How Tim Bought 16 Parks In Less Than 6 Years

Tim Woodbridge has proven the skeptics wrong in two ways: 1) for those who say that “it’s harder to find deals today” he has found and purchased 16 different properties in less than six years and 2) and for those who declare “the southeast is financially weak” Tim has focused on this region and found great deals with strong underlying fundamentals. Not bad for a guy who was a practicing nurse and started buying mobile home parks as an investment sideline!

In this discussion Tim shares how he found his parks, negotiated them, financed them, and operates them. He also talks about his lessons learned and where he sees the future of the industry. As always, Frank Rolfe keeps the conversation fast-paced and fact-filled and with no topic taboo.

Whether you already own a mobile home park, or are looking at buying one, you will find this discussion extremely enlightening.

How Tim Bought 16 Parks In Less Than 6 Years - Transcript

Frank Rolfe: Welcome everybody. This is Frank Rolfe with Mobile Home University. It's very important, in my opinion, to talk with other operators. I talk all the time, everyone knows me, but it's essential to really get a general overview of success stories of how people have gone from owning no mobile home parks, to owning, in this case, many mobile home parks, go directly to the source and just asking them a lot of the questions I know everyone wants to know about how they got into the industry and how it's went and their lessons learned. To that end, I have Tim Woodbridge here with me. Tim has been owning and operating parks here for nearly six years and in that time has accomplished the fairly impressive end result of owning 16 different mobile home parks. Tim, can you hear us okay? Are you there? 

Tim Woodbridge: Frank, thank you so much for having me. This is kind of surreal. I'm used to listening to you at like one and a quarter, one and a half speed, so on your podcast. I devoured all those podcasts as I was getting into the industry and I continue to, so it's really great to be here and I really appreciate you.

Frank Rolfe: Okay, well Tim, thanks very much for being here. We far more appreciate you being here, believe me, than you appreciate me being here. So let's start off with the existential question, why? Why did you get into the mobile home park business? What even got you initially thinking about a mobile home park? 

Tim Woodbridge: So you, you were on the BiggerPockets podcast. You were talking to Brandon about mobile home parks and I'm a retired nurse, but at the time I was working as a nurse and I had just read Rich Dad Poor Dad like a lot of other people and so okay, I need to get into real estate and I was looking, okay, what are the different means of being in real estate and just listening to a lot of podcasts, reading a lot of books. You came on and said mobile home parks and you said you liked it because you got sticky tenants, low expense ratios, all the things you said just really resonated with me and got me excited and so after that podcast, I read more, I listened to more, I did some more research and then you said go to mobilehomeparkstore.com and I admit I thought it was a fake website. It sounds like a fake website. It's where I see like I get all the deals now. I love the website. It's so funny, but yeah, I went onto the site, saw someone selling one just for sale by owner.

Tim Woodbridge: And I reached out to him and it took a while of back and forth and actually figuring out how to close that first deal, but I did it and I've been hooked on mobile home parks since.

Frank Rolfe: Very good. So let's, I know it's hard when you have so many parks to break it down into the normal attributes that people want to know. So let's do it as a communal group here just of percentage. So of the 16 parks you own, let's start off with how you found them. What percent did you find online? What percent did you find with brokers and what percent did you find with either cold calling or direct mail? 

Tim Woodbridge: So I don't cold call and I don't direct mail. That first one I found was direct to owner, but only because it was, he listed a mobile home park store. Let's see, two of the 16 parks were people brought them to me or like I JV'd with people. Most of the stuff I go to brokers. I have really great relationships with brokers in the southeast And we're very, very active in submitting offers, for like everything we underwrite is based on a 2x equity multiple for investors over five years. So we're, doubling someone's money in five years. So, a lot of times they want this price, but we can only give this price, but we have reason, I'm not just coming in there and wanting something cheaper to go against what they want. I'm trying to create solutions for people. And all the brokers that I work with know like, okay, here's our underwriting. We're very open and honest. We'll like share all that stuff with brokers. It's very much how can we all get on the same page and solve the problem of the sellers wanting to sell to us.

Tim Woodbridge: My problem is I want to buy it. Their problem is they want to sell it. The broker's problem is he wants to broker the deal. So how can we all work together to get that accomplished? 

