SHOW NOTES

Welcome back to The Passive Mobile Home Park Investing Podcast, hosted by Andrew Keel.
In this episode, Andrew Keel sits down with Leo Young, co-founder of Cornell Communities, to discuss his journey from working at Tesla to building a successful career in mobile home park investing.

Leo shares what drew him to the mobile home park investment thesis, how he built an efficient operations team to scale his trailer park portfolio, and the key lessons he has learned from both wins and mistakes. Listeners will hear real-world insights on raising capital, managing park-owned mobile homes, navigating rent control and regulatory changes, and what it really takes to create passive income through mobile home park investments.

With experience on a $4.5 billion private equity acquisition team and over $50 million in real estate transactions, Leo brings a unique perspective combining operational expertise, strategic investing, and hands-on management to the mobile home park investing asset class.

Topics covered in this episode:

• Leo Young’s journey from Tesla to mobile home park investing
• What first attracted him to the mobile home park investment thesis
• Building an efficient operations team to scale a mobile home park portfolio
• Raising capital for mobile home park investments
• Lessons learned from mobile home park deals that looked good on paper but failed in reality and in due diligence
• Managing park-owned mobile homes and ensuring reliable on-site managers
• The importance of having strong people on the ground and being on-site
• Navigating rent control and increasing regulatory pressures
• The mindset and work ethic required to succeed in the mobile home park industry
• Spicy lightning round: fun insights and quick takes on manufactured housing communities

About Leo Young Leo Young is the co-founder of Cornell Communities and has been involved in over $50 million worth of real estate transactions. He previously served on the acquisition team of a $4.5 billion private equity fund. Before real estate, Leo was the #1 Regional Salesperson at Tesla, an experience that shaped his approach to operations, leadership, and scaling investments in mobile home parks.

About Andrew Keel
Andrew Keel is the owner of Keel Team, LLC, a Top 50 Owner of Manufactured Housing Communities with over 3,250 lots under management. His team currently manages more than 50 manufactured housing communities across 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 can significantly boost both asset value and net operating income. Learn more at keelteam.com

Check out Andrew’s FREE e-book: “The Top 20 Things You Need to Know Before You Start Investing in MHPs” — available on our website here: https://keelteam.com/top-20-things-learned-from-mobile-home-park-investing/

Andrew has been featured on some of the top podcasts in the manufactured housing space. Listen to his most recent interviews here: keelteam.com/podcast-links.

To successfully implement his management strategy, Andrew’s team often relocates on-site during the first several months of ownership. Find out more about Andrew’s story at andrewkeel.com

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Want to see mobile home park projects in progress? Follow us on Instagram: @passivemhpinvesting for photos and videos from our latest acquisitions.

Want to see mobile home park projects in progress? Follow us on Instagram: @passivemhpinvesting for photos and videos from our latest acquisitions.

Talking Points:

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

01:10 – Leo Young’s journey from Tesla to mobile home park investing

04:45 – What drew Leo Young to the mobile home park investment thesis

08:19 – Building Leo Young’s operations team and scaling the business

11:17 – Raising capital for mobile home park acquisitions

13:00 – Mobile home park deals that looked great on paper but failed in reality

15:50 – Managing park-owned mobile homes and reliable on-site managers

18:16 – The importance of good people on-site and hands-on mobile home park management

22:27 – Navigating rent control and regulatory changes

24:35 – Doing whatever it takes to succeed in the mobile home park industry

28:00 – Spicy lightning round questions

30:45 – How to reach out to Leo Young

31:04 – Conclusion

SUBSCRIBE TO PASSIVE MOBILE HOME PARK INVESTING PODCAST YOUTUBE CHANNEL https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCy9uI3KGQmFgABsr9lUtRTQ

Links & Mentions from This Episode:

Cornell Communities: https://www.cornell-communities.com/

Leo Young: https://leoyoungrealestate.com/

Leo on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/leo-young

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

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

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

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

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

Twitter: @MHPinvestors

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TRANSCRIPT

Andrew:  Welcome to the Passive Mobile Home Park Investing podcast. I’m your host, Andrew Keel, and today I’m excited to welcome a friend and fellow operator, Leo Young, co-founder of Cornell Communities on the show. Leo has been involved in over $50 million worth of real estate transactions. He is up to over 400 lots in his mobile home park portfolio. He used to serve on the acquisitions team of a $4.5 billion private equity fund. Before real estate, he was the number one regional salesperson at Tesla, an experience that helped shape him into who he is today. Leo, welcome to the show.

