A lot of times they’ve deteriorated, whether it’s roads, a lot of times it’s empty lots. So they put a value on empty lot that’s producing nothing. Even if you’re just retail Ricky working with trying to buy your first house, be a pain in the ass to sell to. I will say that those web leads are competitive flight. If they come through there, I’m not the only person they Googled. The direct mail, sometimes people are getting hammered and sometimes you’ll be the only person at the table. I think I would focus on talking to as many motivated sellers as humanly possible. And I guess that could be in a lot of different ways. Are you going to text or are you going to door knock or whatever? But the more conversations you have, the more business you’re going to do. The investors I see that don’t do well are the ones that try to do some of both.

(00:43)
I’m working with a group right now where I’m just-

What’s going on guys? Patrick, thank you so much for coming on. I know you’re doing tons of deals out in North Carolina. I’m curious to kind of take a step back and see how you got into real estate in the first place.

Yep. Back in college, I was turned on to the Purple and Gold book, the Rich Dad Poor Dad book, came from the car business. I grew up in the car business, so buying and selling and the entrepreneur bug was always there. But that Rich Dad Poor Dad book is the one that did it, bought my first couple properties as retail boring as you could. Just called an agent. He probably saw me coming, good credit score, a little income, and loans were easy back then. This was before that big bubble. So probably like 04. Anybody could get a loan, even a college kid. And bought the first house just a boring rental. The next one I was able to get was a condo, and that’s where the light bulb really, really went off because it was a very nice condo and a nice part of Greenville, North Carolina in a university town. A grad student moved in. She was a little older. I could tell it was a good family. She was probably in her mid 20s. She got accepted to grad school. She moved in paying good rent. And a month or so later, her parents called and said, “We’d like to buy that condo from you. ” And I was really blunt, really new. I was like, “I’m fine to sell it, but I just got a mortgage on it and I saw the appraisal and it just magically matched what I paid.” And I says, “I don’t know how I make any money selling it to you. ” And the parents said, “Well, we don’t need a mortgage. We’re going to pay cash.” And that was unheard of to me. I think the condo was 150 grand or something back then. And they said our daughter, her name was Laura, she likes it. She wants to be there. She’s going to be in Greenville for a few more years and we want to buy it. I think I told them 10,000 over with my closing.That’s what I wanted to walk away with. And a couple weeks it was done. And that’s where the bug hit me because I had been buying, selling cars, that kind of thing. Make 500 bucks, you felt good. And then a $10,000 rip when I really didn’t spend a whole lot of money to do it. It was credit, right? The leverage part of it. And that’s kind of what got the start 20 years ago.

That’s awesome. And when it goes to cars flipping it into houses, it’s a different ballgame, but it’s a similar mindset of buying low and selling high. Yeah. When it came to that deal, was there something specific that kind of opened your eyes or kind of blew your mind a little bit that really was like, okay, this is where I need to be at?

It was a slower game than the cars. Cars was volume. Do a lot of cars, but both of them were relationships. So relationships on the buying side, the agent, the seller liking you, being straightforward with my buyer, her parents and kind of what I needed to accomplish for it to make sense. And it made sense for them. And another key takeaway was not to ever assume that somebody is … Well, don’t ever assume anything. I assumed that everybody needed to borrow money and get an appraisal, but they were like, “Hold up, man. We don’t need an appraisal.” I understand that now, but back then, I don’t know, that was a foreign language to me. I thought the appraiser was the one that made all the rules, but nah, he’s not. So yeah, a lot of similarities. And I’ve since gotten into the mobile home park business in a pretty big way. And that’s very similar to cars. In fact, in North Carolina, they’re treated like cars, car titles. And it’s again, relationship. Most of everything I’ve bought has been off market. So it’s building a relationship with a seller. It’s a long sales cycle. Buying and selling a car, that’s quick because you buy it today, sell it tomorrow. But there’s mobile home park owners that we’ve been in contact with for years before they’re ready to do something. You

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When it comes to the mobile home parks, what are you at now? And then what’s your goal? And then how are you finding them? I know you say relationship based, but is there somewhere you’re going or something that you’re doing to attract them to you? How are you finding these people? And then what’s that process look like and where do you want to take it?

