Interview with Patrick Hagens from MHP Communities

SHOW NOTES

Welcome back to the Passive Mobile Home Park Investing Podcast, hosted by Andrew Keel. On this episode, Andrew talks with mobile home park owner and operator, Patrick Hagens from MHP Communities. Patrick has a wealth of knowledge as he began his journey into the manufactured housing space several years ago. Patrick is a big advocate of learning about the manufactured housing space through mobile home park events and the MHU bootcamps with mentors such as Frank Rolfe. Patrick imparts his invaluable knowledge and also emphasizes the importance of vetting your limited partners. Patrick also shares his thoughts on the future of the manufactured housing community space.

Patrick Hagens, founder of MHP Communities LLC, is the sole owner and operator of a 6 mobile home park portfolio worth around $25M. Patrick and his fiance built a 25 state database of mobile home park owners, mailed out brochures and cold called to find deals. With their dedication, they have bought a mobile home park every year since 2018. Patrick’s properties are 100% owned by him. These investments have enabled them to move to Alaska and hunt and fish all over the world, fulfilling a lifelong dream.

***Andrew Keel and Keel Team Real Estate Investments (Keel Team, LLC) do not endorse any interviewee. This interview is for informational purposes only and should not be depended upon for investment purposes. ***

Andrew Keel is the owner of Keel Team, LLC, a Top 100 Owner of Manufactured Housing Communities with over 2,500 lots under management. His team currently manages 40 manufactured housing communities across more than 10 states. His expertise is in turning around under-managed manufactured housing communities by utilizing proven systems to maximize the occupancy while reducing operating costs. He specializes in bringing in homes to fill vacant lots, implementing utility bill back programs, and improving overall management and operating efficiencies, all of which significantly boost the asset value and net operating income of the communities

Andrew has been featured on some of the Top Podcasts in the manufactured housing space, click here to listen to his most recent interviews: https://www.keelteam.com/podcast-links. In order to successfully implement his management strategy, Andrew’s team usually moves on location during the first several months of ownership. Find out more about Andrew’s story at AndrewKeel.com

Are you getting value out of this show? If so, please head over to iTunes and leave the show a quick five-star review. I have a goal of hitting over 500 total 5-star reviews, and it would mean the absolute world to me if you could help contribute to that. Thanks ahead of time for making my day with your five-star review of the show.

Would you like to see mobile home park projects in progress? If so, follow us on Instagram: @passivemhpinvesting for photos and awesome videos from our recent mobile home park acquisitions.

Talking Points:

00:21 – Welcome to The Passive Mobile Home Park Investing Podcast

01:34 – Patrick’s background and journey into manufactured housing space

05:00 – Patrick’s perfect mobile home park looks like this!

09:45 – Vacancy rate of mobile home parks in different states

11:03 – Operations and the importance of choosing the right market

12:30 – The Frank and Dave Mobile Home Park MHU Bootcamp

13:53 – Patrick’s investing strategy in mobile home parks

17:05 – The dangers of being too thrifty

18:28 – Finding the right mentors and limited partners

20:00 – What does the future in mobile home park investing look like?

24:23 – Regulations could be a threat to mobile home park investing

29:00 – Park owned homes or Tenant owned homes?

30:19 – Getting a hold of Patrick Hagens

30:53 – Patrick’s final piece of advice for passive mobile home park investors

34:29 – Conclusion

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Links & Mentions from This Episode:

Patrick’s LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrick-hagens-aa519778

Keel Team’s official website: https://www.keelteam.com/

Andrew Keel’s official website: https://www.andrewkeel.com/

Andrew Keel’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewkeel

Andrew Keel’s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/PassiveMHPinvestingPodcast

Andrew Keel’s Instagram page: https://www.instagram.com/passivemhpinvesting/

Twitter: @MHPinvestors

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TRANSCRIPT

Andrew: Welcome to the Passive Mobile Home Park Investing podcast. This is your host, Andrew Keel. Today, we have an amazing guest in my friend and fellow fisherman, Mr. Patrick Hagens from MHP Communities.

