right choice. It seems like it um right but look the guys with h. What was the bank that found in Silicon bank right smart guys you know I'm sure they all have NBAs and they they're they're all extremely bright and they screwed it up. You know were they greedy were. They just shortsighted. Did. They did they just not plan better or planned well enough and they could have planned better all of it yeah probably but even the smart people you know you go and you're making n 1020 million a year and then it all goes away because of a couple bad decisions. You made four or five years ago or six months ago and they didn't buy enough you know six-month treasuries. They all they bought these 10year treasuries and that wiped them out. When the when the bond prices went through the roof okay. You know so all of that really comes into into into my brain. It doesn't matter how smart. I think I am I'm not as smart as I think I am ever but you mentioned something about uh 20 you know hindsight being 2020 the interesting thing and this is what I teach a lot of my my students is um. It doesn't have to be your hindsight. The information exist yeah what happened in the 1987. Uh tax law change has informed me to this day and you may or may not know about the 1987 tax law change and educ Roger well so the ran Administration and infinite wisdom. Some and I don't know what the senators were. But what happened is. They enacted a law that's stipulated um. If you have a capital gain. You've got to pay the capital gain tax but on everything and so the way my father had set up his you know his uh real estate. At that time he was doing he was selling property. He was buying properties and selling it to other people on land contracts. So he'd sell a property that he bought at 20,000. He'd sell it for 40,000 and he would never really you know uh see the gain it would. It wouldn't happen for 5 years until that person C out the land contract but the IRS said hey you just made $220,000 pay our tax. He's like I don't have the $20,000 or I don't have. I didn't get any of the $20,000 I got a$1 th000 down payment and I'm seeing you know 90 bucks a month or whatever it was back in 1986 yeah. They said it doesn't matter. You owe us 20% on that 20 grand you know and and on 40 properties that becomes problematic when you're small potatoes and it my father filed bankruptcy back then sadly because the the government just really wasn't taking into consideration. All of the different factors of how people were doing it and of course I think about a year and a half or so. Later they changed the law back so that everybody that had lost their money filed bankruptcy got kicked out of the game was now could have could have stayed in if they could have fought that thing for a year and a half but you know you live and you learn so how did my father pivot back. Then he he found out that if you put a property in a trust and sell the beneficial interest to the trust not the property not on a land contract. Nobody knows that there is any kind of gain about to happen because you're talking about a piece of paper you're talking about I've made $20,000 on the beneficial interest when it sells not anything to be reported at the IRS so that would have been one way that he could have done it so how does that influence everything. I do today. Those are those are the questions that I think about what happened in the past does it relate somehow and if if I can see how it relates can I make a different Choice. Can I make a different decision that saves me time money or effort. So that's how I think about that stuff from from the past well. It's interesting you said it doesn't have to be your hindsight yeah right 2020 and it's so true right because a lot of a lot of individuals and I don't know I I I used to think it was ego and I think I think a large part of it is right like people like don't want to be. You know. They they they want to do it on their own or like. They have like this like kind of like um. You know sense of oh you know whatever it is right like whatever the case might be I'm too good for coaching I'm too good for training. I'm too good for mentorship or some version of that yeah also could be a financial situation too where it's like I don't have the money for this or that. Although I would argue counter that with with I know that there are lots of people out there with a vast amount of experience who would give it away for free. If you just asked yeah you know um and so it's interesting that you say that because I'm a big proponent of mentorship I'm a big proponent of latching on to finding someone that has walked that walk before so that it doesn't have to you're not you're either going to pay for it with experience or are you going to pay for it in terms of like finding a mentor right and then like pay them to learn from their experience and so or a lawyer yeah yep.