Frank Rolfe: So you're classic win-win deal making, which is also the hallmark of our business, correct? So you're going at it not looking at the seller as an adversary, but looking at the seller as a contemporary and you're kind of inclusively trying to find a solution that makes everyone happy, correct? 

Tim Woodbridge: Yeah. And a lot of new people say, oh, they want too much money for it. And I will tell you right now when I'm selling, I promise you I want too much money for mine too. I probably won't get it and that's okay. But that's just who doesn't want to be paid a pretty penny for their assets. So yeah, it's a mindset shift of how can we work together and create this where everyone walks away happy or satisfied, you know? 

Frank Rolfe: Right. Okay. And how about how many deals would you say you make an offer on before you get one that you're able to tie up? What's your volume to success ratio of out there, making offers and talking to sellers? 

Tim Woodbridge: So we are at, for every LOI, every letter of intent we send out, every 11 to 12, we get something under contract. Doesn't mean we close everything because, in due diligence some stuff comes out where we don't go forward with it. But usually it's, looking back, it's every 11 to 12 offers we make, we get accepted. And it's not right away. Usually I hear no at first and it's just following up. Hey, I love, I totally understand you don't want to sell for either this price or these financing strategies that we presented in our LOI. I hope you get everything that you're looking for. Do you mind if I reach out in two months and just see how things are going? It's, sometimes a lot of things change in two months. This deal we have closing at the end of this month, it didn't work for a long time. And the owners put in a lot, a lot of work. And so the price that they want now makes total sense. It's a great win-win for everyone. We met the sellers at the parks and everything to walk them during due diligence and get more of the story.

Tim Woodbridge: And I applauded them. I said, you guys have put in so much work. I'm so happy that we can pay you the price that you want.

Frank Rolfe: Okay, so three key takeaways so far, Tim, would be number one, you believe strongly in win-win deal making. Number two, for those people listening, this is a volume business because if you own 16 parks on your ratio, you made roughly 200 offers to get 16 parks.

Tim Woodbridge: Yes.

Frank Rolfe: Right. So that's also a truism. Your predominant source of leads has been brokers, which is the same as our group. Brokers have been our key finders of parks today. So let's talk a bit about financing of this macro group of 16. What percent of that is seller financed? What percent of that is bank financed? What percent of that would be conduit financed? And what percent would be Fannie Freddie financed? 

Tim Woodbridge: No Fannie Freddie yet, but we're working on it.

Frank Rolfe: Okay.

Tim Woodbridge: One, let's see, no, two deals, seller financed. One that was conduit, bridge financing, but, we got longer term financing. Most of it's through either Five Star or Vanderbilt, the big players in the mobile home park space. Working on a potential like, agency debt situation, but most of the stuff we have is smaller, it doesn't qualify. But yeah, good friends, we really, really love the people at Five Star and Vanderbilt. They're great banks.

Frank Rolfe: Okay, and again, on a macro level, 70% LTV, 80% LTV, what kind of loan to value are you seeing on the loans you've made? 

Tim Woodbridge: Usually 65 to 75. We have one that's 80%. And this is bank financing, right? If you're doing seller finance, I mean, that's, you make up what makes sense. But like, 85% usually on the seller financing sort of things. But yeah, bank financing is usually 65% to 75%. You could say the majority is.

Frank Rolfe: Okay, and any challenges you've been having in the financing side of the business, or has that been pretty just standard fare? 

Tim Woodbridge: Well, I mean, yes. Yeah, okay. So if we're going back to my first park, it was very, very, very difficult to get it financed. I was new. I had no experience. I was trying to buy a park that was 10 or 36 occupied. So no, I called 20 banks and heard 20 no's. And then finally, the seller said, hey, I went to school with this one, with this one guy who works vice president at a local bank. And so we met with him and he gave us 70%. But so very difficult at first. Something I've learned about the business is you gotta be good at hearing no. And every time I hear no, I ask, okay, but how? Do you know anyone or is there any way that, what doesn't work about this for you? But now, we work with Vanderbilt a lot. And so it's a pretty standard process. It's weird at first, there's all these different like things you have to do. But they're pretty good at kind of walking you through it. Oh, they need an Alta survey. They need a phase one.