Before we dive in, I want to ask you a real quick favor. Would you mind taking an extra 30 seconds to head over to iTunes to rate this with five stars? This helps us get more listeners, and it means the absolute world to me. Thanks for making my day with that five-star review of the show. All right, let’s dive in.

Patrick Hagens, founder of MHP Communities LLC, is the sole owner and operator of a six-mobile home park portfolio worth around $25 million. Patrick and his fiancé built a 25-state database of mobile home park owners, mailed out brochures, and cold called to find deals. With their dedication, they have bought a mobile home park every year since 2018. These investments have enabled them to move to Alaska, and hunt and fish all over the world fulfilling a lifelong dream. Patrick, we are excited to welcome you to the show, brother.

Patrick: Absolutely. Thanks for having me, Andrew. Appreciate it.

Andrew: Yeah, man. Would you mind starting out by telling our listeners a little bit about your story and how in the world you got into manufactured housing of all things?

Patrick: The bug was put in my head as a kid, when my dad had me do sweat labor for his rentals. I’d go paint that fence, help me with this hot water heater, and whatever. I wasn’t too thrilled about all that. But after a while, I started to step back and think, okay, this isn’t such a bad thing if you’re on the other side of the table, instead of the guy doing all the fixing.

He got the bug started. Definitely trained me on work ethic. You combine those two, and I just started into it real small and right out of high school, built a duplex. It just grew from there.

I did a duplex, just did a subdivision that didn’t go well, and learned the hard way on that. I did storage, apartments, just really bounced around trying to find my niche, and then got a tip on mobile home parks. As soon as I found that out and started doing some research, I knew that was a path for me. It took off from there.

Andrew: What was the tip? Was it from your dad or somebody else in the space?

Patrick: I recommended that my aunt go to the Rich Dad conference. After they got back from the conference, they had said that they got that tip while they were there. Mobile home parks were the hot thing and where to be. I hadn’t really thought about it, so I started digging into it. Of course, I found Frank Rolfe and his stuff online and immediately booked his boot camp.

Ironically, about that same time, my portfolio was cash flowing enough that I could quit. Actually, I quit my job and just started looking for parks. It sounds dramatic. I just quit my job and started looking for parks. It was perfect timing, but that’s exactly what I did.

Andrew: That’s so awesome. What year was that, Patrick?

Patrick: That was 2015.

Andrew: Awesome. Yeah, that was right around the same time as me. There’s a transition to going full-time into it. We ended up not buying our first park, though, until 2017.

Patrick: You beat me. I didn’t buy it until 2018.

Andrew: 2018? Yeah. There’s so much to learn. It’s like drinking from a firehose. But you did attend the MHU boot camp.

Patrick: I did, yup. Actually, a couple of times. We went back and just brought some friends. I soaked up even more stuff on the second round.

Andrew: That’s so awesome. Where are you from originally, Patrick?

Patrick: I grew up in Central Iowa.

Andrew: Central Iowa, that’s right. Wow. Do you own parks in Iowa?

Patrick: I do, yup. We’ve got four in Iowa. I moved to Wyoming. I actually lived in Wyoming for 15 years. I bought them in Wyoming and Iowa. It seems like I buy where I’m comfortable with, where I’ve lived. It’s what it seemed like and that’s probably why. I’ve got two parks in Wyoming and four in Iowa along with my original portfolios in Iowa as well.

Andrew: Got you. That’s more single family, duplexes, and things like that?

Patrick: Yeah, single family duplexes, senior apartment, and a large storage facility.

Andrew: Okay, very cool. That is fantastic. Patrick, maybe you can tell us, what does the perfect mobile home park look like to you? What does one of your portfolio parks look like or the perfect park?

Patrick: We’ve got one. I won’t say where it’s at, but it’s probably what I would classify as my favorite. It could be a little bigger, that’d be nicer, but it’s just in a great market. Median home prices are near $400,000. Two-bedroom apartment rents are over $1000. Just the demand. There’s a waiting list for people to get in there. I don’t have to get involved with bringing homes in or anything. It’s a feeding frenzy to buy a home once one comes available.