Leo: Thanks so much for having me on, Andrew. Excited to be here.

Andrew: Yeah. To start out, would you mind sharing a little about your story and how in the world you ended up in manufactured housing communities?

Leo: Definitely. It was not a linear path, I will say that. I just popped out, went to Brookfield or something like that, and got the shoe in. I’ll give the highlights basically. Growing up, I’ve always been interested into investments. I studied finance in college. I think I really enjoy the why behind numbers. I was never a spreadsheet guy, but more so like, okay, why is this business like this? Why is this good? Why is this not? I asked a lot of questions.

After college, actually, I took the leap of faith into sales. I ended up at Tesla as you know because Tesla at the time was my dream company to be at. I was like, I will sweep the floors if I have to as long as I work there because I was just so enamored by Elon and what he’s working on, his mission. Going there just trained me like no other. I was there the third and most recent time they went bankrupt. It was really intense. It gave me a lot of good work ethic and just appreciation for hard work.

During that time I got really burnt out. As you can imagine in sales, it’s just like you’re in a little hamster wheel. You’re just like commission after commission month after month. Running those sprints, I was just tired. I had come to Jesus’ moment, where a coworker’s father suddenly died. He was riding a motorcycle and hit by a car. I was like, oh, crap. What if that happens to me? I don’t know. Anything can happen in life. I was like, okay, how do I make income that, God forbid, if I got hit by something really bad, I can’t walk into work, I could still receive cash and still survive? That led me to real estate.

I did the deep dive into BiggerPockets, was listening to all the podcasts, and reading all the good stuff. I eventually started as a passive investor into some apartment buildings. I got hooked from there. After the first distribution check, I was like, wow, I didn’t have to do anything for this. These guys are just making money for me. It’s amazing.

Learning about depreciation, I had a mini scare there. I was like, wait, I thought this investment was making money. What are you talking about it’s losing money? Then I learned about depreciation. After that I was like, okay, this is the way, I’m a long-term guy. I want to just plan out my path for the next 10-20 years plus. I think real estate is a good field to be in.

I got my license. I wanted to learn and earn at the same time. I was one to not say no to opportunities to learn. I had many different kinds of transactions from rentals to sales, investments, luxury housing, commercial, residential, everything. Through that, I got recruited to a real estate fund on their acquisitions team, just helping them purchase assets nationwide.

I connected with a mutual friend. We learned from each other that we’re both in real estate somewhat. He has a finance/private equity background, and he’s saying, hey, here’s the investment thesis, I’m at this fund, I’m learning a lot, it’s great. They’re investing in mobile home parks. I was like, wait, what? Mobile what? He sat me down and he walked me through the investment thesis. I was like, ah, that’s interesting. Now we’re here.

Andrew: Let’s talk about that investment thesis for a minute. What were the things that were like, okay, this makes sense. This was after you had already made some investments into apartments and you’ve been exposed a little bit. Tell me about that. Tell me about the investment thesis and what really stuck out to you.

Leo: I think if it is twofold, it was that I can make money and I can do good. The one side which a lot of people hear about is that mobile home parks, they’re hard to get zoned. It’s like nobody wants them. The zoning in and of itself is valuable. People typically come and their average tendency is 10 years plus as opposed to 18 months for multifamily. That’s one thing, having a sticky form of cash flow with relatively low expenses. I think from an investment standpoint, non-operation. Operations is a whole nother story as we know.

I think the flip side is it’s actually a practical path to home ownership for a lot of people. Especially in America, real estate is such a big vehicle for wealth building for a lot of Americans. Nowadays, housing has just gotten so unaffordable. As we know, through Covid, prices jumped up 20%-30% and just never came back down. The opportunity is that you can actually allow people, give them a path to home ownership that maybe they wouldn’t otherwise have had.

Andrew: Let me ask you this. This is your first time you’re learning about mobile home parks, you’re learning the investment thesis, and it’s very altruistic of you to care about the affordable housing and providing all of that. Was that really the catalyst that was like, okay, I want to invest in this, or was it some of the dynamics into the assets themselves?

Leo: I would say it’s probably 70/30 that 70% this is a viable investment, and 30% it’s actually something good. I think for me, I’ve always been very mission driven, hence why I joined Tesla. Tesla’s mission is to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy. Doing that and just being part of a positive force, that’s always something that’s near and dear to my heart, doing good. Obviously everyone’s got to make money. We’re not a nonprofit. Having that dynamic certainly helps.

