SHOW NOTES

GUEST: Matthias Gruenwald, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of WCG Investments

HOST: Andrew Keel

Learn how to invest in mobile home parks: https://keelteam.com/mobile-home-park-investing/

Episode Summary

Andrew Keel sits down with Matthias Gruenwald, a real estate investor and operator who successfully transitioned from 18 years in global automotive manufacturing to full-time real estate investing in the manufactured housing community space. Originally from Germany, Matthias now oversees approximately $45 million in real estate assets across 25 mobile home parks.

This episode is a masterclass in modern mobile home park investing and operations, diving into how Matthias broke into the industry, scaled his portfolio, and built efficient management systems. Listeners will gain actionable insights on:

• Building a proprietary property management company from the ground up.
• Leveraging Virtual Assistants (VAs) and AI in operations.
• The realities of managing challenging park-owned homes (POHs).
• Identifying the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and operational levers that drive Net Operating Income (NOI).
• Effective strategies for sourcing deals and identifying acquisition red flags.

About the Host:

Andrew Keel is the owner of Keel Team, LLC, a Top 50 Owner of Manufactured Housing Communities with over 3,250 lots under management across more than 50 communities in 15+ states.

Andrew specializes in turning around under-managed manufactured housing communities by implementing proven systems to maximize occupancy while reducing operating costs. His expertise includes:

• Bringing in mobile homes to fill vacant lots.
• Implementing utility bill-back programs.
• Improving overall management and operating efficiencies in mobile home parks.

These strategies significantly boost both asset value and net operating income.

• Learn more at keelteam.com.
• Find out more about Andrew’s story at andrewkeel.com.
• Learn how to invest in mobile home parks: https://keelteam.com/mobile-home-park-investing/
• Check out Andrew’s FREE e-book: “The Top 20 Things You Need to Know Before You Start Investing in MHPs” available here: https://keelteam.com/top-20-things-learned-from-mobile-home-park-investing/.

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Talking Points:

Episode Timestamps & Key Takeaways

Matthias’s Journey and Scaling the Business

00:00 – Introduction to Matthias Gruenwald and background

01:00 – Matthias’s journey: moving to the U.S. and discovering real estate

03:40 – Key lessons from his first apartment deal that didn’t go as planned

04:40 – First mobile home park syndication and early growth

05:30 – Meeting his partner and building the business together

Property Management & Operational Excellence

07:00 – Building a property management company from scratch

09:00 – Team structure, virtual assistants, and AI in operations

11:30 – The hardest part of the business: park-owned homes (POHs)

24:00 – Key operational levers that drive net operating income (NOI)

25:30 – Common areas where operators lose money without realizing it

26:30 – What makes a great community manager

28:00 – Why KPIs and data tracking are essential

Education, Mentorship, and Networking

14:30 – How to get educated and find mentors in mobile home parks

17:00 – Lessons learned from experienced operators

19:00 – Best conferences and networking strategies

Acquisitions, Challenges, and Key Learnings

21:00 – Early deal challenges and dealing with negative press

35:30 – WCG Investments’ buy box and acquisition criteria

38:00 – Deal sourcing and offer structuring strategies

40:00 – Red flags when acquiring mobile home parks

42:00 – First steps after closing on a property

45:00 – A deal that significantly increased NOI

46:00 – A deal that didn’t go as planned and key lessons learned

47:00 – Lightning round: quick insights and opinions

Conclusion

31:00 – Advice for new investors getting started

32:30 – Book recommendation and key takeaway

53:00 – Where to connect with Matthias

55:05 – Conclusion

Links & Mentions from This Episode:

Guest: Matthias Gruenwald

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthias-gruenwald-72896b95/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/matthias_gruenwald89/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@WCGInvestments

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/matthias.grunwald.54

Host: Andrew Keel / Passive Mobile Home Park Investing

Keel Team: https://www.keelteam.com/

Andrew Keel: https://www.andrewkeel.com/

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

Facebook Podcast Page: https://www.facebook.com/PassiveMHPinvestingPodcast

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/passivemhpinvesting/

Twitter: @MHPinvestors

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TRANSCRIPT

[00:00.00] Intro:

[00:19.68] Andrew: Welcome to the Passive Mobile Home Park Investing podcast. I’m your host, Andrew Keel, and today I’m excited to welcome Matthias Gruenwald, co-founder and managing partner of WCG Investments. Matthias is a real estate investor and operator with over 18 years of leadership experience. Originally from Germany, he moved to the U.S. in 2012 and recently transitioned from global automotive manufacturing to a full-time real estate investor. Today, he oversees approximately $45 million in assets under management across 25 manufactured housing communities. Matthias, welcome to the show, brother.

[00:59.60] Matthias: Thanks, Andrew. Thanks for having me.

[01:02.56] Andrew: You bet, man. Would you mind starting out by sharing a little about your story and how in the world you got into mobile home parks?

[01:09.48] Matthias: Man, I love that question. How did that German guy get into trailer parks? That’s my favorite question, man. It’s kind of a long story, but compressed, like you mentioned, in 2012, I moved from Germany to the U.S. Back then, I was in Greenville, South Carolina, because of where the W-2 opportunity was for me. I was working in manufacturing and fast-paced, high-stake environment. Customers were General Motors and BMW and all these guys, Ford, Chrysler, all these massive corporations.

[01:40.00] At some point, I realized, hey, man, I’m just working on somebody else’s balance sheet and make that guy rich. My boss’s boss had a Ferrari collection. I was just struggling making ends meet. We did pretty well, don’t get me wrong. I wasn’t executive there, but I was like, man, how do the rich get rich and how do the wealthy get wealthy? I literally put that into Google around the COVID timeframe, because everything slowed down and our business slowed down too, where I was working at. 

[02:06.40] I literally Googled that and then it came up real estate. It drives a lot of wealth and it’s good wealth preservation, also a good wealth-building tool. Then I started my side hustle, basically buying a duplex out of a cash-out refi on my primary residence, bought a duplex, because I always liked multi-unit properties. I just vibe with my logic. The more units, the better I thought, because I call them your scale and somebody moves out.

[02:29.24] You have more income on the other side of the property at least. Then I bought a full-plex right after in 2023 and then in late 2023, bought an apartment complex, actually, 26 units with JV partners. Right after that, I did an RV park, which then got me in contact with my main partner, Tim Burbridge, who did mobile home parks for many years already. He showed me the dark side of mobile home parks, always joking. Since then, the rest is history. We bought a lot of mobile home parks in the meantime and we had over 25 mobile home parks right now, 1,100 units and 45 minutes as under management. I’m doing it full-time now and having the blast.

[03:08.40] Andrew: Wow, 1,100 units, dude. That’s amazing. It’s such a short timeframe. Tell me, so do you still own the 26-unit apartment complex?

[03:16.16] Matthias: Unfortunately, I do. Yeah.

[03:17.84] Andrew: Why do you say that? Why do you say unfortunately?

