REI025: STARTING IN REAL ESTATE WITH $3,500 AND MOBILE HOMES

W/ TRISTAN THOMAS

07 July 2020

On today’s show, I sit down with seasoned real estate investor Tristan Thomas to take a look at the mobile home investing niche. Tristan started with just $3,500 and now owns over 50 mobile homes, including a mobile home park.

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IN THIS EPISODE YOU’LL LEARN:

  • How to start investing in real estate with little capital.
  • Why you should consider the mobile home investing niche.
  • How holding titles to mobile homes differs from traditional real estate.
  • What is rent-to-own financing?
  • How you can encourage tenants to take better care of their properties.
  • How to choose markets to invest in.
  • How you can look for a mentor that can help you in your real estate investing journey.
  • And much, much more!

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TRANSCRIPT

Disclaimer: The transcript that follows has been generated using artificial intelligence. We strive to be as accurate as possible, but minor errors and slightly off timestamps may be present due to platform differences.

Robert Leonard  00:02

On today’s show, I sit down with seasoned real estate investor Tristan Thomas to take a look at the mobile home investing niche. Tristan started with just $3500 and now owns over 50 mobile homes, including a mobile home park. Not only is Tristan’s story inspiring because of what he’s been able to accomplish at such a young age, but you’ll also hear how relatable his story is. He didn’t start with a big advantage that no one listening to the show today has. He started where many of us start and he put in the hard work to get to where he is today. It wasn’t easy for him and it won’t be easy for you either. But Tristan is proof that you can do it too. So without further delay, let’s jump into this inspiring conversation with Tristan Thomas.

Intro  00:50

You’re listening to Real Estate Investing by The Investors Podcast Network, where your host Robert Leonard interviews successful investors from various real estate investing niches to help educate you on your real estate investing journey.

Robert Leonard  01:11

Welcome to today’s show. As always, I’m your host, Robert Leonard. And I’m excited to have Tristan Thomas here with me today. Welcome to the show, Tristan.

Tristan Thomas  01:19

Thanks, Robert. Thanks for having me.

Robert Leonard  01:21

For those listening that may not know who you are, walk us through your story and how you got to where you are today.

Tristan Thomas  01:26

I’m a young entrepreneur, real estate investor. I’m 27 years old. And when I was in college, I was just trying to figure out where I was going to go with my path in my career and everything. So I studied heavily in real estate investing. I didn’t know exactly what niche I wanted to get into, but was heavily interested in multifamily investing. But as I graduated college and moved back to Maine and started working, I realized that mobile home investing was something that fit my qualities a lot better as far as financially. So basically, I started really, really small, I started with one with only a few thousand bucks, and that kind of snowball effect from there and grew into this portfolio that’s now over 50 units. And I’ve studied the mobile home niche itself for three or four years now specifically, and got myself into a position where I work for a national company doing mobile home specific stuff. That’s kind of the eagle eye view of everything.

Robert Leonard  02:16

So why real estate? How did you know that you wanted to go into real estate?

Tristan Thomas  02:20

Good question. Growing up, my dad had some apartment buildings. So it’s something I was used to. And, you know, I had always had a knack for making money. I had paper routes, sold ice cream at fairs and stuff like that. But there’s nothing better than passive income. And like I said, when I was in college, I was just trying to look at my path. I studied exercise science, and I realized that there was like, absolutely no money in that for me and just the lifestyle. I knew I wanted to live, I knew I needed to make some money. And I knew that real estate could be something that could supplement it. I didn’t know at the time that it would take off how it did and be a full-time career or a full-time job. I thought it was just something I do on the side. But I’ve just always known that real estate was was the way to wealth and that was where I wanted to go.

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Robert Leonard  02:59

So why did you choose the mobile home niche? When people get into real estate, they don’t usually go into mobile homes or even mobile home parks, they usually look at single family or multi family residential properties. So why do you want to go into mobile homes?

Tristan Thomas  03:13

I’m sure it doesn’t surprise you how many people call me absolutely crazy for thinking of investing in mobile homes. I mean, there’s definitely a stigma in it. In today’s day and age, it’s too bad. I mean, I don’t care for stigmas. I mean, I have my own opinion. So you know, I went into it headfirst and I’m glad I did it. It’s just been revealed this whole side of investing that it was a lot easier and faster to get your money back than everything else I was studying. So I was looking at small multifamily investments and a fourplex would be $200,000, and then I looked at one mobile home and it was $3500 bucks. It was my first one.

So I looked at the cash on cash return, how fast I’d be recouping my capital, and then my overall risk and it was just honestly, it was a no-brainer. I mean, once I just put pen to paper that this was what I was doing. All the numbers lined up perfectly, very little risk, high reward. To get your answer as to how I got involved with it, it was really just having the means. I mean, I didn’t have a whole lot of money.

When I first started, I was looking for owner finance deals, but you know, those are far and few between. So I really only had enough money to get into the mobile home investing space. And as I did, I realized that the profits there are equally if not better than my other investment classes. But the only downside would be, you know, you don’t have the appreciation that your fourplex would have got, but you have cash flow and heavy cash flow that.

Robert Leonard  04:27

For those who may not know, what does it mean to invest in mobile homes? What does it mean to invest in a mobile home park? And how are those two strategies different?

Tristan Thomas  04:37

So, investing in a mobile home itself for those who don’t know, it’s a four-walled home up on wheels that are obviously detached when it’s set. But it’s a single family house dwelling, that’s usually parked and located on a mobile home pad that has your water, sewer, electric, gas set up.

The pad is usually concrete or level with gravel and then blocked in level with your mobile home. You skirt it, throw on some porches and there’s your single family home. So that’s this mobile home. Obviously mobile home parks is different. It’s more of renting land, as opposed to renting the homes, although you can rent land in homes, but mobile home parks are definitely the, big dog in the mobile home space.

Obviously, I mean, you can acquire a lot more units a lot faster as you buy in parks. Your parks will appreciate as opposed to mobile homes individually won’t appreciate. I think there’s a lot more pros to get into the mobile home park space. But with that being said, the barrier to entry is a lot harder to get into the mobile home park space as opposed to mobile home investing. So I just think it depends on the amount of capital you have and the amount of time that you have access to and your experience level.

I mean, the guy getting started out like I did three, four years ago in this space, and I only had $3500 and no knowledge whatsoever. So I would have been dumb to jump into a mobile home park at that point. But I was smart for getting into a mobile home. And that’s where I started my knowledge and that just transformed itself into mobile home parks.So that’s kind of the evolution of it.

Robert Leonard  05:59

So why don’t mobile homes appreciate in value?