Tim Woodbridge: They need all these things. And they're great because they have a really good checklist. And in the same way that we work with brokers and sellers as like in a collaborative approach, we work with banks in a collaborative approach. If a bank says, no, I'm only going to give you 50% LTV, then I'm automatically thinking, okay, I'm probably paying too much for this. So maybe we've got to think something else. So the banks, we treat as partners as well because they're the ones putting up most of the money in the deal, right? 

Frank Rolfe: Yeah, absolutely. And again, I think the key takeaway on that is that you also view the bankers kind of in a collaborative manner as a team player. You're trying to follow the confines of what the bank wants. If the bank is saying, I don't like this asset at this price, then you're saying, oh, okay, that's good input. Rather than fighting that, you're saying, okay, well, maybe their advice is good. Because I totally agree. I mean, we have also on occasion had deals in which the bank has said, oh, no, this thing is maybe a tad too rural, tad too vacant. And you got to be aligned with lending because if you're not aligned with the lenders, life is miserable. You can't get loans, you can't sell things, you have no liquidity. And I think the key takeaway on that also is just persistence. Because just as you're making 11 offers or 12 offers for everything you're tying up, banking is the same. Totally agree. Particularly on deals, I mean, I assume of all the deals you finance, the hardest ones are the ones with lots of vacancy, correct? That's probably the toughest ones.

Frank Rolfe: Yeah, that's true for everybody. Buying parks with lots of vacancies is always been a challenge. So let's focus on vacancy for a minute. So when you buy a park with vacancy, and obviously, number one goal is to get the thing up to at least stabilized occupancy of 80%. Have you been doing that through new homes or used homes? Or what kind of home product have you been putting on vacant lots? 

Tim Woodbridge: So I have to admit, I have experience with it, but we haven't done a ton. Our goal is never to, there's some people who thrive at it, who will buy a home that's or a park that's 20% occupied and then infill everything. I bought my first park with a ton of vacancy because I didn't know any better. And I figured it out with new homes. So in 2019, we closed and then COVID hits and I didn't know how I was going to do it, but I knew I had to infill. And so Legacy Homes sent out an email and they said to all park owners, we're going to give 100% financing on these new homes. And so I jumped at that and I figured out how to get them set up. They didn't do any, of course, they didn't include any setup. So that was me putting a lot of stuff on personal credit cards and stuff like that, but figuring out how to do it. So like right now we are, I went from a me JVing parks with a lot of people to really having a core group of guys that we have WCG investments that that's all about a private equity firm that buys mobile home parks.

Tim Woodbridge: So what do we do? We've got to create different verticals. We have our in-house property management and now we're creating a vertical for like homes so we can figure out that problem because it's difficult. No one, there's a small group of lenders who will loan on homes and there's all these moving parts. So we're really trying to solve that now so we can come in and be great at it. I will say I've had terrible luck with used homes. We've been ripped off in so much, in so many ways getting used homes like from mobile home wholesalers and stuff like that. And it's just, yeah, I get the idea but in reality just haven't had any good luck. The best luck I've had is going straight to the factory.

Frank Rolfe: Okay. And let's shift gears for a minute to location because you're in Charleston, South Carolina correct? Which is one of Brandon's favorite cities, one of my wife's favorite cities, one of my daughter's favorite cities. I think one of almost everyone's favorite cities. And so everyone knows Charleston well. And because you live in Charleston, I assume the territory you operate in is the southeast, right? Which is a part of America that we believe is extremely fertile right now because that seems to be the hot area. I mean, young people, I mean, just yesterday I read an article that the owner of In-N-Out Burger is relocating from California, their home base to Franklin, Tennessee, right? Which seems like an odd choice but she's going down to Franklin, Tennessee which is a small town about an hour or so south of Nashville. And I know if you talk to young people today of, hey, where do you wanna live? They always wanna live in Nashville or they always wanna live in Charleston, right? And that's just seems to be, and on television, the shows that my daughter and her contemporaries watch are things like Southern charm and I don't, Southern, I don't forget, I forgot all the different titles.

Frank Rolfe: So right now the southeast is extremely hot. So tell us first a breakdown of the 16 parks you own. I know you said one is in Oklahoma. So we have this one rogue park to the west, all right? But of the 15 parks in the southeast, which states in the southeast are you in? Give us a, like, I have this many parks in this state, this many parks in this state. What would the breakdown be? 