Honestly, it’s just easy to run. The tenants are a really good group of tenants, and they take care of the park very well. They actually get after me. If something’s not quite going right, they’re like, hey, this doesn’t look good, we got to get this cleaned up. I’m like, yeah. That’s my perfect park.

Andrew: That’s fantastic. What are the utilities setup? Is it public? Is it private? Is that a big thing for you when you look to invest?

Patrick: It is. I always just go city water, city sewer. I will look at some other utilities, but I’ve been pretty fortunate to get all city utilities. Of course, direct bills. Got a couple of other direct bill from the city, that’s a plus. But all city services and a couple of those.

Andrew: The direct billed thing is like the Great White Buffalo. That is the Holy Grail of mobile home park investing. You have public utilities, city water, city sewer. You’re not having to weld that you have to maintain and things like that. The sewer is not like your own sewer plant, lagoon or something like that, or septic tanks. Oh, my goodness.

We just raised a ton of lateral lines and a park that we own that’s on septic. The direct bill means that the city is billing your tenants for their service based on their usage. You’re out of the equation as the park owner, and that is the Holy Grail. We have a couple of those. Man, the expense ratio on those is sub-30%. It’s phenomenal. Did you use it the same way?

Patrick: Yeah. I’ve just actually gotten these last couple of parks, have been these direct bills, so they’re still getting leveled out. I’m not quite down to the 30% expense ratio quite yet, but we’re getting there. That’s the magic. There’s just a lot less stuff to do, a lot less management.

Andrew: Totally. You mentioned a couple of things about the markets that you look at. This market that has your perfect park in it, you said two-bedroom apartment rents are more than $1000 a month, which I know I think Frank talks about in the MHU boot camp, about certain demographic numbers to look at. You also mentioned the $400,000 median home price. What other metrics do you look at besides those two, apartment rents and median home price, to determine a market to invest in?

Patrick: It used to be like Frank always would say, $100,000. That obviously has changed dramatically. You buy a $100,000 median home price in today’s numbers, you can get yourself in real trouble in my opinion. Same metrics as what Frank looks at. The two bedroom apartment is a gauge, the vacancy rate.

I do look a little bit about home ownership, how many people are renters, and how many are homeowners, to look at the stability of the folks in that market. Employers and then what’s driving the town. Is it a town in the Midwest that’s really off the beaten path? Or is it in a highly desirable mountain town in the West? There’s a big difference there about what the drivers are.

West and Midwest is where I invest. That’s what I’m familiar with. There are completely different dynamics for those two. I have parks that are not in the highest of median home price areas, and I do struggle a little bit more on those parks. It all goes into the pot as I’m trying to evaluate what I am going to be up against in the park that you’re buying at.

One big thing I like to look at is, if there are a bunch of rentals, is the operator not trying to sell those, or is he not capable of selling them? It can be a huge red flag for me. I really want to know why he has rentals. Does he want them, or does he have no other choice? That’s a red flag in my opinion.

Andrew: Totally. You mentioned a couple of things there, vacancy rate or a housing vacancy in those places where you’re just seeing, what’s going on there? We look at that, too. We bought it in the vacation town of Ludington, Michigan. It’s the weirdest thing because during the summer, the vacancy rates are way down, but during the winter months, it’s way up.

It was like getting to the bottom of why are the units vacant? In that case, it worked out. But in other cases, one park we had in Keokuk, Iowa, which I know, we talked about, it was a very bad thing. The market just wasn’t absorbing.

Patrick: Keokuk, Iowa, in the southern part of the state, it’s a little tougher economy down there versus northern Wisconsin. You’re going to have a completely different read on the vacancy rate. Wisconsin, especially that northern part, a lot of people go up there for vacation, a lot of vacation rentals, and a completely different ballgame.

Andrew: Totally. Let me hop into some questions here, Patrick. What do you think is the toughest hurdle to overcome in mobile home park investing?

Patrick: For me or just for somebody?

Andrew: I would say just for anybody that’s looking to get in. What’s the hardest part about the business?