[03:21.80] Matthias: It wasn’t well managed in the beginning, unfortunately. We had a couple of capital calls. It’s a good deal on paper. It wasn’t executed well. It’s on the turnaround right now. There was a lot of overspending on the CapEx side and stuff and it didn’t really perform well from a casual perspective. The rent projections were way overly optimistic. Location is great. The asset itself is great, but it just hasn’t been well executed. 

[03:46.00] For me, from an operational background,I immediately recognized where the problem is coming from, obviously. Our partners put our heads together and see what needs to be changed when we did that. Now, we’re reaping the benefits from it. It’s turning around, but we still have to catch up on a lot of things. That experience plus the skills that I learned from my W2, from my 18-year-long career in operations, really helped me a lot to understand how we have to run things in our mobile home park business. That made me and Tim very successful building WCG investments.

[04:16.60] Andrew: That’s great. That was your first syndication then, was the 26-unit apartment complex?

[04:22.16] Matthias: That was a joint venture, actually. The first syndication was we got down the contract early 2024. Just like two years ago, that was our first syndication, which was a 100-unit portfolio of four parks in Spartanburg, South Carolina. These days, I live in Tampa, Florida, but I still lived in Greenville, South Carolina back then, and we bought this two years ago.

[04:42.20]: It was right in my backyard, and I realized the location is phenomenal where those mobile home parks sit. I knew Tim from the RV park that we did a JV on as well. Then he always raved about mobile home parks, and I pitched a deal to him. I was like, “I think this is a major opportunity.” Then we made an offer, and we got on the contract. Again, the rest is history. That’s the first syndication out of eight we did since then.

[05:05.72] Andrew: That’s amazing. Yeah, you’ve done so well, so much so soon. Tim has been on the podcast, big Tim fan, the former nurse that turned into full-time real estate investor. How did] you and Tim meet up and become JV partners? I guess it was first on an RV park. That was your first deal you guys did together?

[05:25.52] Matthias: Yes, that’s correct. We both were part of a mastermind that was based out of Charleston, South Carolina, which is close where I lived and very close where Tim lived at the time. It was just a local mastermind that went nationwide. There’s a lot of people nationwide that joined it. They focused mainly on motor family, that mastermind, but they had a subgroup of mobile home parks.

[05:47.00] That’s how I met Tim. Then also, that’s how we got into a part of that group that brought our RV park together and that pulled me and Tim in for managing and asset-managing the RV park. Then when we started working together, we realized, “Hey, man, I like you.” He was like, “I like you too.” We were working well together. It’s the stepbrothers moment. Did we just become best friends deal? It worked. Sometimes you’re looking for a great partner.

[06:13.52] I think the same with dating. If you’re desperately looking for that partner, you’re not going to find it. That one day, just going to cross that path with that one person, all of a sudden it clicks. That’s how it was for me and Tim. It just worked so well out of the gate and it’s amazing. He’s so different too. Where he comes from, where I come from, even lifestyle is different, but we have the same core values and it makes the business decision that we make together so aligned. It’s incredible. We realize it’s very rare, but it’s working so well for us. 

[06:43.00] Andrew: That’s fantastic, man. What was the name of that mastermind that you guys met in?

[06:46.00] Matthias: Yeah, very cheesy name. It was called my first million motor family. It’s called the Deal room in short. 

[06:55.00] Andrew: Deal room. Okay, cool. Hey, it worked, right? It worked together and you’re doing deals. You bought your first group of parks, those four in Spartanburg in early 24. Was that when you first started managing mobile home parks then? It was then? Is that your role in there? 

[07:13.04] Matthias: Yeah, that was my first mobile home park that we purchased. Yeah, correct. 

[07:16.00] Andrew: It’s March 2026 right now, so it’s been about two years. Tell me, how was the beginning like scratch starting a management company? Do you manage it yourself? Do you have a third party that manages those parks? Tell us how that’s been. 

[07:32.00] Matthias: Absolutely. We self-managed everything. Actually, Tim started that before we started working together. He had a couple mobile home parks already and he had his own property management company that he founded to support his portfolio. Then he just kept the same system because I like the self-management part. As long as you have a team in place, if you do everything yourself, you go crazy. 

[07:52.68]: He had VA’s already and we built up on that system and systematized everything and really built SOPs left and right and built out that property management system in the back office, we call it. From there, it’s still today. Sometimes you get overwhelmed with the issues, but the more you actually train the back office team how to respond in certain situations, the quieter it gets. It sounds weird, but that’s just how it goes. I use some little tricks here and there. 

[08:24.04]: I’m using AI as everybody does these days. We have a WhatsApp group with the back office and they’re asking questions here and there. Sometimes you get a question a day. Sometimes it’s 25 questions that one day. At some point periodically, I just download the WhatsApp transcript and say, “Hey, here’s our conversation with the last six months. Please make an FAQ out of this.” Then just create an FAQ document. 

[08:42.08]: Whenever somebody comes on the team, this is a training document for them. I have an FAQ where they can go through of the frequently asked questions. Little stuff like this, just trying to be smart about it, how to eliminate a friction within the process was very helpful for us and documenting everything. It breaks down the touch points of communication that you don’t get a million questions and you have a back office really independent at some point.

[09:09.72]: They’re communicating with the community managers that live on site or close to the portfolio or to the property, so to speak. That helps a lot. We basically just like asset managing at this point and we own the property management company or we don’t do the property management. We really just asset managing. Then we just use a tiebreaker if there’s some legal issues or somebody is really pissed off about something. It happens when you’re in the rental business and then we jump in if needed, but otherwise, it’s pretty passive, so to speak. 

[09:40.28] Andrew: Tell us about the management company. What does that look like? How many employees do you have to manage, what is it, 1,100 units? Just tell us how you have it set up because I know you guys have some VA involvement and so forth.

[09:52.40] Matthias: Correct. We have one person’s collections VA. He just does collections all day long. We have an executive assistant. We have a leasing agent that just does leasing all day. This VA, that person is really just this patch. We have a vendor list for each region where we say a code. Those are the approved vendors and they can basically call them and just be this patch. 

[10:14.00]: I see maintenance requests coming through and then manager and again, okay, they see it’s plumbing in Santa, South Carolina. Okay, call Jeremy. Boom. Send him out. If there’s somebody needs to be on site for something, there’s a question, the community manager will get involved. It’s kind of like playing this patch. That’s how we have it set up. Then we also have a bookkeeper as well that’s on the V18 that does all the bookkeeping for us at the moment.

[10:35.00]: Then we actually be buying five more properties right now, which is 283 units. We are closing on in two months and then we actually implementing AI agents right now for collections and maintenance where all the mundane communication just constantly calling people, “Hey, you’re behind in your end,” will be AI in the future for us. 

[10:54.46]: Then our VA that we have for collections will be more of a sniper rifle because the AI agent will actually collect data on if somebody is willing to actually make payments and has intention to do a payment plan. That person, our VA would then call them to create a creative payment plan, which he’s doing already, but right now he wastes a lot of time in calling everybody that’s behind. 