Tim Woodbridge: So let's see, seven parks in South Carolina, one in North Carolina, four in Georgia, one in Virginia. That's not as big of an outlier, but a little bit of an outlier, kind of South Virginia. We're going to be closing two more in South Carolina, one in Alabama. So yeah, we really like the Southeast. It's really a great place to own mobile home parks.

Frank Rolfe: And give people an idea who are not familiar with the Southeast. Many Americans who have never been to the Southeast do not realize how culturally rich and upbeat the vibe is there, right? And some people will say, oh, I went on vacation once to Mississippi and the place was a dump, right? The Southeast to me is one of the most vibrant spots in America, because again, people are so darn excited about it. There's so many people moving into it. Give people just a rough idea. This is a nearly impossible request, but from a macro level, what is the average single family home in most of the markets you serve? Is it 50 grand, 100 grand, 150, 250? What would you say the average single family price would be? 

Tim Woodbridge: So first of all, I'm from Southern California originally.

Frank Rolfe: Oh, okay.

Tim Woodbridge: For eight years. I never, ever, ever would have thought I would live in the South. I just had a bad mental image of it. And oh my gosh, it's such an amazing place to be. Even those like small Mississippi towns, there's so much like life and storytelling and whatnot. So there's a ton of opportunity. So I definitely say anyone who's disparaging on South, like come and spend a month here, come and spend a couple months. It's a great place to live. And then, so back to your question, usually we don't really go to the big, big cities or the primary. I wish I could make things in Charleston make sense, but they don't to me right now. So we're usually secondary and tertiary. Usually home price, probably $150,000 to $250,000 is our home price around stuff. I mean, I have done stuff in smaller tertiary markets, like a 5,000 person town in North Carolina, but it was all, we bought, it was 55 pads, 51 tenant-owned homes at close. And I mean, there was enough life in the town where, people were working.

Tim Woodbridge: It wasn't like a derelict kind of like, town that's going under as much, it had life, it's just not a ton of people. We got a great two parks in a similar thing in Virginia, small 5,000 park town, but there's, 20 minutes one way, there's the Walmart, the Walmart test, 20 minutes the other way, there's another Walmart. You go into the town, you can see there's life there. It's just a smaller town. So, yeah, there's places where the house is going to be a lot cheaper and we just adjust our business plan based on that. If, you can buy a house for $100,000, I'm not going to be able to sell a new mobile home for $100,000. So in a market like that, okay, well, let's not put any infill in our underwriting because that's not realistic. So, we.

Frank Rolfe: I wanted to point out like, 150 to 250 is a perfectly respectable home price, right? I mean, that is roughly the same home price you will encounter in the Midwest and in the Great Plains and in all the regions that people feel very confident with. Because, see, the average American, if you said, what's the average home price in the Southeast, they would probably say, I don't know, 60 grand, 80 grand. Everyone has the same stigma that you had as a Californian before you moved to the Southeast, that it's somehow backwards and repressed And desolate. And it's just, he's completely correct for anyone who's never been Southeast. I urge you to take a vacation down to Charleston or any of the Southern markets, and you will be impressed and perhaps even shocked by how good things are there. I mean, one of my daughter's favorite shows on TV is Hometown, which is based out of Laurel, Mississippi. It's about some young people who, buy old homes there and restore them. And unlike the home shows on the Magnolia Network where you knock out all the walls and paint everything white, and it looks very sterile and very modern, in that show, basically, they're trying to embrace the history.

Frank Rolfe: And to me, that's a lot of what goes on in the Southeast is, it's a new type of young person who, like, really appreciates history and culture. And I guess probably takes fun in bringing old stuff back to life. But that's kind of the whole mobile home park story, isn't it? I mean, most of the time, we're taking old communities and bringing them back to life. So it's kind of, the Southeast kind of, the whole vibe is pretty much the mobile home park business in many ways, right? 

Tim Woodbridge: There's a ton around here. Yeah.

Frank Rolfe: Yeah. So let's talk for a bit about management, because obviously when you have 16 parks, you got a whole lot more to manage than if you have one park. And I assume when you did the very first park, you were very actively engaged. You were probably, if not in the field manager, you were still worried about it and constantly overseeing it and everything else. But now that you have 16 parks, you can't be in the field every day on the 16 parks. So what is your management structure? I assume you have a manager in each park. Do you have a district manager over top of them? How does that work? How do you manage 16 parks? 