Patrick: I would say, it’s probably the operations. If you’re looking to grow fast and buy these turnaround parks, operations and picking the right market can really be a hurdle, especially if you’re not familiar with real estate. Thankfully, I had some experience getting into real estate, so it was a little easier for me to take the ball and run with it, but it still took me three years to find them. Once I did get a park, bought it, it’s a learning curve, for sure. It’s not like any other real estate.

Andrew: You’re a value-add guy, right? You’re not buying stabilized stuff. You’re buying stuff you can put work into and sweat equity.

Patrick: That’s what I’ve been doing. Yup. I’ve got lucky and bought a couple of parks that were stabilized as far as operations go, not so much on the rent. I’ve been pretty lucky. Our six parks keep me busy, so I’m switching gears a little bit, but I still like to make the money. I love the money from the turnaround or the value from a turnaround.

Back to your question, maybe getting the confidence to just jump in, just buy one, and try it. I think if you just get a park and learn from experience, I think that’s the best thing anybody can really do after, of course, going into the boot camp. I highly recommend Frank’s boot camp.

Andrew: I would say, 95% of the operators that I’ve interviewed on this podcast have gone to that boot camp. When someone hasn’t been to the boot camp, it raises a red flag like, wait a minute, you haven’t been there? Then I dig a little bit and find out that there are usually issues, where they’ve bought in a property with private utilities that ended up leading to issues, because they didn’t do the right due diligence, because they didn’t go to the boot camp, and they didn’t have the handbook.

It saved a lot of money. But I would say also, from every deal we’ve done, to your credit, we’ve learned something else that wasn’t taught in the boot camp, because it’s only a three-day boot camp. There’s only so much you can learn. But from every deal we’ve done, we’ve added to our due diligence checklist of something extra to look at to make sure we don’t lose those points.

Patrick: Exactly. You’re in a lot more markets. Every market’s got a different dynamic, and every park has a different dynamic. Like I was saying earlier in both places where I’ve lived, I’m a little cautious about what I buy and where I buy it. I don’t know whether I could just never get comfortable in those bigger markets, in the south, or out on the coast. But it worked for me.

Andrew: That’s what matters, dude. Tell us about your investing strategy in mobile home parks. How is the last mobile home park you bought compared to the first one you bought? How has that strategy changed? Where do you think is the best strategy in the marketplace right now for mobile home park investing?

Patrick: I got really lucky on my first one. My first park was my biggest park, 90-plus spaces. That was definitely one to learn on. I got thrown to the fire.

Our park’s average is a little over 50 spaces. The last one was in that neighborhood. Actually, the previous one was all park-owned homes, but this last one was just direct billed and city streets. Obviously, the market keeps changing, so I’ve paid a little bit more for this one than I did though the first one. It was also in a neighboring property to the one I already own, so that made a big difference, too.

The first park was 90 spaces. I wouldn’t say it was stabilized, I think it was around 70%-something occupied and a lot of older homes. We’ve been having to tear down homes, bring them in.

As far as what angle to invest in now, boy, with this interest rate in this market that we’re in right now, I would say definitely go keep at it and then go after the owner financing. That’s definitely the angle I would be going at right now.

Andrew: I think it’s safer if you can get it. It’s not always available. But if you’re not offering it, when you’re talking to sellers, you can be missing the boat. I would say that compared to other asset classes, mobile home parks have more mom and pops, and they have mom and pops that have owned these things for a long time, so they have a lot of equity.

We, this year, a few months ago, got 100% LTV $4 million seller-financed park. A 136 lot park, and he financed 100% of it. It just shows you, it’s out there. That was our only deal this year that we got seller financing on, and we offered it on all of them that we’ve been looking at, and missed out on a lot of deals because it just wouldn’t pencil out without that seller financing piece. Like you said, it’s out there. I think it’s more prevalent now.

Patrick: Yeah. I never lead with, hey, owner financing. I always go through all the details and bring that up later like the approach of, what do you plan on doing with the money? And get their story, what their direction is, and then just casually bring it up as, what have you thought about making a little extra money and carrying the note?

Andrew: Being the bank, yeah.

Patrick: Yeah, being the bank. It’s definitely a much bigger deal now than it has been even a year ago.

Andrew: Totally. What mistakes in mobile home park investing have you made that we could learn from?