[11:13.58]: If you have 1100 units, you might have to call 200 people or 150 people. It’s a lot and not everybody gets on the phone and you’re still wasting a lot of time. The AI is going to break down that volume, so to speak, and then really make him like a sniper rifle and targeting really what’s worth targeting, talking to people to create payment plans and stuff. That’s how we have a currently structured, so it’s pretty lean for the size of portfolio because we run pretty efficiently.

[11:38.68] Andrew: That’s great. No, that’s really cool. I like how you’re leveraging AI. We’re still timid with how to implement AI into the management company, but I think whoever figures that out will definitely have a leg up for sure. Okay, very cool. Let me ask you this. This is kind of just candid, but what part of the business sucks the most for you?

[12:01.00] Matthias: Oh, man. That’s a very good question. What sucks the most? Park on homes can suck sometimes.

[12:08.88] Andrew: I feel that. Tell us why. Tell us what you mean by that.

[12:14.96] Matthias: Yeah, we buy a lot of parks and park on homes because we like to turn them over to rent to own.

[12:21.64] Andrew: In the Southeast, I don’t know about this, but it seems like that’s what every mom and pop did, is they wanted to own all the homes and they wanted just to have a flat apartment complex. It’s the wildest thing.

[12:31.16] Matthias: It is. It’s very true. A lot of people don’t touch them because of that, because they want the holy grail, tenant-owned homes only, and public utilities, great. I want them too, but sometimes you have to kind of find a value add out there. Turning the POHs over the TUHs to tenant-owned homes over time is a good value add, especially if you run syndications. You can use the extra POH cash flow that you’re getting for actually making investor payments and distributions, which helps a lot. 

[12:57.92]: But what it can suck is if you take them over from a mom and pop, and there’s like 100 parks on homes, and they’re all been just patched together with duct tape and chewing gum, then you’re going to have a lot of issues. Then try to figure out, you have to become really creative. We use a lot of handyman specials, but sometimes a handyman special needs to be somewhat like saveable. And then on the edge sometimes, okay, is this saveable? 

[13:21.12]: Is this like a demo? That’s where it becomes really, there’s a lot of friction involved. Usually we see, we did take over a lot of portfolios with POHs, like the first six months suck in that initial stabilization phase, and then be getting a lot of those off to rent our own and turn some over, over time. And then like six to eight months, like we just said, another one, we just hit the six month mark. 

[13:44.60]: And it’s finally quiet. Our repair maintenance was like eight grand a month on that portfolio. Now it’s 700 bucks. Like after six months, the beginning sucks. Everything is broken because if you start to sell a property, you probably start neglecting it at some point, and it was probably already neglected. And so once you take in all these park on homes over there, just everything was bad. I mean, that one portfolio bar, we had like 34 maintenance requests in 24 hours, like a day one when we took over. It was overwhelming to say the least.

[14:13.24] Andrew: Oh, I bet. I bet. No, you gave me a good idea for a new podcast. Duct tape and chewing gum, you know, Taylor Park Tales.  I’m thinking something along those lines. But no, totally agree. Yeah, we buy some park on home parks as well and do the conversions. And yeah, it definitely gets overwhelming. So you guys use rent manager as well.

[14:34.16] Matthias: We do.

[14:35.16] Andrew: Nice. Which is convenient because they can do the maintenance request right through the tenant portal. That’s a good software. Mathias, I mean, obviously you partner with Tim, but how did you get educated on mobile home parks, before buying those first four parks in Spartanburg? Like how did you kind of dive in and just talking to the newer investors out there? Like how do you recommend someone get educated? And then how did you get educated?

[15:00.20] Matthias: Yeah, that’s a good question. I love networking. Just go to conferences, talk to the people and find the bigger players and then just ask always, Hey, who should I talk to? I’m just getting started mobile home parks. I love the asset class. Who’s somebody I should meet, I can provide some value to them, for example, and then just be in the room of the bigger players. And I think the bigger the players become, the more helpful they are. 

[15:24.76]: They want to see you succeed because they have an abundance that otherwise I would have never gotten there. When I got started, I mean, I had the okay portfolio, but it wasn’t something the right home about really compared to some people I met in the mobile home park industry and met some really good players that have four or five thousand units and have been more than willing to help me out and help Tim out.

[15:44.92]: To understand how to raise capital, how to create a fund, open up a fund, how to run syndications, how to do the accounting properly for syndication, stuff like that, all the legal paperwork and everything that you have to do with the PPMs and all that stuff. People have been so helpful and we would have never gotten so fast or  quickly without asking the right questions to the right people. 

[16:04.60]: And I love the saying, the quote, if you want to know the road ahead, ask the people coming back. And I love to sit down with lunch with people that have four to five thousand lots and then just ask them like, hey, when you were like 500 units or a thousand where we are right now and you walk to the path, walk the path to 2000 units, what mistakes did you do that I shouldn’t do? And just then just listen, it’s so magical, like how much wisdom you get out of them. It’s great about that.

[16:32.48] Andrew: Like what has been some of the best, little tidbits that you’ve been able to capture from some of those mentors?

[16:37.76] Matthias: We’re creating our first fund right now. I had lunch with somebody that has a really sizable portfolio. It’s up close to I think he sold like a thousand units. He’s like 3500. So he was almost at 5000. And he told me as well, like, if you really build a sizable business out of this, try to act with the end of mind and build everything in house as much as you can, because he did outsource a lot.

[17:00.20]: And then he realized, oh, it’s me so big now in our outsources and becomes so expensive. Now I bring it in house. But now the operation are so massive, the external company to bring that in house, you have to build an entire department. Try to build it. Like if you really want to get to four to five thousand lots, build the accounting department, build the property management department from the ground up from day one, because you have total control about everything.

[17:23.18]: And you keep costs under control because you maintain in the cost. You have different cost centers, obviously, but also become profit centers like I live off the property management fees. And so does my partner, we take a profit share of whatever is left from the property management fees we charge to the properties. And that helped us a lot to not have the W-2, right?

[17:38.40]:  So this stuff we also learned from another mentor, he did the same thing like, hey, the property management company that I found that it’s not really a profit center because I take all the profits from it in the sense like the company itself is really just breaking even if that makes sense. But I’m pulling the profits from the company to kind of live off of it as well. Those nuggets help a lot to like open up your mindset to see like, oh, yeah, that’s how I can structure this, right? 

[18:00.04]: And if I would go for a property management company, I might charge 10, 12, 13 percent of gross for the income, right? Because log rents are lower than apartment rents, for example, and they probably won’t do a good job because it’s not their property. If you charge eight to 10%, we charge 10 kind of industry standard of gross, there’s some significant income. 

[18:21.20]: Then if you have a lot more AI coming in, you don’t have to hire people like crazy every time you add more properties. That’s why we do it that way. Our profit margin actually gets bigger and stuff like that. We learned that from the bigger players as well. That was very, is very, very powerful. Same with accounting. Like I just mentioned, we actually building. We were thinking like maybe we need like a fraction CFO and get an accounting firm of all for our financials.