Andrew: Cool. For me, when I learned about the shrinking supply, where there’s more mobile home parks being torn down than new ones being built, I was like, boom. I don’t have to own the homes. I had owned a bunch of single family homes before I got into parks, and I don’t have to do repairs on appliances and fix all the things that I had to do before. I was like, okay, those two things, this is really attractive.

Personally, I love providing affordable housing. I love the benefit of cleaning up a dirty old trailer park. Don’t get me wrong, but that was my aha moment. You’re up to 400 lots. We were just talking before we hit record. You got another a hundred on the way. That 500 lot mark is a big number, at least it was for me. It threw off all of our systems that we had used before getting to that point because we had to reconfigure everything. Tell me about your operation. It’s you, you have a partner. What does your operations team look like?

Leo: Yeah, definitely. I think I definitely had that similar realization that what got us here will not get us there. There is a lot of reconfiguring that needs to happen. I’ve been just voraciously listening to podcasts, asking people how they’re setting up their ops and stuff. I actually just got back from a conference in Nashville. I am in. I learned a ton there just talking to other people.

To answer your question on the team, right now we keep our team pretty small. I think it’s me, a couple other partners, and then we have a few staff members under us. Basically, the way that we set up the machine is for us, we have a lot of investors into our deals. We syndicate them. We have a little bit of asset management fee. For us, we run it at cost pretty much. The budget doesn’t go to our pockets, it goes to payroll, subscriptions, tech, all that stuff. We’re just figuring out how to make everything work.

At this budget level, it’s a lot of call it more entry level people that we have to bring on. Still, there’s a lot to be done when it comes to operations. For us, we really took it to ourselves to make the most foolproof system that we can. We really emphasize systems, routines, having good SOPs, recording ourself doing something, giving people checklist, and giving these guys KPIs. Every week it’s like, what’s your number at? Running the EOS system, which a lot of people are doing, I think that’s been very helpful. For me, making order from chaos is calming because chaos is no fun.

Andrew: Yeah. I agree with you there. How many team members do you have in the property management? Are you vertically integrated, or do you use another party for that?

Leo: Yup. Some are in-house, some are third party. There’s no one size fits all solution. I think it’s a matter of what’s our team’s capacity, how far is this asset from us? I’m based in New York and we have some assets in New Jersey. Those are easy to do in-house, I could just drive down there.

If it’s in the midwest, in the southeast, or something, we probably need a third party with infrastructure behind them to make sure things are done. Especially when you go down to midwest, Southeast, you can get up to a hundred lots. They’re paying you $300 a month, as opposed to in New Jersey. It’s $700 and you’re still the lowest in town. It’s a different game. There’s no right answer. To answer your question on staff members, I think we’re at 10 right now total.

Andrew: Nice. Okay. Raising capital, that’s something that I think was a whole new world. It’s like a whole new wing to your business when you really start doing that. What’s one lesson from raising capital that you wish you knew on day one?

Leo: That’s a great question, I think. One lesson on capital raising I wish I knew is that it’s not so much the marketing as it is the product. In anything, there’s the product and the promotion, which I think a lot of people early on, they focus on the promotion a lot and putting it out there. I was having a lot of initial conversations early on, and people are like, okay, what’s your experience, how many times have you done this? I’m like, I don’t know. I’m just starting out. I would be honest with them.

It’s fine. We’re still having conversations every now and then, but it’s not an immediate makes sense. I think just to figure out what moves your needle forward the most, and to me it’s like friends and family because they know me, they know my work ethic. They’ve heard me talk about mobile home parks at dinner parties all the fricking time. I can shut off about it. They understand that asset class and they’re like, yeah, what the heck? Why not? I got some cash laying around, let’s do it. I think leveraging that more, then obviously building the resume as you go, and then letting that speak for itself.

Andrew: Totally. Yeah. Building that track record was the hardest because you don’t have that infrastructure of investors. It’s friends and family. That’s all you got. Those are the hardest deals because you don’t have that track record, but then once you do build the track record, the money comes. That’s one of the easier parts if the deals weren’t good enough. Let me ask you, Leo, what deal of yours looked amazing on paper but became a total headache once you took it over?

Leo: There’s this one park that looked really good on paper. I think it crunched really nicely in Excel, but it was majority park owned homes. We obviously didn’t know what we didn’t know, and we’re like, yeah, we can just convert them to rent-to-owns, we just make some phone calls, and stuff like that. The reality is that, hey, these homes need repair.