Tristan Thomas  06:02

So it’s hard because mobile homes aren’t attached. Normally they’re not attached to land; it’s the land that appreciates in value. Mobile homes specifically don’t. They’re viewed out a lot like cars. So if you buy a car, it’s not going to appreciate it’s going to depreciate. That’s usually how it is with mobile homes when they’re not attached to land. So you’ll also find many mobile homes that are attached to land that aren’t in parts. Those properties will appreciate because it has land, but mobile homes inside mobile home parks, specifically just the mobile home is a depreciating asset, unless you know you make a ton of money into it or sell it with seller financing or something like that to recoup your risk.

Robert Leonard  06:37

So to that point, how is holding title to mobile homes different than traditional real estate?

Tristan Thomas  06:43

Great question. And that’s a completely market-specific question. I mean, it’s going to be different in each state. Each state has different laws governing mobile home rules and titling and stuff like that. So I would suggest that you call your mobile home association–each state has one–and ask them specific questions about titling.

Like up here in Maine, mobile homes that aren’t attached to land are not considered real estate. So they don’t have title or deeds or anything like that. They’re considered personal property. So it’s a lot easier to buy and sell these things in Maine as opposed to a state like Illinois, for instance, who has titles involved. Not saying that it’s any harder or any less difficult or anything like that. It’s just an extra step to jump through. So yeah, just call your mobile home association for each stage and ask them those kind of specific questions. They’ll have answers for you.

Robert Leonard  07:28

And so in the states where they don’t have title, like you said, Maine, is it literally the same as just buying a car?

Tristan Thomas  07:34

It’s extremely relaxed. And obviously, as a professional, you want your paperwork to be in order. So we have professional docs, but I mean, quite literally, it’s a bill of sale. I mean, you could write it on the backside of a napkin, scratch it on a piece of paper, and it’s the same as you would do if you wanted to buy a washer and dryer set off somebody or car for that instance or whatever. It’s perceived as personal property and traded that way.

Robert Leonard  07:55

And what about if it’s on not on land or it is on land? Are you purchasing usually just the property, not the property under it, but just the mobile home itself, and you have to take it off of the property?

Tristan Thomas  08:07

So normally, I’d say 95% of the mobile homes I’ve done have all been purchased on land that I don’t own. Again, it’s just a lower barrier to entry when you don’t need as much money as if you’re trying to buy a mobile home with land. So everything I bought has usually been on land that I don’t own besides the mobile home park that I bought or anything like that.

Normally, if I bought it on somebody else’s land, I would move it into an existing mobile home park in my area, and then fix it up and rent it or fix it up and sell it there. That’s another thing about this asset class, it’s expensive to move, but you have the ability to move it. You don’t have the ability to move your fourplex across town to a better area. A good exit strategy that mobile homes have that not very many other asset classes have is that you can move them. So it’s a win win there.

Robert Leonard  08:50

So what does that process look like? Do you need to go through anything in order to move that property out of the spot that it’s in? Are they sometimes in a contract or is it month to month or what does that usually look like, and then how do you decide to where to put it and what are the laws or regulations or rules around putting it into a new park?

Tristan Thomas  09:07

That’s a great question. You’re definitely gonna want to deal with licensed movers and licensed installers. These are people licensed by the state to do this stuff correctly. They’ll have a wealth of information when you give them a call.

But basically what it looks like: so when I buy a mobile home, I usually look at markets and obviously first. But if I see a mobile home that’s a good value add opportunity or it has good value, but it’s in a subpar market, that’s usually key and I can get it for a good price. That’s usually key that says, okay, let’s buy that home and move it to a better area.

And on reasonings that you would want to move it to a better area are pretty simple. You could charge more for rent, or you can flip it for more or your your tenant base is going to be a better quality if you’re moving it to a better area. Usually mobile homes aren’t in leases. You know, with mobile home parks, usually it’s a month a month, so you should kind of just give a 30 day notice or if you’re buying it, you’re just letting the park owner know that you’re going to be moving it. There’s really not much they can do to keep you there as it is your home and you’re free to move it.

It does get kind of chalky moving a home, especially for your first one. I would advise you if you’re going to get into mobile home investing specifically, you know, probably start with one or two homes that you don’t have to move. So you can learn the ropes. I mean, once you move a home, it’s more expensive. You got to know a little bit more what you’re doing, if it can be moved, how much it’s going to cost.

But again, just use your local resources as far as mobile home movers to educate you on what it’s going to cost. Things that you’ll need to take into account when you move a mobile home is normally going to be a new skirting kit, which skirting kits are pretty expensive plus install. So that’s a line item that you don’t want to miss on your on your budget. You’re usually going to be building new porches normally or setting it up to utilities, and you’ll have to dictate whether the mover does that whether you do it or hire a handyman to do it. So there’s a lot more involved with moving but at the end of the day as a lot of pros.

Robert Leonard  10:47

Yeah, it’s really interesting and it’s great that you pointed out those few line items because if somebody is used to analyzing multifamily or even single family rental deals, they probably have a process that they go through to analyze those deals and they have typical line items, right? They’re all pretty much the standard across the border. But when it comes to mobile homes, it sounds like there’s some unique items that you have to make sure you consider otherwise you’re gonna blow your budget.

Tristan Thomas  11:07

What’s unique about mobile homes is for the most part, your biggest line item might be like $3,000 to repair. Yeah, I could repair a roof or repair a furnace. So you’re not going to get hit with the $40,000 line item expense if your foundation blows or something like that, or a $10,000 new furnace for a fourplex. I mean, it’s a lot cheaper and a lot easier to absorb mistakes, which I think is another reason why beginning investors should really get into this. Even if you make mistakes, which everyone will, they’re a lot cheaper in this industry, than if you have a mortgage hanging over your head and you have to pay that mortgage no matter what.

Robert Leonard  11:41

So what are some other ways that mobile home investing is different than traditional rental property investing?

Tristan Thomas  11:48

You know, to be honest, I wouldn’t say there’s a huge difference. I would say if there’s any difference, it’s going to be a positive in the side of mobile homes.  The way I explain it to people when they’re trying to decide between a mobile home either as a rental or a home, as opposed to an apartment in like a four unit or an apartment complex is, in an apartment complex, you have people on all four sides.  You usually have shared parking here, you’re usually kind of congested. You can hear other people. With a mobile home, it’s your own home. Got your own four walls, your own parking, your own yard. Mobile homes, whether you’re really renting them or owning them as a home–there’s just a lot more pride of ownership with them, regardless of like a traditional four unit or an apartment complex. At the end of the day, you can have a family there. You can have cookouts, right on your deck, everyone has ample parking, and you have your own yard. Those are just amenities that you don’t see in the apartment space much.

Robert Leonard  12:37

That’s really interesting for me to hear all this because you don’t hear a lot of people excited or even recommending investing in mobile homes. So it’s really interesting to hear it.

Tristan Thomas  12:46

I might be crazy, but hey, it’s working, so..

Robert Leonard  12:48

I was going to say, it’s working for you. So I wouldn’t call you crazy. And the next question is, how are you able to get started investing in real estate with just $3500? And I think that’s such a good segue to our next question because maybe you’re not crazy. And maybe this is a really good way for people to get started without a lot of money like, say $3500. So how can somebody get started like that?