[18:45.00]: And I talked to that one mentor. He said, you know what, the same thing. It got so expensive and it got really brutal to put it in-house, do it in-house right now. It might be a little more expensive right now, but it will be so much cheaper 10 years down the road. So learned that a lot from these people.

[18:59.84] Andrew: That’s good advice. Which events did you go to? Which conferences to meet these mentors?

[19:04.68] Matthias: Yeah, there’s some good ones for mobile home parks out there. I mean, there’s MHI has several ones, right? I think it goes between like, you know, they’re having Orlando. I think Orlando was last year. I think it’s Vegas this year. MHI is pretty good. Also a little hack for the audience. I didn’t do it yet, but I will do it next time. Like some of these, you have to pay some significant admission fees, like eight, 900 bucks or so, depending on when you do the sign up.

[19:26.76]: But most of the people hang out in the lobby and you don’t need a ticket for the lobby. If you have not much money, just go to those events and go to the lobby and talk to the people. Because usually when you go into like the expo and go to the vendors, you need a, you know, like a lanyard and your name on it and stuff.

[19:42.00]: If you’re just getting started, you can just hang out in these lobbies and just talk to the people there. I saw several people doing this. I’m like, that’s pretty smart. I like when people are smart with their money. But it’s the other one. That’s Seiko is pretty operator heavy as well. That’s in Atlanta every year. I think it’s around September.

[19:57.12]: I was there last year as well. That’s pretty good. It’s very operator focused. A good vendors out there, good speakers. That was pretty powerful. I like the one in Louisville, the manufacturer housing show with extra like there’s a big expo center in Louisville, Kentucky. It’s always in January. It was just two months ago when they’re showing all these manufactured homes from different manufacturers in this big expo center. 

[20:19.16]: In the middle, it’s like all the vendors you can imagine, like all the AI I’ve been talking about, I met that company there and I had dinner with them. You meet a lot of people there and find new tools, talk to the operators. There’s some big players there. Those are my favorite ones. And you can go to some generic real estate ones, been the best ever conference, which is really more multifamily focused. 

[20:40.72]: But there’s also a lot of people there that invest and they’re fund managers and they  want to invest in other deals. You can kind of find some partners there as well. There’s different companies out there that serve different purposes.

[20:53.48]: Andrew: Sounds good, brother. Let me ask you this. Let’s get into the nuts and bolts of mobile home parks, right? What do you wish you knew sooner, right? Like, that, you know now about mobile home park operations and management specifically, like what do you wish that you knew like day one after you closed on those four parks in Spartanburg?

[21:12.92]: Matthias: Oh man, that’s a fantastic question. So managed, I have, that’s one takeaway, but it’s tax related actually. But management related, I must say, I mean, the park on home scared me a little, they still suck. But now I’m like, I know what to do now. I think that’s the one when we closed on Spartanburg, we actually ended up in the news in the first week.

[21:33.00]: Because the seller stopped responding to the tenants two months prior to closing. And the people already fought, we bought it already and they found out who’s buying it. We were immediately in the news in the first week. Talking about stress levels right there, they actually did a very, very negative, almost like a damaging news report about me and Tim in the news about like, we taking the park over and we haven’t responded to any mains requests or nothing.

[21:57.00]: And actually it’d be just closed like two days ago. And then everybody fought and the news was out there handing out business cards because they want to get more and more of the story. And then we actually talked to the news outlets and then they realized, oh, we kind of reached a little bit far here and then the more favorable news report after then it quietened down and we actually went in and improved the park as well.

[22:16.56]: That’s something we learned right away, like making sure when we close on the deal as well, that we assume we know we’re going to close. We make the seller actually notify the tenants that we are when the closing is around, when the closing is, and it’s going to be a management shift that comes from our first deal with it together because of that first deal, we got grilled by the news because everybody fought, we closed two months ago, which where we didn’t. 

[22:40.30]: And I talked to the property manager that they had the local community manager and she said, oh yeah, the owner told me to shut my phone off like two months ago. Like don’t even respond to the people anymore. And we went from like eight vacant homes from eight vacant homes to like 21 vacant homes from when due diligence ended to when we closed, we went from like about.

[22:59.32] Andrew: Did you renegotiate like the day before closing? We always check the day before closing because we had a home burned down one time and we were able to get a credit. We just took the  purchase price and divided by the number of occupied units and got a credit. But to have that many vacancies, oh, that’s terrifying. 

[23:14.80] Matthias: That was bad. Actually it’s a good idea. We should start doing that. We did a drive through, but we didn’t check all the homes because there was a hundred homes and it was 59 park on homes. We walked them all during the diligence. There was a major delay also in the closing because the seller didn’t send in the titles in time that I think there was like two days before closing, you send them in and then the lender was like the lender’s attorney was like, I need more time here.

[23:37.88]: That was not a delay. It took forever. And then in that time, they just couldn’t care less about management anymore. It’s all the vacancies happened. But I like the idea, Andrew, I would, I will definitely take them with me and bring it to our, our team.

[23:51.00] Andrew: Another thing is we, when we’re buying from mom and pops, a lot of times they just kind of like, just like you said, they just stop responding to the tenants. We created a template letter from the seller and then the seller just basically says, yeah, this is good. And then we pass those out like right after closing as if the information.

[24:12.20]: The next day we’ll deliver the introduction notice, introduction letter stating who we are. But man, that’s crazy that he just stopped responding to people, well before closing. That is just, oh, that’s terrifying. All right. I got a bunch of questions I want to get through here. All right. Let’s just, let’s just get right to the nuts and bolts. What are the top three operational levers that consistently move NOI the most in mobile home parks?

[24:38.76] Matthias: Ah, collections. You have to be on top of people for paying. I think collections is really important. That’s what we, our VA team reports that number twice a day, first thing in the morning and the end of day, we have collections, delinquency, and also leasing. If you have a lot of parkour homes, you want to sell them as rental owns. We have a lot of leasing metrics too.

[24:58.20]: We look at inquiries and then applications release conversions and stuff like that. So we look at that as well. Once you have, we have parks to be bought with all tenant on homes. We don’t need that metric because they are mainly occupied. I mean we have one park, it’s a hundred percent occupancy, all tenant on homes. It’s mainly collections only we’re looking at on that one really, it’s stabilized and it’s all working beautifully there. 

[25:18.00]: It’s really passive at that point, but all the other ones that are heavy on the, on the heavy value at still, and I have a lot of PUHs, I think collections on all of them. And then if there’s a lot of turnover, I’m definitely on the leasing front. I would look at those as well. 

[25:33.08] Andrew: Where do most owners think they’re running a tight operation, but are actually bleeding money?