Yeah, good question. So we’ve got eight mobile home parks now. There’s smaller parts, but total is over 200 lots. We are just about a hundred percent full, which is kind of unheard of. And we primarily are lot rent only. So we buy a park. It’s got a lot of trailers that come with it. We will trash them out, fix them up, whatever we need to do. But we sell them to a homeowner. They pay us lot rent. They own their home. They get ready to move, they can. They want to stay there and pay lot rent, be a good community member, we want them to stay. I could see us doubling that over the next few years, doubling our portfolio just because it kind of snowballs into conversations that you’ve been having. Stuff just kind of comes your way. I’ve never bought a mobile home park. I’m trying to think if I’ve ever bought one that was on market. I don’t think I have. I’m just kind of the guy around here. A lot of people are cold calling and I get texts every day. It’s like a random LLC. “Hi, Patrick, LLC. We want to talk to you about buying your park. “I’ve never done that. Just relationship based. Just older fellow who built his park is aging out. He sells it to me and then he tells his buddy at the McDonald’s morning coffee that Patrick was good to deal with. So I probably should scale it and really do the high outreach type of stuff. But what I’ve done is worked and I stay local. We don’t go out of state and buy anything. I know our laws, I know our rules. So yeah, I could see us Dublin, but I’m not a real large operator. So some of these guys that are 10,000 lots, doubling is big for them. But yeah, I could see us getting to 15 parks, 20 parks in the next couple years.

I love it. I love it. What was the main problem that you were trying to solve when starting this business?

Yep. So a huge problem, and one reason why most sellers sell is when I’m talking about mobile home parks is cash. And there are parks that a lot of times have deteriorated, whether it’s roads, a lot of times it’s empty lots. So they put a value on empty lot that’s producing nothing. And they will tell you when they’re talking as well, all you got to do is rent that lot out. Well, that is not as easy. And it’s just easier said than done. It usually takes 50 grand to get that lot producing, whether you go buy a mobile home, move it in or incentivize somebody or work with dealers. And what I always try to politely point back to them is if it was that easy, you would’ve done it. So the problem usually is cash and deferred maintenance. And that’s also on the we buy houses side of my business. Just motivated sellers calling a lot of times is some form of distress, physical properties run down or cash or divorce or death or something. The parks is very similar. Very seldom do we buy a perfect park that’s 100% and at market rent. Those things aren’t really for sale.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, why do you think so many investors overlook mobile homes? Because I know mobile homes are very lucrative when you do it right, but a lot of investors stay away from it. What do you think it is about that that makes them stay away?

I think it’s a stigma, and a lot of that stigma went away around COVID. Man, it is crazy investors that had gotten into it. But the investors I see that don’t do well are the ones that try to do some of both. I’m working with a group right now where I’m just helping them sell units in their park. They own a really, really nice mobile home park, but they are industrial and multifamily guys. They bought this park back during the COVID time, looked great on paper, but it’s a different animal than a class apartment building or even industrial, small bay industrial kind of deal. I think on paper, it looks good, but you need to be all in the mobile home business if you’re in it. It’s hard to play the apartment game and the mobile home game, in my opinion, which is why I don’t have self-storage. I don’t have apartments. This is kind of what we do. It’s

Really

Blue collar too. It’s not a sexy business, but I’ve been in, like I said, I came from the car business, which we were actually in the buyer payer business. So we were owner financing the cars. I’ve been in the laundromat business in a pretty big way and I’ve done ATM machines so that everything I’ve been in has been kind of that blue collar lucrative, but you’ve got to get up and get after it every

Day. Man, yeah. What do you think the most common misconception is about what you offer as far as the mobile home parks go?

About what we offer to our customers or the people we’re buying from or-

Buying from.

I would say the most common misconception … Well, I don’t know if it’s a misconception. I say it to every seller is I’m the easiest buyer you’ll ever meet. And I think that’s important. Even if you’re just retail Ricky working with trying to buy your first house, don’t be a pain in the ass to sell to. There’s some people that retrade at the last minute. And so common misconception is we go under contract, it’s going to look the same at contract signing as it is at closing, unless something major comes up and the seller has been hiding something, we’re going to do what we said we’re going to do. We bought a part that was almost 70 spaces and had a home get pulled out. And it’s kind of an issue in that part because the city doesn’t like them. So an empty lot is an issue. Home got pulled out between contract to close. And I called the old guy and I said, “Man, it’s not cool.” I didn’t hit him on price or anything. We went to closing, but he needed to know that he really hurt me, but I was going to do what I said I would do. He didn’t do what he said, but yeah, so common misconception what I do is we don’t retrade. If we say we’re going to do it, we’re going to do it.

Yeah. So what do you think the most common misconception is about what you’re offering with the mobile home parks?

Yes. I think a lot of mobile home park owners have been burnt. They get promised that somebody will buy and then they try to retrade them at last minute. And so most common misconception is if we say we’re going to close, we’re going to close. Run into almost every septic issue or county issue, you can imagine. Part of that is because I don’t go real far out of my area. We stayed local. We know the counties we’re working in. So the most common misconception is, are you going to be like the last guy that put it under contract and not close, not be able to close? Yeah.