Tristan Thomas  13:06

I think like myself, like anybody, you want to get into real estate for the most part for passive long term wealth. And that’s why I was looking at small multifamilies to start, but I needed immediate cash at the time. I was living with my at my dad’s house, with my girlfriend, We were miserable. We hated it, our backs were against the wall, and we just needed out.

But in order to do that, we needed to make money and have that passive cash flow. So I kind of put halts on my long term goals is trying to find long term wealth, like what an apartment unit would probably be, and put more priority on my short term cash flow to try to get out of the situation I was in immediately. And I did. I used other people’s money, OPM, I use some of my dad’s money and some of my girlfriend’s dad’s money that really, I call it influential money that I was able to just slam into the mobile home market.

It didn’t take long, I think I had maybe 4 to 6 mobile homes before I was making enough to pay my bills and move out of my pop’s place. So starting out, I think I bought the first home for $3500. And maybe put another $4000 into it. I think anybody can get their hands on, you know, $6,000 to $10,000, whether it be saving for six months to a year or getting it from a friend as a loan, or wealth from a parent or other investor to go 50-50 or a sweat equity partner. I think the barrier of entry is so low that there’s really no excuse. And again, I was just looking for the immediate short term cash flow. And that’s why I got pulled into it. Because it’s what I needed. And it was the solution I was finding, and it kept working. So I just stuck with it.

Robert Leonard  14:34

So we were talking about this earlier about how you purchase it in one complex or one mobile home park and then you move it to another one. How do you know that you could move it to a different park? Do you kind of set that ahead of time so before you buy a mobile home, will you have a spot set up knowing that you can move it there? Or do you purchase it first and then kind of worry about that after? What does that process look like?

Tristan Thomas  14:56

That’s a good question. I always have a running inventory on the parks in the area. So me specifically, I don’t have a huge metro, I mean, you’ll have listeners, and have a much better opportunity to do this than where I’m at, which is awesome. That’s even more of a reason to get going. But in my small area up here, I have a running list of inventory of where I know I can move homes. There’s only three of the nicest parks and out of those three parks, two of them won’t let you bring in a home unless it’s brand new.

So I mean, it kind of dwindles down your funnel where you can bring homes. It’s not that hard to pick out the nicer parks in your area. Talk to those owners and try to find out which parts you can bring your nice used homes into to up your selling price. You know, usually a dead giveaway is when I go to look at a home and it’s just in a pit park. You know, there’s just big dogs roaming around, just poorly lit, just really bad communities. I mean, there’s not a ton of them, but you definitely will see homes in subpar communities.

And as an investment point of view, there’s just there’s money to be made there. But you’re going to struggle with a lower quality of tenant anytime you put yourself in a position of having a lower quality community. So to me, I put a lot of merit in the nicest communities, because those are gonna bring you the nicest tenants, which usually are gonna bring me the tenants that don’t give me headaches. It’s just common sense at the end of the day. I mean, if you see it in an area that’s not as good that you could bring it to another area that’s better, and the numbers still work, that makes sense.

Robert Leonard  16:17

Does that new park that you’re going to bring it to have to be advertising that spot so that you know that they have an opening that you can bring it to? Or do you just call around and see what parks have openings that you could potentially fill?

Tristan Thomas  16:28

So I mean, my market’s small, and I so I know every single park in the area, so I drive through them.  It would be extremely easy for you to call the park manager or park owner and ask them what they have for availability. And a lot of times you’ll run into park owners that you can actually negotiate some concessions with if you move in their home. That’s very valuable.

If you were to break it down math-wise, I mean, these parks have a capitalization rate per their NOI that they’re bringing in. So I mean, if you have a non-performing a lot, and then somebody offers to bring in their mobile home and you’re charging them $300 a month, overnight, your $300 a month on that NOI divided by cap rate or whatever it goes, that’s a $30,000 to $40,000 increase in value to that gentleman’s mobile home park just by you bringing in your own home. So normally for the most part mobile home park owners are these smart businessmen or businesswomen, so they understand that.

So what I was getting at is, you can you can negotiate concessions. You can say, hey, look, why don’t you give me the first three months of lot rent free, and I’ll bringing my mobile home. And normally you can get a lot of value; that’s usually enough time to fix up the home so you’re not paying lot rent, stuff like that.

Robert Leonard  17:34

Why wouldn’t the owner of the mobile home park go out and get their own mobile homes and bring it in themselves?

Tristan Thomas  17:40

I love that you asked that question because I got into this space from the mobile home side as opposed to the mobile home park side, which is a lot of what other investors get into. So I see the value in mobile homes. I see the value in bringing in mobile homes and all that stuff. To answer your question: at the end of the day, it’s very capital intensive and time intensive to do what I do for a mobile home park owner.

If you have 20 vacant pads, it on average might cost you $15,000 between the home, the move, and the rehab to get a used mobile home in there. So if you do that times 20, that’s a huge chunk of change that not everyone is able to invest in a mobile home park after they’ve already bought a mobile home park. So not only that, it takes time to go find a mobile home, it takes time to negotiate it, to get it moved in, to oversee the process to rehab it, to oversee that process and then to sell it.

To answer your question, I mean, park owners for the most part, they’re lazy, that’s why they’re not bringing in their own homes. But you’re seeing more and more as this industry gets more professionalized that bigger operators are getting into the space, who have money to infill their parks to jack up their evaluations through infill. So that that’s what you’re seeing a lot of now, as opposed to old mom and pops who don’t have $300,000 to bring in new homes.

Robert Leonard  18:50

So are you flipping mobile homes too? Or are you just moving them to a new park and renting them?

Tristan Thomas  18:55

That’s what I love about this industry. There’s a handful of avenues that you can go into, you can All you can do some you can just do what works for you. So I have an avenue that does mobile home flips, I have an avenue that does mobile home rentals. I have an avenue that is mobile home seller financing, and then mobile home park. So if you were looking for some quick cash, I always tell people that you can make money in doing mobile home flips for sure. If you’re looking for that long-term cash flow, mobile home rentals or seller financing might be a good option. What I do, I kind of coupled it all together. And if I just see a value there, I find a way to plug it in somehow. Usually the homes that I buy in the nicest parks are my flip homes because those will sell for the highest. Usually the homes that I buy in class B or C parks that are more rental quality homes. Those are the ones that I stick to, you know, rentals or owner financing or something.

Robert Leonard  19:44

So what exactly does it look like: you bought a mobile home in a distressed park and it needs some rehab. So you buy it, you move it somewhere else, you get the rehab done. And then it’s in this nice new park. It’s all renovated, what happens next? What are the numbers look like? What is your process?