Tim Woodbridge: Yeah, you're totally right. When I had that first park, it was like, it's like an hour, 15 minute drive from me. So, I was doing everything. I was working as a nurse, three twelves, and then maybe an extra eight, but I had, three to four days off so I could really focus on it. So I knew the ins and outs by far. And yeah, as I've gone, as I've built up, you can't do it all yourself in the same way. So we've like, I built an in-house property management company that does all the backend stuff. And in each of the park, we have, local community managers. And now like with the company, my partner, Mathias is helping to really build out like the SOPs and whatnot, and really make that property management business very robust. And yeah, it's just, it's simple, but not easy sort of thing. And so we are really, yeah, we have those local community managers that take a lot of that, that, boots on the ground sort of thing. And we have weekly meetings with them and make sure that everything's going well. And we don't yet have regional managers, but that'll probably be our next thing that we get.

Frank Rolfe: And what are some of your biggest management challenges right now? Obviously you have collections and rules violations, but on a typical day, what are some of the most difficult or challenging things that come up? 

Tim Woodbridge: Yeah, I mean collections, but we have a great property management assistant. So like who's calling and making sure that people are either paying or they've got some kind of payment plan, which before her, I hated payment plans, but because I never stuck to them, that's a me issue, not an issue with, the idea of it, but she sticks with it, makes sure that people pay. And if they don't, then we're evicting. Yeah, there's short maintenance issues, stuff like that. There's not anything that's like comes to mind that's like, oh man, this is a super drag on my time. It used to be more so, but then I got the right people in place. I used to do all the books on my first part. My first hire was a VA bookkeeper and we still have him. He's in Bangladesh and he has read access to, all the bank accounts and whatnot. And it's just stuff like that. Like there's a lot of moving pieces. And for anyone who's like new, I'd say, don't try and figure everything out. Just like, you'll get it as you go.

Tim Woodbridge: Everything that is a pain to me, I'm grateful for, because it makes me realize, oh, we need to have a system for this. We need to get the right person for this. Or, how can we make this not be a pain anymore? 

Frank Rolfe: And what software do you use? 

Tim Woodbridge: Buildium, but we're transferring to Rent Manager. Supposed to be at the end of this month, maybe, maybe not. Maybe at the end of next month.

Frank Rolfe: Yeah. And we're also a Rent Manager customer. So, but most, everyone has gravitated towards Rent Manager over time. So that's definitely the right decision on that. All right. So let's talk, so coming to the industry as a nurse, which is kind of as far away from being a real estate person as you can get, sort of, but yet has a lot of good attributes to be applied to real estate, because obviously if you're a nurse, you're very responsible. You understand systems, the necessity of structure, et cetera. But what have been some of the key lessons learned you've had in the transference from the nursing world to the mobile home park world? What are some of the things you were like, okay, this is an important thing to remember. What are some of the key items for people of things that you've learned so far? 

Tim Woodbridge: So one of my favorite things is when tenants say this is an emergency, and I'm like, no, no, no. Like, is everyone's heart beating? Has anyone's heart stopped? Because that's an emergency. Like your emergency isn't like, I need to drop everything. It's okay, we will put it in the order of awareness. We'll prioritize it in the order that it's needed to be prioritized. And we will, get to it in a, relatively short amount of time. But I mean, there was a park that I'm a part of where there's all these tenant-owned homes and the tenant-owned home burned down. And the manager called, she said, what do I do? And I said, nothing. You already called the fire department. They're already doing their thing. Like, get some rest and we'll figure this out tomorrow. Is there, there's nothing to do. What am I gonna drive up to North Carolina with a fire hose? No, come on.

Frank Rolfe: So basically, when you have problems, slow them down, be rational, make a list of the concrete next steps. Don't get in a tizzy, which I totally agree. A lot of managers also are just as bad as tenants, that everything is an emergency. The dripping faucet is a major water leak. What will we do when the giant river from the leaking faucet rips homes out of the ground, et cetera? Yeah, a lot of building a mountain out of a molehill, that's definitely true. Any other key takeaway lessons learned you've had in your changeover from nursing to mobile home park ownership? 