Patrick: Generally, I’m pretty cautious. I’ve made some, for sure. Probably not hiring quick enough. I’m always trying to be conservative. If I can save this, if I can not buy this, or spend this much money, it probably hurt me more than it helped me.

It’s hard to say, but being too thrifty has probably been a big mistake that I’ve done in the past. Hiring Joe Schmo instead of the pro is definitely a mistake I seem to keep repeating. I’m not learning from that one. Some markets are easier to find a professional than in others, but that one has bit me quite a few times.

Andrew: I’ve been there. It’s also like when you’re looking to find a contractor to work on renovating a mobile home, for example, it’s more of the chuck in the truck type of handyman guy. It’s not the licensed general contractor that is working on other big projects, he’s legit, and has a track record. It can be a little bit tougher, especially remote when you’re trying to do that stuff. I agree with you on that. We’ve made mistakes there for sure.

What would you say are the most important things that passive investors—we’re talking about people that are just investing in other people’s syndications or funds—to look out for when investing into mobile home parks?

Patrick: Obviously, the reputation and and the experience of the operator they’re investing with. I don’t personally invest with other people, and it’s all 100% for me, owned. Not that I wouldn’t consider that, but I would look to somebody like yourself that’s out there, has been doing it for quite a while, has just a good track record, and not afraid to tell you what they did wrong. If somebody says, hey, we’ve bought this, this, and this, and it’s all gone, perfect. I would just run for the hills.

Andrew: Thank you for that. I appreciate it. We’ve definitely made mistakes. I think it’s learning from them. That’s the key, for sure.

Patrick: Conservative numbers too. These performances that are just pumped up, we’re going to raise the rent $250 out of the gate. All these just really hopped up performance, they’re just not realistic and not sustainable, especially if the economy changes, which we’re seeing now.

Andrew: Totally. Let’s jump into that and talk about what you think the future looks like with what interest rates are doing and possible recession. Mobile home parks do have a fragile tenant base. They can be fragile. They’re the most fragile. This is affordable housing. How do you think things pan out over the next 12–24 months?

Patrick: It’s definitely interesting. I think mobile home prices have really jumped here recently, which has jolted the whole infill model. Everything has gone up so fast from lot rent to utilities, food, all. I think everybody’s still trying to see where they’re going to land, like what’s the new normal? It just feels like everybody’s in limbo. A lot of my sales right now are a little bit muted right now. I feel like everybody’s hanging out, seeing what the interest rates are going to do.

Where are we going to go? I don’t know. I’ve been calling for a recession for a long time. I feel like I’ve been crying wolf for a while, but it’s got to happen. Every seven years, on average, it’s supposed to happen. It’s been a long time since we’ve had one. I think it’s inevitable, especially with the rates keep going up.

As far as the MH, I would really like to see some more modern designs to that standard box that we’ve had since 1990. Really, they don’t look much different. I think if we could get some good designs, I know there are some companies, but I’m talking about the majority of the manufacturers.

Andrew: The affordable ones. Not meaning they cost $150,000 from the factory. The $50,000 or so cost, I agree.

Patrick: Right. Change the roof line, add some prints, just change something. Changing it up a little bit, I think it would help bring in more people. To MH that when they drive through it, it looks like the same thing it did in 1990, and it looks like a trailer, I don’t want to live in it. If it looked like a modern, larger, tiny home, if you will, I think people would flock to it. For some reason, we just don’t see it.

Andrew: I agree. I think that would be really cool. I think it might be coming. There’s a guy that I follow on LinkedIn. He built a whole development down in Texas around a lake. It was 300 lots, and they were all very trendy. The roofline was one pitch instead of having a double pitch.

It was just very trendy. I can’t think of his name right now, but it was a whole resort type of theme. It looks really nice. What could be possible is there, it’s just making that more mainstream and getting the manufacturers on board.

Patrick: That probably works way better in a real high end market.

Andrew: Austin, Texas type of market.

Patrick: Yeah. I’m talking a little bit more rural Iowa. I want it to be affordable for my tenants in rural Iowa or rural Wyoming. Different deals there.