Tristan Thomas  20:03

There’s a lot of investors that will sell a handyman special home just to touch on that. I mean, I’ve never tried that because usually, you know, the person you sell to either doesn’t have the money to fix it up the way they say they’re going to. Or never has the time to do it. So I’ve never done handyman special so all my stuff’s been turnkey. So I’ll buy a home; I try to stay away from moving it because it’s, it’s expensive. So if you can find a home that doesn’t need to be moved in a good spot already, you know that you’re already ahead of the game of time.

So I buy it, rehab it, get it turnkey, and then again, I either rent it or rent-to-own it, or owner finance it out. I mean, as far as the numbers go, I usually try to keep a $300 per door net cash flow minimum on all my investments. It’s usually a little bit higher than that, which is great. To answer your question specifically about numbers, it’s just going to be market dependent.

Rents in Maine will be different than rents in Indiana or anything like that. So that’s why I talked about $300 spread. I mean, when you’re doing your numbers, you just got to make sure that it’s gonna work for you. So I came up with that: $300 a door is what I want minimum or I’m not going to do the deal. Another another aspect that I use is I want my money back within a year, or I’m not going to do the deal. So it’s just coming up with your own criteria, and then sticking to that criteria to funnel through your leads. And then at the end of the day, you’re bound to make money if you can be  determined to watch everything closely.

Robert Leonard  21:23

I was gonna say that cash on cash must be very high, because people are usually shooting for $300 a door on multi hundred thousand dollar properties, not properties that costs sub $20,000. So that cash on cash must be very high.

Tristan Thomas  21:36

Especially if you couple it with a lot of operators are doing like rent-to-own and stuff like that. So usually, when you couple it with that, there’s a downpayment involved, which is usually anywhere from $1000 to $2000. So you get $2000 up front, and then they’re making rental payments on the rest of it. So, it’s attainable to get your money back. I’d say probably realistically within 10 to 18 months, if you’re sticking to it. And that’s just like my little niche that I found. There’s still plenty of money to make in the more expensive homes, it will just take you longer to get your money back. So that’s my little sweet spot that I found that works for me, because that’s my criteria.

Robert Leonard  22:12

Let’s talk about that rent-to-own–is that rent-to-own strategy or process? Is that different than normal seller financing? How does the rent-to-own work?

Tristan Thomas  22:21

So where it gets different, this is just extremely state specific. Before you dive into this, it’s good due diligence to do it anyway. So you can’t listen to a guy like me or anybody for that matter, and take their word for it. I mean, we’re not CPAs. We’re not lawyers. So at the end of the day, I’d highly consider you go to your your mobile home association of the state, like I mentioned already, and run these kinds of questions through them. And then even go to an attorney to get documents drawn up.

Sometimes your mobile home association will have those legal documents. The reason why I say this is in some states you need to be a licensed mortgage loan originator to do this all by the book. But at the end of the day, in the grand scheme of things is you’re selling it to an engineer. Who’s seeking homeownership? And you’re selling it for my stuff when I priced it out normally when I do something rent to own, I just sell it for double what the cash value would have been.

So if I would have sold it for $15,000 cash, I’ll usually sell the mobile home for $30,000. Rent down. And for people who are seeking homeownership, I mean, normally they wouldn’t go through financing or seller financing or rent to own through you if they could just go to the bank, and get a bank loan on it. But the reason why we’re having such issues is it’s extremely rare and very, very hard for banks, or for anybody to find banks that will lend on mobile homes inside mobile home parks. Banks just say they’re too risky. They’re not attached to land. So there’s no real estate hold as collateral. So they won’t touch them.

Banks won’t lend on any mobile home over 20 years old, which is the majority of the homes out there right now. So I mean, this is kind of, like I said, a path to homeownership for people that normally wouldn’t have. I call them habitual renters. You know, normally they don’t, they’ve never owned anything and this is their option to rent something. They’ve been renting their whole life and use that same money that was going towards rent opposed at the end of the day, though on their home free and clear, and then you know, just have to pay lot rent. So it just really helps out a lot of people  who want that opportunity. And it’s not everyone, but the people who have done it, they’ve been extremely, extremely, thankful. And they just feel fortunate to be in their shoes.

Robert Leonard  24:18

So they’re giving you a down payment, which I’m assuming you can probably negotiate whether you want 5%, 10%, 20%, whatever you want that to be. And then is the rest just to amortize loan over 20 or 30 years?

Tristan Thomas  24:29

So again, and that’s for especially me, and everyone does this differently. There’s probably a million ways to cut this cake but how I do it, because I really try to stay away from like me creating loans, you know, because that’s really not what we’re doing. I mean, it’s more so like a rent-to-own situation. So like, for me, there’s no interest rate, there’s none of that fancy financing language.

It’s a traditional kind of a rental contract that they’re in charge of their own repairs and maintenance, and they pay rent for X amount of months until that’s over with and then they have their home free and clear. So for me, it’s just a lot easier, low key way of renting I guess, then somebody ends up with with the home at the end of the day and they’re ecstatic. Now they own the home, and they don’t have to pay rent anymore. So it works out. Usually the people that come to us are either families or young couples trying to get into a home as a starter home, or older people that are trying to downsize. So yeah, it’s a unique opportunity. It doesn’t work for everyone. But for the majority of people, they’re kind of looking for something other than a traditional rental. So it works.

Robert Leonard  25:31

Say the rent’s $1,000 and they’re going to buy it from you for say $30,000. That means after they make 30 monthly payments of $1,000, they then own that property, of course net out of the downpayment that they gave you.

Tristan Thomas  25:43

That’s pretty much how it goes. I mean, obviously it’s market dependent. So like here in Maine, we normally don’t charge more than $500 or $600 just because like our markets different. You said $1000. You could probably find that in Denver or you know, Dallas or something like that. Absolutely. But yeah, that that’s the mindset of it.

Robert Leonard  26:00

So if you’re charging $500 or $600, how are you getting to cashflow $300? What are those $200 or $300 of expenses that you’re having if you don’t have a mortgage?

Tristan Thomas  26:09

Usually what it is, is you’re you’re still paying for the yearly property taxes and insurance. And then really beyond that, repairs and maintenance is usually put on the resident or the tenant if they’re doing rent to own. If it’s just a traditional rental which I have a handful of, then you’re in charge of repair, maintenance and stuff like that. At that point, it’s just the same expense items that you would have on any other rental property.

There’s nothing really specific besides maybe lot rent, but again, normally what we do is we charge for the home and then the resident is in charge of their own lot rent. And when we build that all in so like when I go to to try to find a price I’m you know what I should sell this thing for on a monthly payment schedule. So say a three bedroom mobile home rents for $900 in my area, and the lot rent in that park is $300.

So I’ll take that $300 off and I’ll just charge $600 for the home and then they’re in charge of their $300. So at the end of the day, they’re still paying market rents for that home, but at the end of X amount of years or whatever, they own it free and clear, and they don’t have to pay rent anymore. So it’s just a good opportunity.

Robert Leonard  27:11

And so in that scenario that you just mentioned, are you responsible for that lot rent technically because you’re the owner of property still?