[25:38.32] Matthias: CapEx probably because that bleeds you really quickly because it could be just 2,000 here, 3,000 there, 1,500 there, and you look back, you spend $80,000 on CapEx. I’m bigger deals than this, but especially on bigger deals, that happens really fast.  And then again, PUHs can be very dangerous. You can really overspend. That happened to us too. Then it’s happened so quick. Like we had a different asset manager on an ideal managing it for us.

[26:05.20]: And I look back on the financials, like, where did we spend $15,000 on what? And then apparently we did like this beautiful renovation on like a 1995 home. I was like, what, why are we spending $15,000 on a, you know, almost 30 year old home at this point was almost 30 years old. And I’m like, this is crazy guys. We cannot spend 15,000. We maybe spend three to five and then do a handyman special all of this, it happens really fast with some people think we do like some beautiful fix and flip and it has to be perfect. 

[26:32.16]: We don’t have to do that. It depends on the market. In some markets you get away with some crappier inventory, you know, where you can just like, okay, let’s get it safe, get livable, but don’t paint the walls or nothing. Somebody comes in handyman special and he will paint it. So I think those, that’s going to happen really quick CapEx on PUHs, especially.

[26:51.00] Andrew: What separates a great onsite manager from an average one in this asset class?

[26:54.36] Matthias: Oh yeah. I love that because we had both before. Communication is really important. Also decision-making skills. We had a community manager where they did not make any decisions like anything. They brought up every single problem. They asked me how to make the decision for them. Whereas we teaching everybody and everybody on our team, especially community managers, if you have a problem, bring up three solutions. 

[27:16.40]: Because you’re on site, you have all the details, bring up at least three solutions and give us your recommended solution so we can know, okay, what’s, what is the best solution here properly. And if you give them that mindset framework, sometimes they actually answer their own question, don’t even ask you the first place. And also giving people the freedom that they can make decisions. 

[27:35.00]: If they do mistakes, then you support them by their mistakes because it’s how we all grow, right? With failure sometimes. But I think that makes a big difference on a good community manager. And the bad one is just to have really somebody that can have some critical thinking skills and can make their own decisions really. And it’s more about work ethic and mindset than actually skills. 

[27:52.08]: I think if we have somebody that never managed a mobile impact before, she manages now 450 units for our 1100 right now with a helper and she absolutely kills it because she has the right attitude and she had zero idea. She had a million questions in the beginning, but she gets it now. She asked every question just like once and then she gets it and it never comes up again. She learns from it. So that makes a big difference. Just the mindset really in the work ethic.

[28:15.28] Andrew: Yeah, that’s huge. What operational edge will separate the top 10% of operators going forward?

[28:21.24] Matthias: KPIs. Keep a tight grip on your KPIs. Know exactly what your business is. Have a pulse on that the entire time. I think if you don’t watch your KPIs, you don’t know what’s happening in your business. And I think that makes a difference between the top 10 and then anybody else that’s average. Because you can always book your bank accounts like, “Oh, that’s  money in there.That’s great.”

[28:38.00]: But how did it get there? And it’s some of the earmark for taxes, some of the earmark for investor payments, like just the accounting structure as well is very important because we carve everything out in different accounts, like every property or every entity that has sometimes portfolios and it has five bank accounts for tax escrow insurance, tenant deposits, CapEx account, et cetera. 

[29:01.25]: And having KPIs overarching over the entire entity and just seeing where the pulses for everything is really powerful. We actually just snatched somebody up from a really large portfolio. He managed 14,000 payments for somebody that’s very well known. I can’t say their name because we poached the guy. But he built a really powerful dashboard for us in Power BI.  We have one screen, one pager overview, which is very interactive where we can see the entire portfolio, our occupancy, vacancies, NOI. 

[29:32.76] Andrew: What did you say that was? He built it in Power BI? 

[29:35.64] Matthias: Yeah, it’s a Microsoft tool, correct? And it pulls all the data life out of Friend Manager. Every day at 8am it pulls, it doesn’t like a data pool. And then it just basically you can just log in and then just see like the most recent data. And then you can actually click in,  we can go in and click on different properties and actually drill down on each property and also each expense line item. 

[29:56.04]: What is very cool is like if you do the asset management part, you can actually look in, where do we spend the most money in our entire portfolio? And it could be utilities, it could be this, could be that. It’s really powerful to actually see like where all the money goes or where the money is coming from and what region is coming from the most, where is the highest profit in that region? 

[30:12.00]: Is this market strong? As you get bigger, you can pull that data at some point and say like, hey, you know what? A lot of the upsets of South Carolina are really good because our NOI is really strong there, expense rates are really stable, but in this market down South, like South Georgia, we have more issues there on why. And we can ask more questions and that tightens up our acquisitions too, because of that data. 

[30:31.80]: That’s what I mean, like the top 10 operators, I always have the data under control and actually analyze the data. I don’t only have it and ignore it, that makes no sense either. It’s like having vitamins in on your shelf. Like you have to actually take a man, you have to do something with it, don’t just look at them. 

[30:46.12] Andrew: A hundred percent. Let’s talk to the new investor that is just getting started. They’ve saved money, they want to buy their first mobile home park. What would you focus on mastering first? Like if you’re that investor, what would you tell them? 

[31:00.00] Matthias: Oh yeah, very good question. Master the networking game because it’s all about figuring out. First of all, be likable. I think if you’re a jerk, you won’t make it fun, any business. I think work on that first. If that’s in the room for improvement, I’m probably very German here, be very direct, but that’s how we are. The networking part, because that’s how I got involved with Tim.

[31:24.32]: Tim knows a lot of other people and I know a lot of people and our network grew stronger and stronger and people talk about the good things that we’re doing and that piques interest of investors and investors put money in the deal and then we make them money and then they put that money into the next deal. And then they’re so happy they got money back, they tell their friends that they made money with us and they want to invest too.

[31:42.82]:  They tell their friends and it’s just the snowball that gets bigger and bigger. If you have some money safe and you get started, invest in yourself first by education. That just could be just buying books. I mean, I read like 30 plus books in the first year and then go to conferences and talk to people, get involved and then connect with the right people because this is a team sport, 100%. If you just find a park or two, you might be fine alone.

[32:09.00]: But if you want to get into a bigger size, you definitely need a team. If it’s just like a partner and a couple of VAs that’s still a team, you need those skills of building the relationships and being well connected, especially when they raise capital, it’s really important that you’re out there and have a positive brand and can connect with people well. So that will be my biggest recommendation.

[32:30.80] Andrew: Let’s go back real quick to the book question. So you said you read 30 books. What one book would you recommend that taught you the most about the business?

[32:40.48] Matthias: Mobile Home Park specifically or real estate in general?

[32:45.16] Andrew: I would say Mobile Home Park specifically.

[32:46.96] Matthias: I have it in my background actually. Am I being too subtle by Zamsel? He’s a, of course, rebel. They call him what it says in the title. And he is still, I think his group and he passed away, unfortunately, rest in peace. But I think he’s still, his group is the biggest owner of Mobile Home Parks in the country. I think it’s equity life group, I believe.