How do you manage working capital? It’s not like you could just blow your load and just repair all the homes at the same time. You have to be really strategic. You have to manage cash in, cash out. You have to manage two to four homes at a time, sell those, move it to the next one, and so forth. That changed things a little bit. Just the sheer amount of time needed to make sure that each unit is inventoried correctly that you know the actual condition of it.

I think a disconnect that we found was the offsite team versus the onsite team. We didn’t know what was stopping the sale. Showings would happen, people would come and go, but what’s stopping them? Actually going on site, taking closer inventory, and you’re like, okay, there’s a soft spot there. Okay, this needs that. Okay, I get you. That makes sense. That was the bringing order to chaos moment for us.

Andrew: Very cool. Yeah, the park owned homes are tough. We’ve had similar issues, where we took over a whole park that was all park owned. It’s hard to estimate the vacancy that you’re going to have on those and proforma for it because every market’s a little different. Would you mind just telling us how are you finding your new deals, what’s your criteria, and how has that evolved?

Leo: Yeah. I think the simple and transparent answer is that for us as a company, it’s a step of the journey. It’s not like we have everything figured out. What is happening today may not happen tomorrow. I think right now we do a mixture of broker and wholesaler deals versus direct outreach deals, while we build that up. There is no right or wrong way because there are pros and cons.

If you reach out directly to a mom and pop owner, ideally they haven’t heard of the valuations and stuff like that. Maybe you can get it for cheaper, but maybe they don’t have as good of a record. Maybe you’ll find some things during diligence that they weren’t forthright with versus a deal coming from a broker. Yeah. It’s closer to market value, so to speak, but they’ve done their diligence because they want to get paid. They don’t want buyers backing out, so they’ll ask those questions up ahead and prepare a nice little package for you. I think it’s a bit of both.

Andrew: Yeah. That’s good. What’s the most expensive operator mistake that you’ve come across that we can learn from?

Leo: I think you know that I mentioned that earlier. It’s the park-owned homes. I think we didn’t properly budget enough working capital for it because we just didn’t really assume that these homes would need that much work. Some of them have boilers that need to be replaced, roofings all shot, or the flooring. These are not cheap items. I think that and also QCing your contractors. They’re eager to get the capital or they’re eager to get paid, but then whether or not they do a good work, it’s up to you. You need to have good processes like, okay, take photos, but then also ideally, have your onsite manager or something.

Go FaceTime. You go take a video and actually show me what’s going on. A photo will not show you a soft spot versus a manager walking through, oh, yup, that’s a soft spot right there. Then you know what’s going on. I think budgeting is super important. I think for mobile home parks, they have such a low default rate on paper. I think one of the reasons that people blow up their business plan and need to sell distress is that they don’t have enough working capital set aside. They run out of money and they’re like, crap, how do I pay my vendors? How do I pay taxes and fire sale?

Andrew: Yeah. I also like having reserves because stuff’s going to come up. You would think that a home that’s occupied when you closed on the property, that’s a park-owned home that maybe goes vacant a couple months after you own it, you would think, okay, it can’t be that bad, right because there were people living in this home. That’s the furthest thing from the truth, yeah. Some people live in a mess.

Leo: They live in smaller.

Andrew: Exactly, which is very surprising. You need to have those reserve funds to be able to come in and rehab those. I think that’s a good point. Don’t expect to just use cash flow because you’re only going to be able to go so far, and it will slow the whole project down. That’s good. That’s really good advice there.

Leo: Yeah. The rule of thumb is 50% of the rental you set aside for repairs. Sometimes that’s not enough. Sometimes you turn a unit and you’re like, oh, crap, they didn’t tell me about all this.

Andrew: Totally. Yeah. What does the perfect mobile home park look like in your eyes, and why?

Leo: Something owned by Sun Communities at a good price.

Andrew: Are you ready to pay four cap?

Leo: Yeah, I know. I don’t know how to do it, but I think a perfect one is, aside from all the obvious points that people will say, city utilities, nice enough scale to support a staff, resources, and whatnot, but I think what’s important is that you have good people inside. Operators don’t talk about this a lot. A few bad apples can really spoil the bunch. When you have some people that are not doing good things like drug dealers, that will change the vibe of your park really quickly. You’ll have people moving out, they’re not going to tell you why. Lo and behold, three people moved down last month or something.

One intangible that we budget for is a fun budget. It is a community enhancement. We will give a park manager  a few hundred bucks. Just do something that brings people together that makes them feel good and feel proud of living where they are. I think that’s super important, and then you can weed out the people. The residents talk to each other and they’ll compare notes. They’re like, oh, yeah, that guy, he’s up to no good. These little things will actually come out. It’s an interesting learning. It’s actually a good ROI, but it doesn’t make sense on paper.