•  100% um 100% so it's interesting you you you pivoted into mobile home parks kind of like mid 2010. So like 2015 is right is when you started 2018 is when we bought our first Park okay gotcha so 2018 wow so you've you've bought basically what is that three so you basically bought like two to three per year for like the last five years or so yeah yeah yeah yeah okay and how have you found mobile home parks to support the buy and so it sounds like yeah. You've only exited one right yeah. That's right what are the typical life cycles of these like when you're underwriting or when you're analyzing. These how like how are you underwriting them are you underwriting them as like 20 30 year holds or you or how what's the what's the typical kind of like hold SL exit strategy well. The so there's a couple of answers to that one is uh you know my partner and I we like the idea of just holding on to them um and I've had to say look if it doesn't make sense. Let's get out of it and get into something that does make sense and so that was I wouldn't say a conflict uh just a difference of opinion between uh Brandon and I my my partner and my thought was look if something is not working and we can't really Marshall the resources to get it working. Let's get it good enough make sure we can make some money on it and then 10:31 that into another property that we know we can actually do better with. It's at a better location. It's less of a of a heavy lift and what are those things we can do and it's taken him uh a couple of years to get around to the idea of you know what let's let's get rid of this particular project. So that's good so that's why we sold Golden. West our our first our first property and what's interesting is we also have to tell our investors look. This is a three to five year hold um. We're g to stay in this your cash is got to stay in it and we don't ever want to get out of the property. So we're either going to stay in and give you all of your cash back or most of your cash back at some point and then you're going to stay in it for the rest along with us that just means for the next two decades. You're going to see cash and hopefully you want to stay in it. If not. We'll buy you out so the investors have a different time. Horizon than us I need to sort of be aware of what that is I need to have that sort of in my brain when thinking about decisions that Brandon and I need to make over the three to five years that we originally bought the partk in operating it and you know does. This person want out does this person need out and if so can we uh ethically buy them out or offer it to the other investors who may want to stay in because they they enjoy this particular project um we just have to kind of factor all that stuff in I like the idea of buying these sort of beat up homes for a few years uh a few more years let's say and then just uh what we can sell that would make sense to sell sell those and buy some parks that are better that don't necessarily need any real heavy lift um. They you know we just bring in some e uh management expertise and do our thing in that regard. Not you know fixing 20 homes not repaving the roads not cutting down 30 trees. All of that really heavy lifting stuff yeah that's interesting so I feel like you might have gone there if we kept going down that path. But I want to ask you point blank yeah. Do you have a Target area. For these Parks is it all over over the US like what are some of the the criteria that you've that you've um used to kind of like decide where and what types of you know size and everything size and scope deal yeah. You know the first one that we bought was uh about 90 miles uh out of Oklahoma City and it was just too far so it's got to be within uh 40 minutes 45 minutes of a an MSA of 880,000 or more U metropolit statistical area so um so that we know that if whatever renters or potential buyers for the units that we have those people covered. Uh when somebody else leaves that we can fill units we need to make sure we filled units because the one in Oklahoma it was just too far um. We weren't able to fill as many units as we'd hoped um. We also bought this particular Park that had a sewer Lagoon so everybody's Wastewater went into this 4 acre Lake and that caused problems when it started to overflow uh the summer that it rained more than it ever had in 20 years and we had to spend $80,000. I think it was to pump water out uh with a septic truck W yeah and then the the person says well you could just spray it on the other four acres. Next to the next year lot. It's already land application's already approved. We're like ah okay learning curve learning curve learning curve. So no you know none of that you know we don't want power plants. We don't want any of that kind of stuff and you know we don't want to. We don't want parks that are fewer than 60 spaces anymore um. We want we'd prefer to have things 80 spaces and more higher um and we want not such heavy lifts. Medium lifts are okay but not really heavy lifts. So I would say that uh there are those would be you know primary things we like the Eastern United States uh not Florida not Mississippi. Uh we like Tennessee Kentucky. We have Alabama North Carolina uh Indiana Illinois uh Wisconsin um so we like you know the the Midwest and the the southeast uh and keep things more localized so our team can just drive around um. I would say that that just close enough to where you know when people send us the the projects they have. We can we can go through them pretty quickly and say you know this. This is good or that's not good um. There have you know there's obviously some noi requirements on day. One sure. Um so that we can pay for various staff or portions of staff's salaries. Those are important uh factors. So when you say we right that's you and your your partner yeah right Brandon yeah. So you. You and Brandon have found a formula that works for you in terms of like identifying the right. Parks um and identifying the right areas and and now you've gotten into