[33:05.12]: And they have 140,000 units. So that’s my favorite book because I love how he approached business and how much humor he had at the same time, but also how tenacious he was of building that business. And he was so far ahead of everybody knowing where the trends are heading, which is super difficult to figure out. But the way he looked at it was very impressive.

[33:25.60]: And I read his book because he was investing Mobile Home Parks decades ago, even like 10 years ago, you may have seen a comment, you know, in Warren Buffett, I was making investments in the industry in a sense as well and stuff like that. But he did it like 20, 30 years ago when he started doing Mobile Home Parks.

[33:41.38]: He jokingly in the book, he shows, there’s a picture, an illustration of it. He walked around with a t-shirt and sat in the back and said, for the last time, Jerry, this is not a trailer park. And it’s like, you know, strangling a chicken or something. It’s like making fun of the stigma, basically. But he loved the Mobile Home Park industry. And I love to just look at how far he was in his time.

[34:02.56]:  I think that really impressed me the most is where I learned the most when I read the book. And that’s why it’s in my background. This is not staged. I read it. And I always read it once a year, just to kind of remind myself of how much of an impact he had. And he turned, he bought a whole lot of properties. Let me ask you this.

[34:19.04] Andrew: What was your major takeaway from the book? Like he’s definitely a visionary. I totally agree with you. But what was like your major takeaway that helped you in your business? 

[34:27.24] Matthias: Oh, wow. Major takeaway. It goes back to what I said earlier, right? It’s a team sport. He was always leading on this team. I mean, he was a visionary, but he needed integrators and partners. He was talking about his partners and was raving about them, how strong they were in his business and how much impact they made.

[34:42.20]: And I forgot their names, but he also mentioned people that mentored him back to what I just mentioned about the relationships. There were people that actually mentored him. They were from large companies and they just took him under his wings and he learned from them. And it’s also you have to have an open mindset to learn and learn from mentors.

[34:57.00]: Those are the biggest takeaways. Like a person like Sam, uh, gotten that big. He didn’t, they didn’t, he didn’t stumble into this. He was also well connected and being open minded and finding mentors and provide value to them. I think that’s very important. Don’t just go to somebody because they have 5,000 units say, Hey, how do I do this? No, no. Ask him how can I provide value to you? And they will definitely help you, but provide some value to whatever that is, you know? 

[35:21.04] Andrew: No, I think like from earlier, when you were talking about mentors and you were talking about networking, I thought you were going to relay that back to the book because, because Sam’s, oh yeah, he definitely connected from his time at Michigan, right? When he was doing the student housing and all the way through to Chicago and those big names that just, he partnered with or the time when he worked at the law firm, right? 

[35:43.36]: And he wasn’t very long. It was a brief stint. That’s a great book. So, uh, appreciate you sharing that with us. I’ll put a link to that. Am I being too subtle in the show notes, but let’s talk about your acquisitions pipeline. Let’s talk about your buy box. What does your buy box look like? What’s  a deal that you guys would buy? What’s the size utilities? What do you tell people that your buy box is? 

[36:05.72] Matthias: Yeah. Buy box right now we buy in the Southeast mobile and parks only, uh, we do park on homes, but we only do park on homes. If we have a population over 50,000 people in the area, uh, that doesn’t have to be in that town, but it has to be at least in the proximity in the Metro of like 50,000 people because if you want to turn them over to rent to Owens, we need a lot, a lot of lead flow to get them off the books.

[36:28.24]: So to speak, we don’t do lagoons. We don’t do waste raw treatment plants. We do septic because you got them in the South a lot. There’s a lot of septic and we have probably hundreds of septic at this point. Um, but maybe I would say probably 20% of portfolio septic. Not a big deal. Uh, we had one replacement before plenty of pumpings at this point. I want to open a septic pump pumping company at this point is another vertical because we have so much right now, but it’s not a big deal.

[36:53.84]: We underwrite for it. That’s all buy box right there. Did I miss something? Size wise. We basically like 200 plus units right now. As we get bigger, the bigger deals, you realize in the bigger deals are easily managed in like the 40 units or the 20 units. As you have more zeros, of course you have to know what you’re doing. If you’re wrong on your rent projections, you’re wrong 200 times.

[37:19.04]: You have to be very careful how you’re underwrite that stuff. But especially in markets  that you know pretty well, you have some confidence there in your numbers. The deal we have on the contract right now, we just got on the contract a few weeks ago is 283, uh, units, which needs some vacant parking homes need to be turned. And there’s a couple of vacant lots right there. So far it looks pretty good to diligence wise, like everything financially checks out. And as you’re getting into like the big up of voice that you buy and you can tell like the sophistication increases, it’s not too much mom and pop anymore.

[37:51.00]: It’s a sophisticated operator. The financials are pretty clean. You get better feedback when you dabble around the 40 units, 50 units, we bought some of many of those. There’s sometimes like almost no supporting data. It’s on their head sometimes, even financials. 

[38:10.50]: Andrew: Okay. How are you currently finding those deals?

[38:12.68] Matthias: Yeah. Mainly that’s my partner Tim’s world. He’s mainly an acquisition. We building out, off-market pipelines right now, but mainly broker relationships.We here know a lot, a lot of those. We make a lot of offers. We also have a multi-tier offer as well, where we do like a cash to close offer, then sell a carry with a second position and also sell a finance. And as you know, they have those three different levels you have, um, they’re usually higher numbers, like self finance, you would do like 10% down 20% down, but as a lower rate interest only. 

[38:48.60]: You can pay a lot more. And sometimes that gets the deal done. We struck a couple deals that way last year, which is pretty good with mom and pop operators. It’s mainly fruit brokers and we close a couple deal brokers and they give us pocket listings. If depends how good the relationship is with a broker, sometimes you’re the only one seeing it, but most likely not. There’s other people too, but at least it’s not on the market.

[39:10.52]: We have a little bit less competition, but so far we did most of our deals basically off market, but of deals that have been on the market for a longer period of time. And we got a major discount because I realized it was overpriced and it was just like that tenacious followup. That’s what my partner Tim does really well.

[39:27.00]: And also in a very nice way, how he falls up and how they get the deal done. I think that’s where he’s a master, uh, at that skill because I think it’s like his nursing background too. He knows how to talk to people. I think that helps a lot too. We’re having the more, the more abrasive rougher, you know, harsh operations guy. I’m a little bit too direct. Um, I forget and talk to brokers pretty well too, but Tim is a lot better than me on that front. That’s how we get it done.

[39:55.44] Andrew: That’s great. That’s awesome. Let me ask you, what are the biggest red flags you watch out for when acquiring a new park?

[40:03.16] Matthias: Mainly the financials, really. We really looking forward to looking under the hoods of the financials, the bank accounts, the general ledgers. If someone has like rent manager already, I’m much relieved, um, because I can really just pull asking for pulling the GL report and looking at financials, balance sheet, and I get the bank statements and get everything reconciled that way.