Andrew: One thing you said early on there was that a few bad apples can spoil the bunch. That’s with your tenant base, but also with your onsite managers. One thing that we found is a very good onsite manager literally is worth their weight gold because everything will run seamlessly. They’re going to be firm, but not a jerk when addressing and communicating with the residents. A bad onsite manager just tell you what you want to hear. When you get the walkthrough video of the park, they’re leaving part of the park out of the video, and they’re not showing you things. That’s where getting onsite is just so valuable because you’re really going to be able to see through things.

I thought that was a good comment that you really have to stay on these things from a management standpoint and, like you’re saying, weed the bad apples out so that you’re going to attract a good bunch that’s going to stay there a long time and not have that constant churn, which is really like the spiral of death in a mobile home park. If people keep moving out and you don’t know why, it’s likely your manager’s doing something weird and causing problems. You need to get on site as soon as possible because again, that’s just capex money that you’re going to have to reinvest to get those homes back online. It’s very expensive, and you might be getting rid of good tenants just because something’s going wrong.

Leo: Definitely. I will add now that you mentioned that. Being onsite at properties is absolutely imperative, I will say. I think a lot of people like to just manage things offsite with Excel, their dashboards, and stuff, but nothing can replace going onsite.

Andrew: I know you’re onsite right now in Barton County, Kansas. Before we hit record, Leo was telling me how he’s out in Kansas. He is in a motel room looking at one of his parks. I applaud you for that, dude, because you got to get boots on the ground. You’ll learn a lot fast.

Leo: Definitely. Yeah. I think you have to definitely set aside that budget. For those that are investing out of state, then you have to budget for that. It’s not that you can’t manage a property out of state, just budget a little bit more once or twice a year. If you’re able to go onsite, that would be good. I think the important thing is that your onsite manager, yes, they’re worth their weight and goal, but there are problems that they can’t solve due to their skill, or they don’t know how to process it. Just walking through the property with them and seeing what’s going on, talking to the residents, that will show you things that you need to do for the next six months to a year.

Andrew: Totally. Let’s talk about rent control. How do you think that increasing regulations will impact the mobile home park sector over the next five to 10 years?

Leo: That’s a great question. I will say that I know nothing. Nobody could predict the future with their crystal ball. I think just educated philosopher’s opinion is going to make the market more inefficient because generally, regulation just stymies the efficient flow of the economy. If you think of the economy, it’s a construct. It’s a group of people and it’s how they spend their money. If you block it, then it’s going to flow a certain way that causes other issues.

If you think of it like a water leak. If you plug the hole here, it’s just going to come out there. There’s definitely going to be unintended consequences. I guess the sad part is that a lot of the people who pass these rules have the best intentions at heart. They see these hardworking people. They’re like, oh, I can’t afford it. Okay, fine. Let’s do this, but what is that expose? Maybe then the property owner doesn’t have enough money to put the proper money back into the property.

We’ll see these apartment buildings. The class C apartment buildings have gone really downhill sometimes, and it’s just like the owners don’t have money for big capex items like roof replacements. For an apartment building, it’s $400,000 or something. Maybe for mobile home parks, maybe they didn’t set aside enough money to replace failing septic systems or a treatment plant, God forbid. I think that’s just going to make it more and more inefficient, but who knows? Maybe that was the plan all along, get these parks shut down, redeveloped into multifamily, or something that gives the city more tax revenue, but who knows? I think we could all just hypothesize.

Andrew: Yeah, totally. Leo, looking back at your career so far, what’s one deal that stands out as like a home run, and what made it so successful if you had to just talk about one?

Leo: I wouldn’t say it’s a deal in the sense of a property, but I think it’s a deal that I made with myself that I will do whatever it takes to succeed in this industry. I think when I went into the initial years, the way that you learn in industry, usually you start from listening from others like podcast books, whatever, and then you see the rubber meets the pavement. Okay, this is what you’re up against.

Initially, I didn’t really like operations. I was like, man, these tenants are calling me, asking me how to pay rent. I’m like, I already sent them a video on how to do that. Why are they wasting my time doing this? I think I realized that, hey, I am the end all, be all. The buck stops with me. Investors are trusting me and my team to do whatever is necessary to make the property running well. Also, the tenants trust us to give them a good, clean place to live in. I think just stepping up and not being afraid to get your hands dirty, that’s a big revelation for me. I think that’s the best decision that I’ve made mentally, at least.