a point where you've done some you've done enough. Parks now where you've learned some lessons and and figured out like what to avoid yeah right. We hope I mean probably not everything right probably not everything but enough to know what makes it worth our time and effort to buy it to even do our due diligence on it right yeah sure what has been like in your mind uh the most successful deal that you've done so far and what was it about that deal specifically with the mobile hum. Parks like let's we're we're kind of sticking with that same. So what was it about that deal that you. F like that made it so good. I think it's our second project that we bought so far um uh and it's uh. It just you know. It's always run well uh. The the tenant base was always there we could always fill our spaces that would when they became available um. It's just been a easiest park for us to run because of you know the amount of uh people. In in that town. The the managers have been mostly really great um. It just runs smoothly for various reasons and then you know when you fast forward six years. It's actually it'll be six years uh next month or something that we closed on it and it's so good that we still have 60 additional spaces that are already ready for us waiting for us to start filling. In these you know new homes over there so while it's already profitable. We can essentially not double but add another. Uh 90 85 or 90% of a new Park right next door oh wow on our land so that's a fascinating uh uh thing about that particular Park. We just we just love it. It's that is definitely one we will not be getting rid of so what you're telling. Me is that this park came with a bunch of additional land that hadn't been utilized yet or hadn't been built on yet yeah. It's it's already plotted. Uh the spaces already approved. It's just waiting for people to you know you got to pour pads you got to build the roads. But it's ready and waiting for us to invest the capital and get that up and running that is wow so that sounds like it could be fairly lucrative. Then that sounds like it could be really really really lucrative really lucrative wow yeah that's interesting so kind coming back to this idea right of like opportunity. Vehicles obviously you've had a lot of success with the mobile home parks and now you're saying hey and I've I've observed it too by the way where like there are definitely a lot more people talking about mobile home parts. Now that's definitely like a lot more um I would say mainstream within the investing Community. I still think like you know the average. Joe probably doesn't understand that but that's okay because that's not that's not what they do yeah. But in the investing World. Definitely mobile home parks are kind of like now kind of kind of hitting their stride in terms of like awareness. So what are some other opportunity vehicles that you believe. I know I'm asking to give give away your secrets right Roger. But what what are some other opportunities right now that you're saying that you're like hey like I could see some opportunity there that um maybe that's where mobile home parks were about a decade ago. Right mobile home parks yeah where are you seeing that right now or where could you see the potential gosh. You know. The idea of of assisted living is always sort of um. I I've just always thought that that's a really great uh idea business model. But you know I've got so many different things you know that are cooking at any time I can't. I can't put that kettle on the on the stove as well. Uh. But it's something I I see myself doing at some point because I don't see a Slowdown uh of the Baby Boomers. Not needing uh some assisted living spaces for yep. You know what 20 years I'm 56 and I am a couple of years away from a boomer. So what 59 years old so 60 years old man. They're going to need places to live for at least 25 years. Uhhuh and I just think that there's there's that's a great model. I think that's a great model are there going to be other people that hear this or have already been thinking about it. They can act on it a little bit faster than me sure okay will it. Will. It become mainstream a just like mobile home parks are you know. Multif family has uh you know we've we've seen institutional investors buying mobile home parks. We see that happening obviously with assisted living and and uh and self- storage. I think that it's going to become more pervasive in the the you know General discourse of real estate investing throughout the average Joe as you said so I like that that's really interesting and and because you're you're you're not thinking about where's the money today as investors. We always got to be thinking about where's the money going to be yeah and you're right in terms of Assisted Living until robot like they make nurse robots or robot nurses yeah where they could their own house robots. Yeah robot nurses or whatever right so until that until that exists I could definitely see a need for that and even maybe after that exists you're Staffing the place but ultimately you know Assisted Living I feel like you're just kind of like thinking about it out loud. It's it's more than just like it's more than just like a place to kind of like put people who are getting older and need more help. But it's also like a community right for for folks who are kind of like in that older um you know like older phases of their life. So it's interesting that you say that because I haven't really thought about that. But that's there's actually quite a few hotels that I've run into recently that didn't pencil didn't. We couldn't we underwrote them that didn't pencil as um Hotel conversions you know hotel to hotel but there were Assisted Living groups that were super interested in them. Super interested yeah for sure yeah yeah yeah. So that's it's fascinating yeah last couple questions for you here Roger because obviously I look I look at you you're in great shape. You know especially you just told me you just told me your your. You know your 56.