Tim Woodbridge: Definitely how important systems are. I remember when I was first learning how to read an EKG, listening to a cardiologist was teaching, and he was like, I do it the same way every time you do this, this, this, this. This is no matter how many, he's looked at thousands probably, but it's always, is the P wave upright and rounded and so on and so on. And so it's the same thing. Like take a step back and do the things in process that should be done. And I don't know, don't get me wrong, I'm always learning, I'm always getting a little bit better. So is everyone on our team. But if we remember the fundamentals of stuff like that, while managing, while making offers, same thing, here's this offer, here's our process, let's do the process and then do the follow-up in the same way that we should. And just keep doing the stuff that's boring, right? You do it a million times and it becomes boring, but that's like, if you can keep doing the boring things, that's how we've found success.

Frank Rolfe: Right, so basically the key is standardization, following a system. And I can definitely see how that would be something that would carry over well from nursing, because we're also big believers. If you don't have a standardized process, it devolves into complete anarchy, right? On every front, collections, rules, you name it, you gotta have at least an internal operating system of how you deal with problems or day-to-day events, or you can't customize it, right? It'd be like McDonald's, where they'll make the burger any way you want, it doesn't work. You can't, with 16 parts and so many customers, that's just an impossibility. Let me ask you this, you're obviously far younger than I am, so from a stigma perspective, do you know anyone else? Have you ever met anyone in a social instance who is in the mobile home park business other than yourself? I mean, how rarefied air is it for you to ever encounter another mobile home park owner in your day-to-day living? 

Tim Woodbridge: So generally super rare, but the funny thing is, so you know Ryan Groney, and he was on your show, and when I got my first park, he just so happened to move from Ohio, where he's from, down to here in Charleston. So we live in the same town, we're friends, we've been partners on deals before. And it was so, so random and so surprising, but yeah, he had just went to a local RIA meetup at the time, I frequented, and ever since then, we've been friends, and he's helped me a lot in helping. Like, okay, when we first had, when we first bought that first park, there was like a sewage issue, and I freaked out, I didn't know what to do, I was definitely, oh my gosh, and I asked him, and he's like, oh, this is, you call a plumber, you get it taken care of, sort of thing. So for the most part, it's super rare, and there was just a funny happenstance to have met Ryan and be friends with him.

Frank Rolfe: And what was your friends and family reaction when you said you're going to buy a mobile home park? Were they aghast? Were they understanding? How did that go over? 

Tim Woodbridge: I don't think, I talked with my girlfriend about it, I talked with my girlfriend at the time, I talked with my youngest brother, and everyone was just like, okay, like, whatever, sort of thing, and I kind of, I kept a lot of stuff to myself, because, no one's like excited about it as much as you are, and like, for a while, I would tell other people and other nurses, oh my gosh, I just bought this, I'm so excited, and it's like, okay, great, okay, well, no one's going to be excited about it in the same way I am, and that's okay, like, I'm excited because I see the potential. So, yeah, it's rare to meet someone who's into it in the same way, but the people who know, know, like how awesome it is, how much value there is, how much potential there is. So, yeah, it's kind of one of those hidden gems still, it seems. I mean, we met, you and I met at IMN in Nashville, very briefly. And there's a lot of big, big money coming into the mobile home park space, so there's a lot of big private equity companies that are coming in, but for the normal person, I mean, everyone knows buying a single family, no one just about knows buying a mobile home park, that's weird, it's different.

Frank Rolfe: And what's the future of Tim Woodbridge? Are you going to try and grow to 50 parks, 100 parks? What's the master plan? I mean, you're buying at the rate right now of roughly three parks a year, right? Do you see that accelerating? Do you see you'll stand that pace? What's the goal? Are we trying to get to 20 parks, 50 parks? We're having 16? What are we trying to achieve? 

Tim Woodbridge: So I'm super, super bullish on mobile home parks and affordable housing. So our goal for WCG Investments is to get to 250 million assets under management by 2030. And what that really translates to is we want to provide housing for 10,000 people, and we want to provide investment opportunities for 1,000 different investments. Not necessarily 1,000 investors, but a lot of recurring, but at least 1,000 different times where people have put money in and double it over five years. And also, you and I both know the crazy tax benefits of depreciation and cost savings and whatnot in mobile home parks. So there's a ton of opportunity, and we want to provide a solution for that ever-increasing need in affordable housing.