Tristan Thomas  27:18

So that’s a great question and that’s something that I tell a lot of people who try to get into this that they say oh, you know, mobile home park owners they won’t let me into their park. I say well look, you know, at the end of the day mobile home park owners, unless you’re a bad quality resident, they usually just want their lot rent. So what I say to that is to find a park that doesn’t want you to do business in their park, I usually offer to sign a second lot rent agreement guaranteeing that I’ll pay the lot rent.

Usually when somebody moves into one of these homes, they sign their own lot rent agreement with the park. So to be a little bit more clear. If the park wants more than that, then yes, absolutely. I would suggest that you sign yourself personally guaranteeing that you’ll pay lot rent on their behalf if they don’t. It’s just park dependent. So some of the parks that do business and they don’t have you sign anything, they just have the tenant sign things. Other parks want me to be the only one that signs. Other parks want both of us to sign. So it’s really just getting in touch with the park owner, the park manager, explaining to them what you’re trying to do, which at the end of the day is only to add value to their park. And then just make sure your numbers are all lined up on the backside.

Robert Leonard  28:23

Yeah, that’s interesting. I would have thought that the park owner or the lot owner would have wanted you to always be responsible for that as the property owner.

Tristan Thomas  28:31

Yeah, professional minded people absolutely would want that. I would want that. I demand that on anything I do in my parks. But what you gotta understand is what you’re dealing with a lot with these mom and pop owners. They’ve owned these parks since the 1950s or 60s when they were built. So they’re not professional operators. They’re mom and pop operators. So you’ll see a lot of shortcuts I guess you could say that especially paperwork wise that and that’s where you see that disconnect where they don’t require you to this up to sign a lot run agreement. As a professional operator would.

Robert Leonard  29:02

So what happens if the tenant is required to pay the lot rent? And they don’t, but they’ve been making their payments to you as the owner for their regular rent? What does that look like?

Tristan Thomas  29:13

So basically what happens is if we get a letter or call from a mobile home park owner, park manager saying that our resident in common hasn’t paid their lot rent basically, again, it just depends on that agreement. If we have an agreement that we step in at that point, usually I just write them a check on that day and say okay, it’s in the mail and then I call that resident and will add that onto their balance. I say hey, look, you know, now you owe us $3000 or $300 because we paid it on your behalf. So other times where we don’t have a written agreement with the park normally I just do a collection call on the park’s behalf. Call the resident.

Normally what it is, is it’s in the mail or they got paid a week late or something like that happened. They just failed to communicate it. I mean, we ever really never dealt with any terrible tenants, knock on wood, especially when it comes to like this rent-to-own, because these people,  they like having the path of homeownership. They’re usually not going to screw it up. So usually they pay their bills and what we’ve seen is they don’t want to lose a home, they don’t want to lose the opportunity on their own home. So they’ve paid their bills, but to answer your question, yeah, if somebody doesn’t pay then we step in and pay and then charge it back to them or make them reimburse us somehow.

Robert Leonard  30:19

And then if they don’t pay you back, does that just go into a typical foreclosure process?

Tristan Thomas  30:24

So again, that’s going to be state-specific on what the state’s process is, but yeah, either foreclosure, default, eviction. It;s just going to depend on kind of what legalities of your state’s paperwork and all that stuff but yeah, basically a default situation.

Robert Leonard  30:38

And so in your portfolio, are you typically doing more traditional rentals in terms of mobile home so just rent it out? Or are you doing more rent to own?

Tristan Thomas  30:46

So right now I have more rentals than anything else. In fact, I’d probably say at 80% rentals, 20% rent to owns. The majority is because the mobile home park I bought only eight months ago came with a bunch of rentals. So I’ve just been refreshing those, rehabbing those, and keeping them as rentals. In the grand scheme of things, I do a small number of rental and contracts. And I think there’s good value in it. But at the end of the day, I’m kind of trying to get out of this space of investing in other people’s parks and invest in parks myself. So that’s why I haven’t really grown that side of the business at all. I’ve kind of transitioned to buying parts of my own.

I mean, there’s a lot of operators that do the the rent owns and their own parts. And I’d say that’s probably an equally good strategy. There’s a ton of people that do that. So again, it’s just kind of getting into this space, realizing what’s going to work for you realize what you want. I mean, I’ve had some people ask me that same question and say, Okay, well, that makes a lot of sense. But at the end of five years, or four years or whatever, you have no more cash flow coming off that mobile home and you’re done. And yeah, you’re right at the end of the day, that’s it. So if your rent owning these things off, you know, these people will buy off the home and then that’s it, as opposed to if you’re holding these things as rentals, you know, you could have income for the foreseeable future. There’s no end date there. So again, it’s pros and cons for everything.

Robert Leonard  32:01

To your point earlier, it really depends on what you want out of the property or what your goal is, if you’re just doing a traditional rental, you’re not going to get a big lump sum at the beginning. But if you do rent-to-own, you’re going to get that down payment. You could get 33%, or even half of your all in cost back and just that deposit. So it depends really what you want and your goals.

Tristan Thomas  32:18

And that’s what it’s it’s very important to be clear about what you want. And then be clear about setting your criteria. And again, it’s just the same with any asset classes, like you want to know exactly what you want, and how you want it. So if you’re beginning out, or if you’re starting out, it’s just so important that you outline even if you don’t know just jot something on what you think it might be on paper. And then as you get into it as you learn, and as you make mistakes, you’ll refine that craft and you will find that criteria to work a lot better for you down the road.

Robert Leonard  32:46

You’ve mentioned that you’re looking to buy full mobile home parks now. So talk to us a little bit about what your current portfolio look like. Which types of properties do you own, how many, how many parks, how many units?

Tristan Thomas  32:58

So I own a little north of 50 units right now. I bought a 26 unit mobile home park over the summer that is licensed for 40 pads. So since then I’ve bought and moved in about 12 or 13 mobile homes, so I’m almost 100% occupied over there. Beyond there, I have about a small portfolio of about 10 to 12 other mobile homes that are either rentals or rent-to-owns, or in other people’s parks. And then I also own a three unit and a single family house rental. And I should have a duplex under contract here at any day that I’ve been working on.

So I like small multifamily investing, just because again, the long-term wealth kind of thing that pay down. At the end of the day, in 20-30 years, you’re going to have a lot of equity sitting there. But my passion is definitely the affordable housing niche, which is mobile homes and mobile home parks. I think there’s going to be a lot of value there. I think with the way the economy is going and just with the stigma of being lifted to it being your own home as opposed to living in an apartment complex, I think have already seen a lot more interest in that area than somebody who wants to do a traditional apartment rental. So yeah, that’s kind of a deep dive on on my personal portfolio moving forward. I mean, I’m looking for mobile home parks myself, smaller ones, I say smaller ones in between 30 to 50 units.