Andrew: I think as a park owner, one thing you need to look at is, okay, I’m going to bring in 17 homes into this park that we just bought in Nebraska. You got to get on the phone and you got to find out, how far away or the manufacturers from your park?

That’s what people overlook. It’s like, okay, yeah, the homes cost $50,000, perfect. I can put down 10%, that’d be great. Oh, well, it’s going to cost $7500 to tote these homes from the factory to your park. That’s a lot of money to not account for. That’s not an actual hard cost of the home. In the Midwest, there are not a lot of plants that do beyond the basic design, the basic setup.

Patrick: That’s exactly right. It’s a struggle. I look at the price sheets the manufacturer sent me. I’m like, cool. Then I’m like, oh, yeah, it’s $5000–$6000 they’re going to deliver. It’s like, how that really adds a chunk.

Andrew: It does. Patrick, what do you think the biggest threat to mobile home park investing is?

Patrick: A good economy. I don’t know. The threat to mobile homes, I guess regulation could be a big factor with all these news articles of raising rents. I can see some regulation coming down that would probably be designed to help, but it would actually hurt. Frank talks a lot about that as well in his talking.

Andrew: These bad egg investors that are in big towers in New York City, that have never stepped foot in the park, that just come in and send out an intro letter to the the tenants and say, hey, your rents going up $250 a month, you got 60 days, and then your rents can be $250 a month higher. And they do no improvements.

I saw it firsthand in a community in Illinois, where literally, their whole plan was to scrap it. They wanted people to not be able to pay it so they could scrap it, redevelop it, and bring in a whole new look for the park. That is what’s giving the industry a blackeye.

Operators like you and I come in, add value, and clean up the streets, the landscaping, fencing, signage, and the quality. That’s where we deserve a bump in rents. But we’re not talking $250 a month two months after you buy the place. That’s insane. I think Iowa is one of the states that had the issue. I know there was something that went on the docket. I don’t know. How did that end up?

Patrick: It was actually in the same county as one of my first parks. It really raised a stink. Of course, Iowa Manufactured Housing Association has been involved in that. I’ve got some communication from them. They send stuff out saying, hey, I’m not pointing anybody out, but this is really getting on the radar of the wrong people.

We’re fighting against it, but it was definitely an issue. I think it calmed down now a little bit, but that was during the election. I think even the presidential candidates caught wind of it and made mention of it. It definitely raised some eyebrows. I got some tenants out of the deal. People left parks, and I’ve got some tenants out of the deal.

Andrew: Good for you. That’s the thing. I would not want to be that guy that is on the front page of the paper, and Nancy Pelosi is saying your name because you’re that greedy landlord. Just do it the right way, guys. If it doesn’t pencil out, and you need to raise rents $250 a month on people, that’s not a deal that you should be doing. Whoever needs to hear that, it’s in the universe now.

Patrick: I have raised rents, different scenarios. I’ve been fairly aggressive on rents. There was one park that I’ve gotten. It’s just a quarter million dollars to replace the entire road. Not with asphalt, I did concrete because it was just a little bit more, and I just decided to go that route. The park looks completely different.

Did I get complaints? I did. But the people that are coming in, those people that had left, are being replaced with people that are super happy, happy to pay the new rent, thrilled with the way the park looks. And there’s no chance of it being redeveloped now.

Andrew: Totally. That’s the thing. I’m not against rent increases. I’m just saying, you just put a ton of money into that place, and it’s a win-win because otherwise, it’s going to get redeveloped, like you said. They’re going to scrap it clean, they’re going to build an apartment complex on it or something, and it will not be a mobile home park anymore. Those affordable housing units are going to be gone forever. I agree. I think there’s a happy medium to be struck somewhere.

Patrick: Definitely. Some of the folks that we buy from, you can just tell they’re on autopilot. They’re not raising rents because they know the tenants, they’re personally involved with it, and they just haven’t put anything back into the park. They’re not keeping it clean.

Actually, bringing homes in is one thing that you can do to really change the look of a park, and it’s a lot of work bringing homes in. You know as well as I do. These folks that don’t raise rents and don’t bring new homes in, the whole park just starts to suffer and just looks tired.