Frank Rolfe: And what do you see the future of the industry itself being? Will the mobile home parks of the future look like the mobile home parks of today? Or how do you see the industry changing? I mean, obviously, you're in a very protected area of the Southeast. There's no discussion of rent control in the Southeast. So that's very positive. But what developments do you see either aesthetically to parks, structurally to parks? How do you think the industry will change, not in the short term, not in the next few years, but 10, 20, 30, 50 years out? Just from what you've seen so far, how do you see things changing? 

Tim Woodbridge: I see things getting nicer. People putting money into parks to make them more aesthetically pleasing. I see the stigma of mobile home parks being less and less as people need affordable housing. And families move into them. We've got a lot of single mothers, stuff like that. They need housing. They need nice housing, not crappy trailer park housing. They need housing that's nice and a nice community. And so, yeah, I see a lot of opportunity there. Hopefully, there's not as much. I mean, I'm sure you saw in Pennsylvania, there's all these rent control and issues like that. I hope... I get it. I get the idea behind it. But unfortunately, I can see a lot of parks becoming run down or being redeveloped. If you say they can't go up to market rents, then all of a sudden, it makes a lot of sense for me to sell to apartment developers. And then you got people who are living so close to each other, no ownership. And it's just, I think it's not the way that the country really wants to go.

Tim Woodbridge: It's not the way that anyone wants to go. But I could see it being a way that people are forced to go. So hopefully, things become better. Us as park owners can make money and make the parks nice. And it makes sense to continue making things nice. And it makes sense to continue affordable housing for people. I hope they don't really do away with HUD and Section 8. There's a ton of opportunity there as well for people who can't afford things. So yeah, I'm bullish because I see the need and the ever-increasing need for affordable housing.

Frank Rolfe: And to my basic view, you're in an area of America that's probably the last frontier, right? I mean, most mobile home park investing has been going on for a while outside of the southeast. Then a lot of players ignored the southeast except for Florida, which was kind of unique. It was separate, ELS was there, Sun was there, right? But other than Florida, the southeast is the final region to be tacked. And yet even then, what I see happening throughout America, as you mentioned, is things just get nicer, right? It's more common to find a park in good condition today than a park in terrible condition. Whereas in the '90s, it was rare to find any park in good condition. They were all run down and people were just, you could buy anything. The question is, could you fix it, right? Because some of them, they couldn't be saved. It's kind of like someone in the hospital in the emergency room, can the patient be saved or not, right? Or in triaging in an army field hospital, is this even possible? Would you say there's a good likelihood within the next decade that probably all parks will be in one of two categories? Can be saved and on the path to being saved and hopeless case, let's just redevelop it.

Frank Rolfe: Because a lot of these, the classic park that most Americans think of as being our bread and butter, which it is not, which is the old gravel road park down by the river, total dump, hound dogs everywhere, non-running cars, that seems to be leaving the building. Can you imagine an America 10 years from now or so in which those parks have pretty much been eradicated either through cities shutting them down for permit violations or people just saying, let's just redevelop this into something else? And I guess in that theory, do you see the stigma being reduced against parks going forward? Like you're a young person and I'm assuming your stigma is not as big as my generation's stigma because we grow up being told by everyone that mobile home parks were dangerous and gross and to be avoided because all American television told us that in my era. I don't see as many negative shows on mobile home parks with younger audiences. Those shows all went off the air. Jeff Foxworthy left the building. So I guess the key question then in the future, do you think we can get over the stigma hump? 

Frank Rolfe: And if so, when do you think that would occur? Like when can you say, hey, I'm in the mobile home park business and not have people say, ooh, that's weird. If you look back historically, the self-storage industry was referred to in a lot of real estate publications as a weirdo investment, that it would never last, that it was goofy. And people would say, oh, don't invest in self-storage. It's a joke. And then they overcame the hump mainly because of public storage. And then also it's not something people live in. So it's easier to embrace self-storage. But in our industry, which has suffered for so long of a stigma, when do you think the stigma might end? What do you think, 10 years from now, 20 years from now? When do you think people could look at living in a mobile home as being a respectable way to live and owning a mobile home park as a respectable style of landlording? What do you think? 