Primarily, I’m not looking for the bigger ones, because that’s what I’m doing with Brandon Turner and Open Door Capital. We’re looking for mobile home parks over 100 pads. And luckily, I don’t want to compete with any of that. So nor do I have big millions to get into that kind of game. So I’m trying to stick to the more local parks or the smaller parks that are I have a less barrier of entry that I still understand there’s still value there. But they’re not big enough to get interest by the big corporate dogs.

Robert Leonard  34:35

So do you have a mobile home park or mobile home, just property deal that we can walk through from start to finish? It could be good or bad, but I’d like to walk through the process from the very beginning to the end and just see how that that all worked out. Do you have one that we could talk through?

Tristan Thomas  34:52

So this one is a mobile home inside somebody else’s park. So I saw it first. Actually, the lady called me saying she had it for sale. So I went over and it was it. It’s an older home, it needed a ton of work and I picked it up for $3,000. So again, cheap barrier to entry, but I overestimated how expensive the rehab was going to be. And not only that, I was using a new handyman to do a ton of work that I wasn’t quite comfortable with. So at the end of the day, basically I mean, we bought it for $3000 and bought rent immediately hit which is $400 a month in this particular part because it’s a really nice park. So I didn’t do a good enough job calculating how many months I would have to hold it which normally I do better at.

When you’re looking at a mobile home or any any asset class to buy you gotta equate holding costs. Well, if your home’s in a mobile home park and you pay a monthly lot rent, that’s got to be equated your holding costs. Not only that, I didn’t take into account time of year as good as I normally do. It’s wintertime up here and you know, I bought the home at the very, very tail end of fall, going right into winter and I knew it needed a big rehab. Usually in the winter months, things die or if they don’t, you don’t sell homes for as much as you could in the summer months. So not only were my holding costs off, my timing was off. And then the fact that I gave way too much confidence to a handyman that I wasn’t that comfortable with and gave him way too much range to do a large scale rehab.

I mean basically it needed all new everything. All new flooring, all new paint, all new plumbing. Luckily, I had a brand new furnace in there, we did some roof work, painted the outside. I mean, we we really went through and did everything but at the end of the day, I got into a situation where I was paying a handyman a ton more money than what I could have found if I would have just vetted the right handyman or waited until I was comfortable with someone before just throwing them at it. And I think the reasoning was is I was busy with a ton of other projects, and I just paid this handyman hourly.

I said, you know, let’s just go in there, and I’ll just pay you hourly. And just bill me weekly. And that was a terrible thing to do. I mean, don’t don’t do that. Pay these guys per job. And I knew better than that. But again, I for whatever reason, I really screwed up on this one. So pay the guy per job. I got into it. Now it’s almost done. But, you know, I’m probably $10,000 into it more than what I had budgeted. It’s not gonna kill the deal by any means, but I’m totally Not gonna make more money back in the year, it’s a lot different.

So yeah, I mean, I think that’s what some really good learning lessons I’m even me who thinks he likes to think that I know a little bit about this industry. I’ve been in it for three or four years, you know, obviously four years deep, I still make mistakes like this, which are very beginner mistakes to make. But I think it was a good sobering lesson to say, hey, let’s hone back into the fundamentals and make sure you’re doing things correctly. So I think that was a good story for anyone who wants to get involved.

Robert Leonard  37:25

I think that that’s a great story. And I think it provides a lot of valuable insight for someone that’s looking to get started. And I have some questions about that deal. Specifically, when you’re finding a handyman or even a contractor for a mobile home, do they have to be mobile home specific? Or can pretty much anyone that knows how to do renovations or rehabs on a traditional single family or multifamily property? Can they go in and do it on a mobile home too?

Tristan Thomas  37:47

That’s a great question. So yes, to answer your question, yes, but I prefer people who have mobile home specific knowledge when it comes to handyman or contractors, usually the old guys that have been working on mobile homes for 20 or 30 years. And the reasoning is because there are some nuances to mobile homes specifically. So like, especially in the northern states where we are, each time, the frost comes in the winter and then thaws will move your mobile home. Sometimes the doors don’t latch correctly or the windows don’t quite shut correctly. So you really want contractors that know these kinds of things. And are mobile home specific.

At the end of the day, it’s drywall, plumbing, electrical, I mean, it’s all the kind of same stuff that you have in apartments or anywhere else. But anytime you have anybody with mobile home specific knowledge, it’s just gonna help you out as far as finding material for cheaper or knowing what fits where. So it’s well worth the try to find somebody who’s worked on mobile homes before. Plus you’re gonna find those guys that use a mobile home, they’ll hang up on you, the contractors, you know that you got contractors that don’t want anything to do with mobile homes. They don’t want to crawl underneath mobile homes, and I understand you know, so it’s usually the guys who have mobile home knowledge that they understand what you want, and that’s usually a good relationship to have.

Robert Leonard  38:57

So are you finding a typical renovation cost? So are you saying typical three bedroom mobile home a full rehab–is that on average, say $8000 to $10,000? Or do you have any sort of normality in these rehabs? Or is it kind of all over the place?

Tristan Thomas  39:12

It’s gonna completely depend on on the degree of rehab. But I mean, to answer your question, in short, yeah, I would say like a full a full blown rehab where you got to go through all new flooring, new paint some new fixtures like a full blown rehab, probably $8000 to $10,000 is a good is a good range. But again, it’s just gonna it’s gonna depend if you need to replumb the whole house, you know, usually $1000 to $1500 bucks. A new roof on a mobile home is usually $2500 to $3500.

And like a new furnace, again, usually, you know, $2000 or $3000 so I mean, it’s just going to kind of depend on what your rehab will entail. But you know, mobile homes are under, for the most part single wise, they’re under 1000 square feet. So usually guys in other industries, they kind of talk in that square foot knowledge as far as how much flooring is going to cost or how much paint to use stuff like that. For someone starting out who doesn’t know how to calculate rehab cost that well doesn’t know how much flooring should be like mobile homes are super good tester to that even if they just want to dabble in mobile homes just to get their feet wet and construction in general and then move on from there because again it’s very low risk. You could say your furnace blew and you didn’t budget for it at the end of day it’s only $2000 so I mean it’s something you could absorb. A lot different than trying to get your feet wet with a with a fourplex or something like that.

Robert Leonard  40:21

Yeah, and that’s exactly why I want to ask that question because if you buy a single family house or even a small multi..

Tristan Thomas  40:27

No, no turning back.

Robert Leonard  40:29

No, no, I mean if something goes wrong, right I mean, you could have foundation issues you could me there could be so many different things you could have but those renovations are cheap, right? It sounds like on a mobile home like absolute worst case scenario, you could probably absorb it and you could almost have a brand new mobile home for what $15,000?