•  I'm like dude you look great thank you. So I'm wondering was was health and and and you know staying healthy staying fit and everything always a priority for you um as you know kind of during your during your life or has that been something that's kind of been something later on in life. What what does that look like for you yeah you know when I got to college when I went to Berkeley uh in Boston. You know the thing we would do. This is 1990 uh we would watch Star Trek and then go over across the street to Supreme's pizza and have three or four slices of pepperoni and then go to Stevie's ice cream and have a a pite of ice cream every single night. So I literally gained 40 PBS my first year that I was here yeah wow and then oh wow I I met I I met a young lady at the time and she she's like you should read Tony Robins and I'm like who's Tony Robbins I'll do anything and and she I I I read unlimited power and I'm like wow. This is an amazing different view on living life and so at that point I read that book I started vegan diet in December of 1991. I think November yeah November 19th 1991 was the first was the last day I had a glass of milk still and uh W it was one of those one of those things where it just catapulted everything for me. I lost that 40 pounds uh over the next six months. My mom thought I had anorexia and it was just a transformational time and it got to the point where I'd moved to Southern California in 2003 and I said okay my body starting to feel something I'm going to have a burger and my friend said you should try. In and Out Burger I'm like What's In and Out Burger I've never I mean I've seen it but and oh my gosh. It was like my body just like accepted it right and and I've had this this um this process of trying this thing and trying that thing and living this way and living that way and identifying as a vegan and identifying as keto and and just all these different things and I feel like I've stressed out on some of that stuff. Over the years uh I would say right now I'm not in my best physical health. Uh I have just I've just relaxed a lot on that even though I still take a ton of supplements um I don't work out uh like I used to where I'm just like crushing. You know bench press and trying to trying to do whatever I can to like it. You know big and bulky anymore that's not where my head space is right. Now will I ever get back there maybe you know I doubt that my knees will let me run you know four or five miles anymore. Uh so I i' I Sprint uh a couple times a week uh I want to play you know various Sports uh more frequently but um you know there have been times where I've been extremely focused on like let's let's never eat anything bad and it worked for a long time and now now I'm like okay. Let's let's also enjoy some of the fruits of the labor a bit yeah. It makes sense and one thing so one thing that's interesting right is that like I feel this is just an observation when I I kind of like observe people who are in like a growth phase of their career. Their journey and I would say that you know I'm definitely in that growth phase what I've observed is that a lot of people tend to deprioritize right Health um in those moments and it sounds like you you at least from a from a diet nutrition standpoint and then also Fitness. Standpoint also were able to kind of like keep that a priority yeah right despite the challenges of like growing a business and having the stress of this and that and all those things so what what would you attribute that to obviously it sounds like you've done. A lot of like personal work with the Tony Robbins and like done a lot of I've gone to Unleash the Power one time and that was cool but like you know so it sounds like there's some there. Some some things that you've done on a mental side of things to like kind of prepare yourself for like get through those times but like it's interesting because a lot of people tend to shy away from um from exercise and and and staying healthy while also like growing their business and growing their careers. Yeah and I think that that's probably the most important time to do it like if you're really focused on growing from zero to Infinity whatever that number is you have to be in Peak condition mentally physically spiritually and I was blessed to have major inspiration at that point when I said look I'm G to do this and this and this and I'm gonna you know get down to 175 pounds or 180 pounds. Whatever it was and I'm going to work out at least five times a week and I'm going to lift and I'm G to have a schedule and I'm going to do all. These things and I think that that helped me to grow so some but that's my you know my version of what how how things were going. I would say that some people have that sort of like I'm only gonna focus on work and I'm only going to focus on working out and then I'm only GNA focus on being a parent or you know um mate to somebody a partner or I'm only GNA do this I'm only gonna and that's their path. I think the biggest thing for people to realize is that stress really is the Killer and if you're always stressed if you don't have tools to help you dstress that's going to be where you find. The most damage is done and I still go through stressful moments. Uh I still have projects that don't finish on time that you know contractors just you know they they I built a house in Palm Springs California. It took him 13 extra months to finish the house after his original contract date oh wow and that's costing me money and money and money out the every month every month. And it's just like dude you got to finish the project yeah yeah. Yeah yeah. I need three weeks okay you know and just coming back home and thinking okay. I need to chill out I need to go for a walk. On the beach. I need to enjoy the sunset I need to be in this moment not that moment and whatever tools you can find to get rid of that stress because if you're really striving there's a strong strong likelihood you're going to put yourself in stressful positions. You have to understand how to de-stress that um and sleep is one of the best ways to do it. That's great man you know Roger I've really enjoyed talking to you. I I think that there's a lot of similarities here you clearly have a you know our backgrounds. We we share some common ground there so this has been great yeah and thank you. It has as it really has to say this has been awesome. I I've really enjoyed really really enjoyed talking to you yeah. In typical gold. M fashion want you to leave the audience with one final gold nugget okay. You know I say this as frequently to as many people as I can.