Andrew: That’s a great example. Park-owned homes or tenant-owned homes, what’s your preference?

Patrick: Tenant-owned homes all the way.

Andrew: I’m with you in that.

Patrick: You got to buy them, you got to hold them, you got to fix them up, and you got to put them up for sale. Sometimes you got to do rent to own. It’s never, oh, I don’t own any homes. We own a lot of homes.

The way I differentiated is a rent-to-own or straight rental. The person that wants to straight rent and not put any money down, I don’t want anything to do with that tenant. We own homes, but they’re either rent-to-own or they’re inventory, but no straight rentals.

Andrew: Yup, I’m with you on that. I think it just makes it more scalable. You’re not running a flat apartment complex. People don’t realize, which I’m surprised, but manufactured homes are not built with the same building materials that single family homes are built from. The windows are different sizes, the doors are different sizes, the drywall is thinner. It’s a completely different ballgame. You have to special order this stuff, and it’s expensive. If you’re going to own all these things, just be ready because it can get pricey real fast.

Again, you’re going to have this equipment coming in, but then you’re going to hire Chuck in the truck, because he’s the only guy you could get to actually do the work for a reasonable price. It gets crazy.

Patrick, how can listeners get a hold of you if they’d like to do so?

Patrick: LinkedIn is probably the best bet. I might allow a little bit of time. I’m not on there all the time, but message me on LinkedIn. It’s probably the best bet.

Andrew: That’s fantastic. What’s one last bit of advice you would give an interested passive investor, a passive mobile home park investor that’s never invested before in the asset class? What’s one tip you’d give them?

Patrick: Just vet out whoever you’re invested with. Maybe do a little bit of research in the industry so that you’re a little bit educated as well. You’re not just counting on the operator.

The boot camp is so affordable. There’s so much knowledge being given out there for pennies on the dollar. You go to the boot camp, and just get yourself educated, and then get in the circles and pick your guy. But just don’t invest blindly. That never works no matter what you’re talking about.

Andrew: Totally. I think that’s the key. There’s a ton of niches in real estate, and there are a ton of niches just in mobile home park investing. There are funds and syndicators that just go after small parks, 30 lots or smaller. There’s a fund out there that’s just buying private utility parks right now, because those are typically less desirable. There’s a fund for opportunity zone mobile home park investing.

Find your area that appeals to you, and vet the operator. I think you’re right. Like you said earlier, look at the market. Bestplaces.net, you can check the two-bedroom apartment rents, you can check the median home price, and then definitely ask about the utilities and review, hey, is this city-provided water sewer, or is this private?

If it’s an operator looking at a private, spend the time to make sure that they actually know and have another property that knows how to operate a well and the requirements, because it’s a steep learning curve if you don’t. You’ll find that the EPA will fine you if you don’t have the right testing setup and so forth, so good tips.

Patrick: Don’t be afraid to, I would say, jump in on your own and buy a smaller park and learn. You can do both. You can own a park and invest in other folks and other funds. There’s no better way to learn than diving in and buying one.

Andrew: Totally. Tell me, when’s your next fishing trip? People on the show know that I like fishing as well. What’s coming up on the docket?

Patrick: I actually just put the fishing poles away, and I’ve got a backpacking solo sheep hunt coming up here in less than a week. I’m way in gear, packing food, weighing out everything, and getting ready for a strenuous backpack hunt solo.

Andrew: That is so awesome, man. I wish you the best of luck on your hunt. I hope you get what you’re looking for. Do you go for just one, or do you go for a couple of the sheep?

Patrick: It depends on where you go. Where I’m going, there are multiple species available. We’re very fortunate here in Alaska. It’s a buffet line of opportunity when it comes to fishing and hunting. Lots of salmon, lots of venison to have.

Andrew: Totally. Be safe and have fun. Thanks for coming on the show, Patrick, to share some golden nuggets with our listeners.

Patrick: Absolutely. Appreciate you having me on. Best of luck to everybody out there.

Andrew: Thanks again. That’s it for today, folks. Thank you so much for tuning in.