Tristan Thomas  40:46

I would say the absolute worst case if you got into it, new roof, new furnace, all new everything. I mean, Max $20,000 to $25,000, maybe $30,000. But still at the end of the day, that’s a lot more to be able to absorb that than a fourplex. That has your roof, foundation goes on, and then on top of that you have to pay a mortgage. But at the end of the day you can get out of out of a mobile home usually a lot easier than what it would take to get out of a fourplex or something.

Robert Leonard  41:09

Yeah, I mean a roof could be $10,000 on a small multi, plus foundation is not cheap. So, I mean, that money you just talked about could easily get eaten up very quickly on a traditional rental. And so if you decide to do a renovation like this on a on a mobile home and then things kind of go south, you decide you don’t want to rent it and you want to just sell it, what are the opportunities to sell it to someone? I know you mentioned that financing is difficult. Is it hard to find someone to buy that mobile home?

Tristan Thomas  41:34

It’s hard to find somebody who can buy that mobile home for cash. Now obviously cash is king so like, we usually when I offer a mobile home for sale like cash is the number one. So if somebody comes to me with all cash offer, they’re usually the one that brings it home on me just because it recoups my capital. I’m able to make a quick profit and I could I could plow that into a different investment property. I mean, you can sell for cash, you can rent it, rent-to-own, stuff like that. At the end of the day, I think what myself and what a lot of people would agree on, is cash is king. If you can make your capital back quick, that’s kind of the goal unless you know people are wanting this to be a long term rental type of situation for long term wealth, or cash flow that at least you know, then that’s an option. So again, it just gets down to what you know what you want, what you’re in this for, and why you’re doing it.

Robert Leonard  42:22

And so how are you finding your deals?

Tristan Thomas  42:25

What I do here my area and I’ve been in this area for three or four years now so I’ve got a lot of word of mouth built up smaller area, so people know me and know what I’m doing. But I really just started out and that I would give this advice to anybody so I really just started out driving for dollars. So I drove around mobile home parks, I talked to the park managers while I was there, and what I’m what I do and how I offer value, and started building connections and relationships, and what I found is that it really only takes maybe two or three maybe four mobile home park relationships for you to have enough inventory enough access for you to do all your business.

All my stuff that I own and other people’s parks, I think it’s all condensed down to like three or four parks. And like one of those parks, I have like six homes in that one park. So once you find the parks that want to do business with you, they’ll usually just feed you more and more business because they know what you’re doing. They know the value. So it’s not like you have to go out and find 20 different parts of business. And it’s usually just a handful to talk about more things you can do market wise, like everything I do with Open Door Capital.

We have mobile home parks across the nation and I’m the lead info manager. So it’s basically my job to find mobile homes in those markets that I’m not familiar with and I’ve never even stepped foot on from my desktop here in Maine. So normally what I do is like a desktop version, market review. So like Facebook marketplace is usually my number one stop, I just type in the zip code to that area, it usually pops up a ton of inventory. Craigslist is another stop. The Facebook sites like the swap and trade sites are awesome. MHBay.com are usually great.

So that’s the desktop review. So usually if somebody spent 30 minutes just looking on their desktop or their phone, hopefully probably find at least a handful of decent homes that that actually might make sense moving forward. If that doesn’t generate any leads or any interest, I’ll usually start calling mobile home movers, mobile home dealers, other park owners, other park managers and then just start asking. Bbut just really hitting the phones and cold calling and being aggressive on your sales and things and just working hard every day to find leads. So it’s really again, it’s no different any other asset classes, just how to find the mobile homes in your specific market and do it consistently.

Robert Leonard  44:30

You mentioned that you’re using Facebook and Craigslist. And that’s something I’ve actually used myself to look for mobile homes. I haven’t actually bought one yet. But I’ve looked there and I haven’t actually been able to find anything that were seemed to be really good deals like what you’re talking about. So where are you able to find the really good deals?

Tristan Thomas  44:46

That’s a great question. So what usually the Facebook marketplace I mean, I say I start there but usually that’s like the MLS for mobile homes. So that’s usually where the more expensive mobile homes are. Because if people are savvy enough to list it on Facebook marketplace, then they’ve at least done their research to know about what it should cost: market value. so they usually they’re more expensive there.

The best deals that I find are usually referrals or driving through parks that there’s just a for sale by owner sign on the front window. Usually those are older mom and pop people or just people that are just too lazy to put the ad on Facebook and they normally don’t know how much the homes are worth or and so you can usually buy really good deals that people just don’t realize that the home might be worth $10,000 and they’re selling it they’re willing to sell it for $3,000 so those are usually driving for dollars is by far like the number one that I found the best deals.

A near second is my bandit signs so placing signs throughout the town or around bigger mobile home parks that say we buy sell mobile homes. That gets a lot of interest from people that again, instead of listing it with the MLS or the day, you know Facebook marketplace and so listing it themselves, they’ll call me and have me come over first and usually we can hash out a deal right there because I know the value and I know exactly what I’m looking for before they get a chance to list it. So again, it’s like you know, somebody’s looking for single family homes, you know, you want to find the homes before there was. So by doing that, driving for dollars, bandit signs, word of mouth, same kind of stuff.

Robert Leonard  46:05

So you just mentioned you know the value. So how are you determining value? How do you find comps on a mobile home.

Tristan Thomas  46:11

So it’s extremely hard to find comps on a mobile home. But basically, it’s just educating yourself on market value. So once you’re in the market enough, when you’re seeing homes for sale and what they’re selling for, and more importantly, what you’re able to sell them for. So I mean, it’s gonna take you a couple to get under your belt before you really start understanding this, but it’s 100% market value. So again, it’s not like the MLS where you can type in an address and then pull up a bunch of sold comps in the area, you’re not going to really find that with mobile homes.

I would urge you to educate yourself and talk to mobile home park managers or Park owners or dealers other people that have been in the industry longer than you have in your area that know what a 1995 three bed two bath Burlington home would go for. These guys have been around the area and even me with only three or four years. I mean, I know within 10 seconds of looking at a home about what it should be worth or what it would sell for once fixed up. So I mean, again, it’s just educating yourself on the market. It’s harder because like I said, I mean, there’s nowhere where you can go to get comps, you got to find the cost yourself. So you got to call around talk to people who’ve been in the area.

Robert Leonard  47:08

How about for rental comps? Can you ask the park owner to see what their rents are for throughout the whole park? Or is there any other way to get comps for rent?

Tristan Thomas  47:17

That’s an awesome question because that’s what you’re definitely gonna want to know whether you’re renting it or selling it or rent to owning it. I mean, you want to know what your exit strategy is. So you can input the correct numbers. So what I always do, you can call the park manager for sure, that’s a great one. But what I do is I usually call local property managers or local property management companies who have you know, thousands of units, apartments and mobile homes. And usually what I found is apartments and mobile home rentals are usually correlate pretty similarly. So if a three bedroom rental is going for $850, mobile home rental will usually go for near near that or or more because again, it’s your own home. It’s your own area. It’s your own parking. So there’s just amenities that you can find in the mobile home space that aren’t in the apartment space, so yeah, I would talk to park managers, property managers, stuff like that to find rental comps, that’s easy stuff.