•  It's there's a strong likelihood and you and I spoke about this a few minutes ago. There's a strong likelihood that you're gonna have to find Partners in real estate investing and that's a good thing. I think that there are millions of properties you can buy. But I think personally you're going to find probably about 10 people that you can and want to do business with your entire career 10 people that you see uh a situation or a property or an opportunity similarly and yet dissimilarly enough that it can actually work your ethical standards are on par with one another. You maybe you like to invest capital in this thing and your partner likes to not invest Capital but to spend it at this thing and and so how do you balance that stuff and how long does it take you to really get your Your Groove Together write down your agreements write out the roles and responsibilities write out. The timelines write out whatever you can that looks like a potential problem in the future. Get it down on paper solve it before you guys are mad at each other and that's going to save you. Decades of problems literally decades I bought a property 10 years ago with a some guys that I thought were dear friends. We didn't do any of this stuff and literally in December we finally got a settlement agreement that got them out of the project and we finally have a settlement and it's it. It's a decade of my life and it I mean literally. It was one of the worst decisions uh that I made to to not you know put things in writing and to make sure that this guy was able to get his job whatever his roles and responsib responsibilities were to get those things done each and every month or every week or every day as he kept promising to do so get your stuff in writing make sure everybody agrees to it and just really have that as the controlling document yeah I think that's wonderful. Insight I mean especially for anyone that's looking to do stuff on a more well. Even if they're passive role like active passive you know Partnerships are good Partnerships are hard to find I I I know that 100 per. Yeah I'm sorry but yeah yeah know they they really are. It's like finding. It's like finding a a a wife or a husband. You know what I mean like. It's just like. It's. It's really hard to find that right um that right fit and also you know something that someone told me before and they'll kind of like. I'll ask whether or not you agree. With. This is that different Partners can be right for different seasons. Seasons of your journey absolutely right yeah for sure and so even though this partnership might be good now it might be it might be worthwhile. Now it might not be worth it uh or it might not make sense for you guys because your your priorities and your right paths kind of like deviate and Go in different directions. Yeah and I think it's I think it's an interesting point too. It's like hey vet. The person write down the roll resp responsibilities for today and then you know in 5 years from now always be re-evaluating yeah um because just like you know just like a partner right just like a spouse like a lot of times. The people grow apart and so that was something that someone told me one time like hey. Those Partners like they might be great for you right now but always know that like they might not be the right fit for you five years from now or 10 years from now right so having that would I'm assuming like you're not in your head. You're like yeah. I would agree with that totally agree absolutely yeah and and I would say do it more frequently right. I would I would sort of always be uh testing the water so to speak to say. Okay does this you know if we're about to buy a new mobile Hall Park. How is the structure. How is the dynamic does it make sense for us to buy this next Park is this somebody that I want to buy you know start a new project with um. You know. We've got three to five years on. This project together does see it still the same way I see it. I'm what 16 years older than Brandon. I'm starting to see my life my season very differently than he is right. I'm right right. I'm in more refinement mode. He's still in really strong build mode. I want to refine the portfolio. I want it to get really super tight. He's like let's buy five more. Parks. I'm like maybe. Let's refine these a little bit more right so let's just keep checking in and let's say okay does. This work does this work how about this next thing does that work and just like you know with your you know your dating and you decide to get married that doesn't mean you should stop dating. You should start you know you should continue to woo your partner. Right do those things that that partner loves so that you can still have that passion and you know if you're if you're in business together. You know what are those things that your partner needs or wants or enjoys go do do those things for that partner uh. This is relationships.
•  This is you know we're not here to just get my thing and you get your thing. This is let's give and it just so happens. We'll receive yeah I couldn't have said it better myself um Roger. This has been awesome and if you're watching this or if you're listening to this podcast I should say and not watching this I've been doing this podcast in the dark now for like the last two minutes. So I think it's very appropriate very appro as the light yeah I got to turn it on right very appropriate yeah as um as the lights come down that we also conclude this episode yeah uh so fitting that the lights have shut off now but Roger this has been awesome thank you so much for stopping by we've been a wealth of information and um wish you the best of luck and I'm sure this won't be the last time that we talk I hope not man. I I I look forward to the next time and thank you for everything if I can help with anything. Just just Reach Out sounds great awesome.