Andrew: I love it. Burn the boats. Yeah. That’s great, man. If you were a passive investor and you had some capital to allocate in the space into mobile home park investments, what are some pieces of advice you would give yourself before you deploy that capital?

Leo: I would say the jockey is almost as important as the horse. I think a lot of people look at spreadsheets and pitch decks. They see a nice, sexy number, they’re like, oh, yes, let’s do it. Then they forget. They don’t ask the extra questions. They don’t vet out the sponsors. Lo and behold, maybe they don’t have the tenacity to handle something.

Anyone can have a nice resume, but when crap hits the fan, what are you going to do? There are people that, in general, it’s like more educated people. They’re like, oh, we didn’t foresee this happening, blah, blah, blah. That’s why we’re stopping your distributions. Versus a guy who’s a little bit more just like, screw it, I’m going to step up and I’m going to make it happen. I’m going to lend the deal my own money. I’m going to keep it afloat and do whatever it takes.

I think having that person on your team, that’s infinitely valuable because no property is always going to turn out the way that you think it will, but what you can do as a passive investor, you’re essentially seeding control to the property to someone. You want to make sure that they can actually take care of it. I would say, probably 60/40 split. The property’s got to be good, you do all your checks, but also vet out the sponsor.

One last thing on the sponsor is that, for me, I almost always make it a note to try to speak to the people making the decisions. I don’t want to talk to some investor relations guy because they’re just going to tell you what you want to hear as opposed to the actual sponsor itself. You get to see how they think through problems and what they’re actually like. Those are the two important things.

Andrew: That’s good advice. All right, I have this little lightning round that I put together. ChatGPT helped me with some cool, spicy questions to ask you here. Just shoot out, we’re going to go quick. Just shoot out the first thing that comes to your head, all right?

Leo: Okay.

Andrew: All right. If you could own every mobile home park in one state, which would it be? You’re hesitating.

Leo: I know you said quick. New Jersey.

Andrew: New Jersey. Wow. Okay, I didn’t see that coming. One state or market you avoid or you wouldn’t own in?

Leo: Illinois.

Andrew: Illinois, okay. The number of lots in your most recent mobile home park acquisition.

Leo: Soon to be a hundred.

Andrew: Okay, but before that.

Leo: Hundred and five.

Andrew: Nice. Do you own any parks with wastewater treatment plants or lagoons?

Leo: No, not yet, but I’m learning that it’s not as bad as people make it out to be. Just got to go in with the right budget.

Andrew: Yeah, and just understand it and be okay learning all about them. Yeah, that’s good. What’s the first image that comes to mind when you hear trailer park, mobile home park, or manufactured housing community?

Leo: Three different words. Trailer Park, it’s Trailer Park Boys. It’s just a stereotype. Mobile Home park, I would say Frank Rolfe. Manufactured housing community, I think all the institutions like Circadia, Sun, Brookfield, these guys.

Andrew: Yeah, that’s good. Last one. What would you be doing if you didn’t get into mobile home parks?

Leo: Investing somehow. I always love investing. I think I just love to make predictions on the future and place strategic bets on it. One way or the other, maybe it’s stocks, real estate, or something else.

Andrew: Cool. Anything else you think that a passive investor should know before we sign off here?

Leo: Yeah. I would say definitely try to get some face time with a sponsor that you are working with. Try to just understand them over time. It’s not a rush. You work hard for your money. We obviously work hard for your money too, but just get to know the team. Don’t rush into something and also have the right frame of mind. If there’s no risk, there’s no reward. If you keep your money in your bank, that’s 1% versus okay, this stuff definitely has risks. Learn it, be okay with it, and just invest accordingly. Not financial advice.

Andrew: Yes. I believe that. Leo, thank you so much for coming on the show, man.

Leo: Thank you, Andrew. I appreciate it very much.

Andrew: How can our listeners connect with you if they’re interested in learning more about what you’re doing at Cornell Communities?

Leo: Yeah. You can either reach out to me. You can find me on LinkedIn or social media. It’s @leoyoung, or you can go to our website, cornell-communities.com. I’m pretty easy to find. I’m the only Leo Young especially in mobile home parks.

Andrew: Awesome, man. Thanks again. That’s it for today, folks. If you got value out of this episode, please consider leaving us a review. It really does help us get more listeners that can find the show. Thank you all so much for tuning in.

Leo: Thank you.