Robert Leonard  48:06

And to your point, you’re getting a house. You’re not getting an apartment and you’re not sharing walls. A lot of times you have better amenities in an apartment, you can oftentimes have dogs, you have a yard, things like that. And I think mobile homes often have a stigma around them but when you really think about it, I’ve seen some that are fully renovated and they’re beautiful. They’re very nice and you couldn’t tell them any different than a regular house. So I’m not surprised to hear that about the rent.

Tristan Thomas  48:31

At the end of the day, it’s all about affordability I mean if you have you know, if you’re just charging too much for rent, I mean you’re gonna have a lot of turnover you’re gonna have not as good quality tenants but you know, with with mobile homes as long as you can stay in the affordable range, but usually market rents are you know, you’re gonna have those people especially once their homes paid off or they’re or they’re just renting the land like in a mobile home park. I mean, your lot rents three or $400 a month that’s so affordable compared to $1200 a month rent and in an apartment complex for three or four bedrooms.

So you see a lot more longevity in tenants a lot better quality of tenants because that surprises a lot of people and better quality tenants and mobile home parks. Yeah, absolutely, because their cost of living is lower. So they have a lot more freedom and more financial stability than people who are spending 1200 dollars a month on apartments that they can’t afford it.

It’s an interesting scenario when you actually dive in and learn the the quality attendance and most mobile home parks is actually I would, I would argue to be better and the average apartment complex. I’m not a mobile home expert by any means, like you, but I have been looking at them over the last couple months a little bit, just slowly learning a little bit here and there. And I was really surprised to learn exactly what you just said. I mean, I know that now. But when I first learned that I was surprised to hear that and like you said, I think it goes back to pride of ownership and it’s just a different type of rental than, you know than an apartment.

And so with your rentals of mobile homes. Are you using a third party property manager? Are you doing it yourself? I’ve hired out so my whole portfolio is all managed by main real estate manager Awesome, guys. But yeah, it’s all third party professional property management company. And here’s the reasons why I think you should do it. When I first started out, I manage all my own stuff because I had to I didn’t have money to afford a property manager, manager. But as I grew, and I learned on all the podcasts I listened to, you know, the faster you can get somebody to take over your $11 an hour jobs, the more it frees you up to do your thousand dollar an hour jobs, which for me, it was finding property.

So the second I offloaded my whole portfolio to a property manager freed me up, I didn’t have to deal with calls. And a big thing for me is tenant screening. I hated doing it. I was terrible at it. And this way, doing it with a third party property management company, you’re completely out of the loop. I mean, this property management company, they’re trained and specialized and fair housing and questions to ask and what questions not to ask and all that stuff. This This takes me completely out the liability of all that and puts the liability puts on the management company who’s supposed to take care of all that. So for me, it was just a win win win you spending money out of your pocket, but the freedom I got and the ability to find more deals and therefore more money from doing that. making that decision was well worth it.

Robert Leonard  51:02

Is the $300 cash flow, roughly that you mentioned earlier? Is that after property management fees?

Tristan Thomas  51:09

Yeah, that’s after all expenses, taxes, insurance, property management, bought ran all that stuff. That’s what I’m taking home per dollar minimum.

Robert Leonard  51:17

And so what do you roughly seeing for a property management fee in the mobile home park space? Is it similar to what you’d get in a traditional rental?

Tristan Thomas  51:24

I would probably say it’s similar to like a single family house. And obviously, if it was a four, you know, the more units usually the less property management fee, because you know, it’s all under one roof. So I would probably venture to say, like, if you’re gonna get a property manager on a mobile home, one mobile home, you’re probably looking at 7% to 10%, maybe, you know, you’ll get those guys if you get a whole cluster of them together, they’ll give you like, 6% or 7%. But yeah, I would say it’s pretty consistent with every other asset class is at the end of the day, it’s all the same stuff. It’s it doesn’t matter if it’s a single family house or mobile home, you’re still filling unit, turning the unit, running the application, doing maintenance calls, stuff like that. So it’s it’s a lot of the same stuff for these property managers.

Robert Leonard  52:01

What would be the number one piece of advice you’d give to a new real estate investor listening to the show today that wants to give mobile homes a shot.

Tristan Thomas  52:10

I think the number one thing, especially what I’ve seen as of late with working with Brandon Turner and Open Door Capital and integrating that with my own portfolio, because it’s much different. I mean, I’m used to working on my own on my own schedule, and now working with another awesome Rockstar team. But regardless, just at the end of the day, my biggest advice I would give to a new investor coming in would just be the quality of focus and how consistent your focus can be.

You know, there’s so many different asset classes in real estate, there’s so many different things and everything you know, but if you can dwindle it down to one or two things and be focused and consistently focused every single day, you’re bound to be successful. It’s just how it is. I mean, it’s so easy in today’s day and age with technology and especially with us being young and and all that stuff. I mean, it’s just so easy to get off track to not keep up with your goals. But if you can just stay consistently focused over a long period of time, there’s no doubt in my mind that you’ll find exactly either what you’re looking for or different paths to what you’re looking for. Because it’s just time on tasks.

It’s just like anything else like basketball, or cooking or reading or whatever the time on task. The more you’re doing something and the more frequently you’re doing something, the better you’re going to get at it, the more you understand it. So if you’re getting into this space or into any space, for that matter, I would say the more you can be consistently focused, the more successful you’re going to be.

Robert Leonard  53:25

Tristan, thanks so much for your time. Thanks for coming on the show. Where can the audience go to learn more about you and just all the different things that you have going on?

Tristan Thomas  53:33

I am on Instagram @trthomas14, I believe. You can hit me up on email tristanthomas24@gmail.com. That’s usually two best ways to contact me. So it’s been on the Bigger Pockets podcast, I’ve had a ton of people reach out to me so there’s still a lot of people in my inbox I haven’t gotten back to yet but I will get to everyone, just shoot your questions. I’ve had some people who wanted to do like paid calls for some minor mentoring, stuff like that. So there’s definitely some room for value add there if somebody is really serious about it. Regardless if anybody has any questions, feel free to shoot whatever you got.

Robert Leonard  54:04

Awesome. I’ll be sure to put links to all of that in the show notes so that everyone listening to the show today can reach out to you and ask their questions. I really appreciate you offering that to the audience. Tristan, thanks so much. I really appreciate it.

Tristan Thomas  54:15

Robert, thanks for having me on. Thank you.

Robert Leonard  54:18

Alright guys, that’s all I had for this week’s episode of real estate investing. I’ll see you again next week.

Outro  54:24

Thank you for listening to TIP. To access the show note,s courses or forums, go to theinvestorspodcast.com. This show is for entertainment purposes only. Before making any decisions consult a professional. This show is copyrighted by The Investors Podcast Network. Written permission must be granted before syndication or rebroadcasting.

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