[40:23.40]: If somebody doesn’t have any of that and then you don’t have to have rent manager, don’t get me wrong. But if they just have like financials on the back of a napkin, um, you really have to know what you’re doing to buy that asset because you have to know the market, you have to know what you can get out of this and maybe bake in some good reserves because you might lose your shirt in the beginning and have negative cash roll a good bit. 

[40:42.80]: We had one deal on the contract early 2025 where we fall like, man, this is such a home run deal. We bought it at like a 15 cap. I would have bought it in a 15 cap. We were like, this is a 15 caps. I must be wrong here. And the more we’ve been asking questions, the more we realized that the numbers never lined up verbally or in writing. And then we asked more and more questions. 

[41:03.76]: The more we looked at bank statements, it was so muddy because their personal finances went through the bank account, through the rental income on one bank account. It was impossible to see where stuff was coming from because they got all the rent payments cash. It was cash deposits and it was, everything was a mess. And then at some point we realized like from like conversations that the income was about like, it went from $400,000 income to like 210 or so was what we actually reconciled. 

[41:27.92]: Almost half and dropped in half. Stuff like that is a big red flag. That’s if there’s anything widely off on the financial side, it’s a major red flag for us because I mean, you can always turn things around.But with us like raising investor capital, there’s a ticking time clock in the background. You cannot just play money with the game, play game with the money. Sorry. 

[41:50.64]: You have to be really up to speed and just, and there’s only so much reserves you can really raise reasonably for before it’s just like wasting money, just for good money or bad. That’s  the biggest one. There’s a laundry list after that. For me, the financial side is the big one because it’s kind of like the health of the property.

[42:08.92] Andrew: For sure. What are the first two to three operational changes you implement after closing?

[42:14.64] Matthias: After closing, we usually send out like a tenant survey to see what people want to see changed. And we asked that question too, during the diligence when we meet them on site. And then usually do CapEx immediately. Like sometimes like even before we close, we schedule the stuff already because we don’t even close. Like, okay, let’s close day X and like two or three weeks later, let’s schedule the paving already. 

[42:32.86]: That’s how much confidence we have because we want to get it done. You just want to get out there. Operation improvements also like getting people on like cash pay and rent manager or like online payments, of course preferred, but many people do cash payments. They can do cash pay through rent manager, meaning they can still pay cash at the local retailer and the retailer scans a barcode. Then that will pay us electronically rent manager, which is the best of both worlds.

[43:00.04] Andrew: I think that’s a huge one.

[43:01.04] Matthias: It’s huge. I love that.

[43:02.04] Andrew: I think that’s like, if you’re going to do anything, do that because that, I mean, we were going to have to hire a person just to open checks, open the mail and just sit there and open checks all day. That’s a huge efficiency move right there.

[43:16.80] Matthias: It is. Whoever came up with this deserves to live on the island right now, for sure. That’s the main one. That’s actually the first one. And likely if somebody like the property we’re buying right now, the half brand manager, like we usually roll their rent roll into ours and then people already know cash pay and all that stuff. They just get like a new cash pay number. They get a new account number in rent manager. 

[43:38.44]: They know how everything works. But many times it’s not the case. You have to kind of educate people on it, how to pay, sending out the welcome letters and stuff, but like operational improvements, yeah, just digitizing everything, getting CapEx started and scheduled right away. And yeah, setting up bank accounts, left and right, and have everything separated.

[43:56.92]: Have all the, it’s like a little thing, but we realized, if you’re not on top of it, that falls off radar so fast, get everything set up day one, all the bank accounts are in, you start off the reserves day one, getting the rent payments coming in, have your taxes and insurance escrow accounts ready, have the capex account ready, have everything already separated and send up all these auto transfers already. 

[44:17.64]: The profit first mindset, like if you have an $8,000 a month investor prep, you have to pay pull that out every month, $8,000, like that money is gone. Don’t even account for it. You don’t have it. It’s, you know, that’s how we run the financials. We have always like, in Texas escrow going out every month and insurance and same for the investor prep and all that stuff going out every month. It’s like out sight, out of mind and it’s kind of like the profit first mindset and everybody else first.

[44:43.68] Andrew: We’re kind of running out of time. Okay. I just want to make sure I get through some of these because you’re a wealth of knowledge. I really appreciate you sharing all this with us. I wanted just to go through these real quick. Talking about deals you’ve done, right? Looking back, what’s one deal that really moved the needle for you and what specifically made it successful?

[45:03.72] Matthias: The first one, the first indication because even when we got on the contract or right before we got on the contract, we had no idea how to raise $1.3 million. That opened up the mindset of we can do it. And then it had a lot of parking homes, which was another  mental barrier to understand how can we turn these over? We knew how, because we’re doing it from other people, but how are you actually learning when you’re actually doing it? 

[45:25.16]: Then during this entire deal, we went from $260,000 NOI and when the seller had it to 550 in year one, we over doubled the NOI in year one on that, because the guy ran at like a 70% expense ratio and we run at 38. Major turnaround. That gave us so much confidence that we can take on some really, even ill ran portfolios. That one changed everything.

[45:48.40] Andrew: That’s great. On the flip side, can you share a deal that didn’t go as planned and what you learned from it? 

[45:54.64] Matthias: Yeah, there was one that was actually the first syndication on paper really well, well, conservatively underwritten. The problem is what we miscalculated is like when you buy in a small market with 3000 people and there’s no big town around the neck, the buyer pool for mismanaged or distressed homes is very small. Getting these off your hands takes forever. 

[46:20.00]: We have people passing away the tenant on homes and the hires don’t want to deal with it at all, for example. You have abandoned tenant on homes. Every time we gain a home or two, then we lose one over here and it’s just getting up on the leasing game there on the small market really bit us in the butt. We still make full prep payments, but we actually have to shut off like asset management fees to us because we couldn’t sustain the prep payments. 

[46:43.72]: We always guarantee our investors like, hey, we pay you first and we don’t get paid unless you get paid. This is one of the deals where we had to shut the answer management fee off just because the leasing is so much slower and smaller towns. That one is probably our worst deal that we ever did. It’s still doing pretty decent, but it’s definitely not as close as the other ones because the, you know, the small market dynamics. 

[47:05.40] Andrew: Yeah. No, thank you for sharing that. We’re going into the lightning round. Lightning round, no overthinking, no politically correct answers. It’s your honest quick take. I got 11 questions that I teed up with my friend chat, GPT. Are you ready for the lightning round?

[47:20.76] Matthias: Let’s do it, man. 

[47:23.08] Andrew: I wish I had lights. I could just flicker the lights right now. If you could own every mobile home park in one state, which state would it be?

[47:36.52] Matthias: We have a lot in South Carolina. I know the market so well. I would say South Carolina and there’s so much growth. I don’t live there anymore, but I still love the state. There must be South Carolina for me.

[47:48.52] Andrew:  One state you would avoid investing in? 

[47:50.00] Matthias: California. 