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We still do mailers, old school mailers, postcards, pull targeted list and postcards in the mail. So like I told you when I was starting, I’m the least techie person you’ll meet. So we buyhouses.com. It’s kind of a business in a box. So that domain does a lot of work for me. I wake up to random web leads and I will say that those web leads are competitive. If they come through there, I’m not the only person they Googled. The direct mail, sometimes people are getting hammered and sometimes you’ll be the only person at the table. So to answer your question, there’s some SEO stuff that our guys do behind the scenes and then mail. And also, so my email address is Patrick@webuyhouses and I subscribe to everything in the world. If that cash register lady says, “Can I get your email address?” Most people, my wife’s like, “Nah, I don’t need to get on any more email list,” but I scream it. I want everybody to hear, Patrick, that we buy houses, and it always starts a conversation. It’s kind of that old school, handout business cards everywhere you go. But yeah, I do that.

Yeah, I like that. I like that. What mistake do you often see investors make that you think could be really easily avoided?

One thing that really gets me on the, I’m on a lot of wholesalers list is their ARVs are so off and I don’t know if they do it on purpose or optimistic or what, but just be upfront about what the house is worth now and what it’ll be worth with paint and carpet. I almost rather somebody send me something with, I’ll take 50 grand for it, you do your own homework than this real long email blast that AI did for them and it says the house is just a crazy number and there’s no way. So yeah, they just need more upfront or more realistic, I guess.

Man, yeah, that’s fair. How do you measure success? I know a lot of people define the word success differently, they chase for it differently. How do you define the word success? How do you measure success? And then how do you strive for it every day?

Yeah, I guess success for me is freedom. I love working, so we do work a lot, but I’ve got two amazing kids and perfect wife and that’s success. I’m not at the end of the race, but man, I’m lucky. I’m blessed. I have been really successful and it’s not really about what the bank account looks like. It’s kind of the freedom. We do have some pretty good cashflow coming in and I’m an agent also, so my brokerage business helps keeps the lights on. Commissions every month is nice, but we work hard and we play hard. So yeah, I would say that success is a happy home life. My dad died when he was 44. I was 15 and he did nothing wrong. He just got cancer, brain tumor, took him out, nothing that could be done. So that probably molded me into being present and work hard and play hard. He was a good provider. He just got cut short and I don’t take that for granted. Yeah.

Yeah. I’m sorry to hear that. Yeah,

No problem.

Yeah. I love how you take that and use it into your life now. Yeah. I want to challenge you with a question. Yeah. So let’s say the business completely goes away. You get to keep all the knowledge that you’ve learned over the years, and I’ll let you keep maybe six months of income to keep your family fed, sheltered, and live semi-comfortably. What would you focus on first to rebuild?

So six months in living reserves and just nothing else, knowledge, right? What would I focus on? I think I would focus on talking to as many motivated sellers as humanly possible. And I guess that could be in a lot of different ways. Are you going to text them? Are you going door knock or whatever? But the more conversations you have, the more business you’re going

To do. Who do you think’s been the biggest influence for you in this space?

So the biggest influence probably in my life was a guy I used to buy wholesale cars from. So it wasn’t necessarily in a space, but it was in the entrepreneurial space. He was a huge wholesaler, but you’d never really know how much business he did. He was a super charismatic family guy, just had it going on. And he just liked me. He did know my dad, so kind of a take you under your wing kind of thing. And he made a lot of money on me. I mean, I was buying cars from him. So I was just like real estate. It’s a wholesale, retail market kind of thing. But he taught me a lot of life lessons about buying, about selling, about building relationships. Somebody … I used to buy a lot of replay mobile homes directly from banks back when that was a thing. And you might be working with a bank rep over here one day and you get notified that he’s not there anymore. He pops up at another bank and he looks you up and he remembers you were good to do business with. That was something that that mentor, he never burned a bridge

For sure. And I usually, I don’t see him much anymore, but I’ll hit him every Father’s Day or Christmas or something and just remind him how much he meant to me. And when I first started doing

That,

I had to tell him, I said, “Hey, I’m not sick or anything. I just am grateful.” And he said, “I get it. Yeah. Okay. So I ain’t going to have to go to your funeral.” So that was cool. I would encourage people to do that. If somebody’s been important in your life, tell them. Tell them they’ve been important.

I love it. I love it. Where can people connect with you if someone’s interested in learning more or if there’s someone listening in Carolinas that want to reach out and do business with you, where can they reach out to you? Where can they find you? And yeah.

They can reach out on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, or I’m easy to find. I’m everywhere. I’m a realtor, so I need my phone to ring. So any of those things. Instagram’s probably the most fun. Facebook’s probably the most useful for my business, and I also get on LinkedIn. So wherever. I don’t care where you reach out, just reach out.

Awesome. I love it. Patrick, thank you so much for coming on. Everyone, thanks for watching, and we’ll see you next time.

You, sir. Thank you. It’s been fun.