Tim Woodbridge: I think, so I don't think there's going to be one time when it goes from like this to this. I think it's going to be, it's going to continue to be that uphill battle. But I'm hesitant to even say uphill battle. It's going to be just like a slow progression. And as people need affordable housing. And there's more and more and more people who they don't want to move there because they heard the stigma. And then they move there because that's all they can afford. And then they're like, oh, this isn't that bad. So it's, one family at a time, one person at a time. The more and more people live there and see that it's not bad. And actually, hey, I can live here and I can also have the rest of my life because I'm not working just to afford this apartment that's 50% of my wage. It's like, okay, this is substantially less. And so like over time, I can see the perception changing. And over time, as, parks are made to be nicer, people put more money into the parks and it's a nice place to live.

Tim Woodbridge: Like the stigma will definitely change. So I look forward to it. Again, like I said, we love being able to provide solutions to this big, big affordable housing crisis.

Frank Rolfe: And then my final question to you, because it's the number one question for all park owners and buyers. What's your personal opinion on when interest rates will come down? That's a simple question. When do you, because when you're underwriting these deals, looking at things, trying to get to certain IRRs and things, you always have to use some implied interest rate. Do you think rates will drop? And if so, by how much do you think in the months and years ahead? What do you think? 

Tim Woodbridge: I think it's the wrong question. I think interest rates are something I cannot change, you cannot change. We don't have any influence over. What I can do is I can talk to lenders I know, loan brokers I know, and see what is a probable... Like if I put something under contract today, what are rates at today so I can underwrite for that? So say rates go up to 25%. They're likely not. But say some wild scenario. Okay, that's just another thing that I have to put into our analyzer. And of course, it's going to make the price come way down. But it's something we can't change. So I don't even like thinking of that. It's like, yeah, maybe it's going to go down. Maybe it's going to go a little bit up. But if you're not in the arena making offers based on what things are at today, you are losing.

Frank Rolfe: Right. Yeah. And again, people have been predicting the interest rate movement wrong for the longest time. I even thought they would come down before now, but I had no idea about Jerome Powell's great reluctance to ever lower them again. So again, we'll all have to watch and see. Well, Timmy, it's been great having you on here because, again, it's no more refreshing that you're a younger person in the business because anyone can see, obviously, looking at me and looking at you are two completely different age groups. And it's great talking to someone who works the Southeast because that, again, we think is one of the hotspots regionally of the industry that has been overlooked for so incredibly long by people. And really agree with everything that you said. I mean, yeah, persistence is key. Volume is key. Being win-win is key. I mean, you're approaching it completely in the right way, the same way that we've always approached it. So I have no doubt you will do well on your goal of growth to 250 million of assets, which I think you could achieve in the Southeast faster than you think.

Frank Rolfe: I think you can probably hit those kind of numbers at 5,000 lots. That only gets you to 10,000 lots to get there. But again, we really appreciate you taking the time to be here. I will also note for people who watch this thing, gosh, Tim's such a nice guy. Most park owners are nice people. If you're not a park owner and you've never been to an event with park owners, there's no nicer group out there than park owners. We get the worst PR, right? There's all these articles constantly that park owners are mean and cruel, and no, we're not. I mean, apartment owners probably are. I don't know. But mobile home park owners, gosh, man, they're just friendly, normal people just trying to like, normally starting off with a side hustle of a park, and then it grows for some people into their, ultimately their vocation. But park owners are just salt of the earth, normal folk. We're not mean and nasty and evil in any possible way. We're just friendly, open people. And I think the one reason people are so nice in the industry is that most people have figured out that win-win deal making is essential.

Frank Rolfe: And as a result, we all are like, listen to each other. We can friendly debate topics, but we're not, not to be feared. We're a very, very open group. If you go to any industry events out there, you'll find you never met nicer people than mobile home park owners. So, Tim, thanks for being nice and thanks for being willing to share your information with people. It's very, very refreshing in today's America. So again, we appreciate everyone being on here. We know you all have choices with your time. We're glad you decided to spend some time with us. So on behalf of myself and Tim Woodbridge, we again, thanks everyone for joining our discussion. And Tim, thanks for being here.

Tim Woodbridge: Thank you so much, Frank. Appreciate everything you do.

Frank Rolfe: Thanks, Tim.