[47:51.52] Andrew: All right. Biggest, we know why. The biggest lie new operators tell themselves,

[47:59.00] Matthias: They know what they’re doing. 

[48:04.92] Andrew: One thing gurus teach that doesn’t actually work in real life. 

[48:10.92]  Matthias: Passive income. They must be too subtle. 

[48:16.96] Andrew: Especially from mobile home parks. There’s no such thing as an income unless you just did literally an LP. Okay. Here’s a good one. Most common reason new owners fail within two years?

[48:27.04] Matthias: It’s probably a mindset thing. Really? No business skills. Yeah. It just think it’s a hobby. It’s not a business. I think that’s the biggest one really. The approach is like a hobby, like a side thing that just is fun. It’s fun. I have fun with it, but you have to have the right mindset to make it fun. Then it’s still a business. You have to run as a business or things where they fail. 

[48:48.04] Andrew: We’ve bought in some parks from some people that are like, okay, this seems like a great thing. And then they buy it and they couldn’t sell it fast enough.  It will go down, get downhill fast. All right. Here’s a good one. Class C park in a good market or a Class A park in an okay one.

[49:06.20] Matthias:  I’d take a better market and improve it to a better class. If that makes sense. Mark gives you a lot of tailwinds. I’ll take that over. That’s good quality.

[49:18.56] Andrew: Evict fast or work with tenants. 

[49:21.28] Matthias: Evict yesterday. That means fast. That’s a Germany me. Like if you don’t pay, get out of there. That’s just me. That’s why we love South Carolina, man. I mean, they’re out in 30 days. The day of filing for days later, the judge is like, you know, they are so good there. I like the red states are all being political. It’s just so easily big people and it sounds harsh. I just want to clear the audience. If somebody doesn’t pay, I’m supposed to be there. It’s my opinion because we have a business to run.

 [49:45.40]: It’s also unfair to the other tenants that are in the park. They’re paying their rent with the hardearned money. Somebody doesn’t pay. I need to go.  I like the state to support that philosophy.

[49:55.08] Andrew: No, amen. I hear you on that month to month leases or longer term structure. 

[50:01.24] Matthias: Month to month. I was actually wrong with that at the beginning because I thought, Oh yeah, I want to have it locked in for a year. Then you had to do real estate long enough. You realize they’re going to leave when they want anyway. Let’s do month to month. At least I can increase rent at any time. So yeah. 

[50:13.20] Andrew: In other commercial real estate, you get benefits, right? You want a five year lease, a 10 year lease on like more industrial retail stuff, not in mobile home parks, at least from my perspective. Best predictor that a tenant will become a problem. 

[50:29.80] Matthias: Oh wow. Somebody that’s constantly on the phone and they’re like, it’s constantly telling you there’s something wrong. They give me, and it’s just like the over communicator. I think, in a bad way, of course there’s something that’s just super nice. I don’t want to talk to somebody. Of course they’re great. But you can tell within, and it just cuts you out right away. They have a $2,000 balance when you take over the property and it’s like, Oh, you’re nothing.Those people, you know, 

[50:56.20] Andrew: Who’s the better operator, the one who buys right or the one who manages best? 

[51:03.80] Matthias: The one that manages best because you can buy an average deal and make it great by managing it well, but you can really ruin a great deal if you don’t know how to manage it. It’s my take on it. 

[51:14.72] Andrew: That’s huge. That’s a good point. If rent control became widespread tomorrow, how would you pivot your strategy? 

[51:24.80] Matthias: Oh man. I would think that’s back to monthlies. I would increase everybody today as much as possible. Now, um, it’s good question. That’s why I’m going to be keeping close eye on this, but you should in the Southeast, you don’t really have a ton of rent control, even like being proposed. I mean, it’s always floats out there, but if you look at the states that have rent control, it doesn’t really help supply because money goes where it’s treated well. 

[51:52.32]: If you make it more difficult to invest in markets, I think it actually creates problems and bubbles somewhere else. I think it’s not a solution anyway. I think some states realize that. Even if let’s say if it hypothetically becomes an issue, I think I probably re-pivot off like  where we want to place purchases and acquisitions in the future, to be quite honest.

[52:12.88]: In different states or let’s say you said nationwide, right? I made me a different asset class. Even you have to consider it being that aggressive. Is it actually worthwhile? I don’t know. I never really thought about that because I don’t think it’s like a overnight thing.

[52:25.00] Andrew: It’s definitely not an overnight thing, but it’s just an interesting question to think about.If you were going to invest passively as an LP into a mobile home park deal with your own money, what’s the top things top things you would look at to ensure, he deals set up for success: 

[52:43.80] Matthias: Track records, see what they already done, the sponsor. And that’s really important. Also look at some deals that did full cycle in the past that speaks volumes and maybe talk to some other investors. If they’re happy to give you referrals, you know, if you want to invest with somebody to see if they have any referrals and testimonials, I think that’s big. 

[53:01.36]: Look if they have properties in that same market already, like that shows they  have market knowledge, which is important. I mean, we peers into new markets all the ] time too, but at least, you know, we have a pretty sizable portfolio. We did it several times before, but I mean, there’s always a first time, right? And do you want to place that money in somebody’s hands that, you know, creates new proving grounds and test things?

[53:25.00]: Usually that should be attached with a higher return profile because it’s a little bit higher risk. And it’s usually, that’s what we did in the beginning too. We knew we had no drag records, we gave high preferred returns. Like our seconds indicate had a 10% preferred return. It’s wild, but we raised capital pretty easy with a 10%. And that deal is performing really well. Anyway, you have to ask the right questions, look at the track record. I think that speaks volumes and get some referrals.

[53:50.12] Andrew: That’s good advice. Thanks for that. Well, Matthias, I’m just grateful, man. I know we covered a lot in a short amount of time. Thanks for coming on the show. I really appreciate your insights. If any of our listeners would like to get a hold of you or WCG investments, where’s the best place for them to do so?

[54:08.96] Matthias:  I’m very active on LinkedIn and Facebook. Just my name, Matthias Gruenwald. And then also, if you want to reach out on our website, WCG investments, there’s like a discovery call button right there that goes straight to one of us, which is the three founders, which is myself, my partner, Tim Woodbridge or Vinny Carias and our team. 

[54:26.00]: You can actually find more about what we do, where we have our acquisitions placed in the future, where opportunities are and stuff like that. But always feel free to reach out personally as well on LinkedIn and Facebook, if you have any questions how to get started or if you’re stuck somewhere, happy to help people to kind of show what mistakes we made and how to make sure you don’t make them and you’ll copy them. So happy to help everybody.

[54:47.72] Andrew: Awesome. Thanks again, Matthias. That’s it for today, folks. If you got value out of this episode, please consider leaving us a review. It really helps more listeners find the show, but thanks for tuning in. We’ll catch you next time on the Passive Mobile Home Park Investing Podcast. See you guys. 

[55:04.32]  Matthias: See you. Thanks, Andrew.

[55:05.32] outro: