In this event titled Preaching To The Quire, we hear story of Anthony Quire who owns and operates 5 mobile home parks what at the same time maintaining a full-time job as a teacher of special needs children. He accomplished all those mobile home park acquisitions despite the demands of a regular career and family. And it’s a really fascinating narrative on how the average investor can successfully juggle owning “trailer parks” while not missing a beat with their regular job.
Hosting the event will be Frank Rolfe, who is called the “human encyclopedia of all things mobile home park” by the New York Times yet has never achieved one item that Anthony has already succeeded in: holding an actual day job. However, Frank does have a wide range of experience in starting from scratch in owning mobile home parks, and he will keep the discussion lively and focused. So if you’d like to hear how Anthony started, found his parks, financed them, fixed them and operates them, then you won't want to miss this one!
If you want to learn skills to succeed with mobile home parks, attend our Mobile Home Park Investor's Boot Camp. You'll learn how to identify, evaluate, negotiate, perform due diligence on, finance, turn-around and operate mobile home parks. The course is taught by Frank Rolfe who, with his partner Dave Reynolds, is one of the largest owners of mobile home parks in the U.S. To learn more Click Here or call (855) 879-2738.
Preaching to the Quire: 5 Parks and a Day Job - Transcript
Frank Rolfe: Preaching to the choir, that's what we call this discussion. I'm here with Anthony Quire, a boot camp attendee from a few years ago, now a successful park owner. But at the same time, he also holds a full time job. I think it's a very fascinating story of how he's able to accomplish so much with the limited time that anyone who has a career faces.So Anthony, are you here with us?
Anthony Quire: Yes I am, Frank.
Frank Rolfe: Okay. Let's give people first a background here on Anthony. So you live in the North Carolina area, and you are also a school teacher at the district level in special ed. At the same time, you're a park owner so I guess let's first start off with how you got into the park business. What made you first interested in the concept of owning a mobile home park?
Anthony Quire: Well, I like to take it back to when I was younger. I got out of college. I went to college, got out and my dad told me not to be a dummy and buy a house. He told me to get an investment property. So I started In 2009, and then the market collapsed, and I bought five condos from the bank. Then I bought five condos at a courthouse step. So I had 10 condos and I had no idea what I was doing. And I also was managing, my dad had some rental properties as well that the people who were managing it were embezzling money and doing drugs. That's how I got started in rental property and commercial real estate.
Frank Rolfe: Go ahead. I was about to say so how did you move from normal, sensible real estate to mobile home parks? Where'd you get that idea?
Anthony Quire: I got married and moved to Louisiana. I was working at Lowe's. And I met a guy that owned a mobile home park, who was also working at the time, and I befriended him. And I started helping him managing because I wanted to get back in, I knew working at Lowe's, I was working as a cashier, and I knew working at Lowe's at that time that I would have the opportunity, that I wanted to network and get back into real estate because I knew… I'd seen what I was doing. I was living in Louisiana, and still had my 10 condos in Kentucky. And I want to get in back in real estate where I was at. So befriended him, started helping him manage. And then I became a Lonnie dealer and bought a few trailers from him actually, five trailers from him during the process and start helping him with managing his as well. So that's where I got into it. I'd seen the money he was bringing in. He was a kitchen manager, no college degree or anything. And he brought in about probably $7,000 to $9,000 a month. Hadn't been to a mobile home park boot camp. And I saw what he was doing, I'm like, this guy can do it, I thought I was a little bit more polished than he was, than he knew trailers. So I figured this is something I could do. So by coincidence, I met another guy at Lowe's that owned a park. And I talked to him for over a year, his price he had a park for sale and it was $450,000 and I talked him down to $350,000, just building an organic relationship over a year of time. So just seen the money, my friend who I was helping manage his park was making, I was started as a Lonnie dealer with five trailers and just seeing, you know, what can be done and just kind of took it from there. And I started doing research about mobile home parks and the opportunities. When I bought my first park, I had no idea, no clue as to what I was doing, other than when I was helping manage my friends park. But you know, there's a lot of concepts I didn't know, until I went to the boot camp which expanded my horizon and has me to where I am today. So I want to… kudos to you, Frank
Frank Rolfe: Thanks, Anthony. So let me ask you this, obviously before getting into mobile home parks, you probably had some form of thought of what mobile home parks and the residents would be like, probably the same stereotypes most people get from TV or movies. How has that played out? Have you found people to be is quirky and dangerous as they show in the movies? Or is it a different client base?
Anthony Quire: No, not… I mean, I have had cases where you know, people fighting and you know, stuff like that. But you know, from what you see on TV to what actually is the reality, the people that live in these parks, they're good. Working class people that want to have, you know, they make a decent living, they make an honest living also, but just want to have something of their own. So, I see that, you know, as opposed to me owning an apartment is where you have somebody knocking on your walls and people that own their own, they have a sense of pride in that ownership in owning the trailers. It's important to them because it gives them a stake in the battle. It gives them something at stake and they have a stake in hand when they own their own mobile home. And so they take pride in that and they want to take care of it and keep it up to par. So from what I've seen on TV, 8 Mile, some of those movies to what actually boots on the ground is totally different and these people are good people that make honest living and they want to have a nice community of living.
Frank Rolfe: And then what about, let's talk for a minute about these. You have five parks currently. Four you own completely yourself and one you own in a partnership. Tell me how you found and how you financed each of those properties. Park number one, did it come in from a broker, online listing, someone you knew? How did you find it?
Anthony Quire: So the first park was actually just an organic relationship that guy that I met at Lowe's that had a trailer park, that was thinking about selling. This guy was a single family guy and didn't have any clue about how to run a mobile home park actually. The girl that when I took over was embezzling the money from him from the lot rent, so obviously he didn't have a clue as to what was going on. So the first one I went to the… Actually the guy that I talked with told me that I could get the loan from the bank that he had the park funded through. So I did what he told me, started an LLC. He gave actually helped me, taught me how to start my own LLC and how to do the incorporation, that part of it. So I learned that, the background as far as the paperwork I had to do. I went to the banker and he said, "Yeah, I will finance your deal." I had to have $70,000 down so I borrowed $50,000 from my local baker. It was my fraternity brother that gave us a personal loan. Then I borrowed $10,000 from Lending Tree, then I had another $10,000 that I had saved up. I started borrowing money. A lot of people that don't have money, you have to borrow money. But when you realize the money that's coming in and you can pay your note on your park and still make a profit, I thought to me that was the biggest thing since sliced bread. It really hit home to me that this makes sense.
Frank Rolfe: Dave and I actually started off by we did credit card draw downs was our first down payment. Being creative on down payment is a pretty common issue.
Anthony Quire: Started off with that $70,000 payment.
Frank Rolfe: How did you wind up with park number two then? How did you find park number two?
Anthony Quire: Park number two, I was in Lake Charles. I lived there and was beginning to move. In my mind, everywhere I go I want to buy real estate property because I know property gains in value because you have inflation. Property value is obviously going up, and I know I love the idea of residual passive income. My mind is always fixated with how can I make a residual passive income, that I don't have to be there and the money still comes in and works for me. I think it's very important. So the next park I actually went to the mobile home park store, and this didn't have a broker, no broker again. I actually called the owner of the park, developed a relationship with him. Took me about a year to close on that park and actually took a line of credit from my previous park and a little money down for another I think was around $70,000 for the second park I bought in Fayetteville, North Carolina. When I turned around, it was barely making enough to pay the note and the expenses when I bought it. So the two parks that I eventually bought were both turnaround parks.
Frank Rolfe: Anthony, when you say turnaround park, we're talking turnaround as in raising rents,filling lots, cutting costs? What kind of turnaround?
Anthony Quire: When I say turnaround park, raising rents, obviously they weren't to market. Fixing the park trailers that were run down and needed work, fixing them up to put them on rent to owns. Rent credits to establish and get them where they could be lot rent, and get the lot rent to market. The first one I bought was not submetered, so it was master metered. So it was another… most of the parks when I bought were barely, like you said, the first one was making about $1,000 after your expenses and the note. The second one was just making the note and expenses when I bought. A lot of the trailers in there were just run down so I had to put money in to fix the trailers. Then I put most of them on rent credits. Then I brought the, the first park I think it was $175 and it's now at $250, and that's been over four years. So I raised it $75. I tried to do the rule of 5% every year that you teach us, 5% raise the rents.
Frank Rolfe: Let me ask you this because regardless of how much you raise the rent in a trailer park, you always get criticized. What would you say to those who say, "Gosh, I thought Anthony was a nice guy but he must be an evil guy because he raises the rents." Talk to me about raising rents in mobile home parks. What have you found about rents, rent levels, and all that kind of stuff.
Anthony Quire: I don't get any backlash. I think if you do it, like you said, for mine the park I just bought in I think October, I raised it like $25, no backlash. People want value. When you raise the rent, people want value so they see that you're trying to put money into the park and they're getting the value for that, they don't have a problem with it. All the parks I've put money into because I realize while I'm working my job, I can take the income, the extra money that's coming in. I can take that money and put back into the park. Put the extra money to excess and invest it back into the park. So that's been my strategy that I follow and I'venot had any problem with raising rents, sub metering. That's a great idea. You pay for what you're using, so people love that idea. I've never had any backlash with people that are tenant owned homes.
Frank Rolfe: Okay. Let's talk for a minute about geographically. So now you're up to two parks, and how afar are those two parks from each other?
Anthony Quire: About 1,200 to 1,500 miles.
Frank Rolfe: So that's a pretty decent distance. How frequently are you going down there by the time you get to park number two? How are you starting to -
Anthony Quire: The goal is to go… I haven't been. I didn't go during COVID so it's been two years since I've been down to Louisiana, but I have a management in the park. I have the partner who I learned kind of what he was doing, he was helping me manage the park down there so I really don't have to be there. Before, I was going at least once a year, sometimes twice a year. But now organically I just kind of if I have a problem, pick up the phone, email. For the most part it's only a couple hours a week that I spend in my part time, my mobile home park business, four to five hours a week. Sometimes a little bit more, but there's nothing going on. The first through the 10th is when you pick up, but after that there's not going to be that many calls unless you have lots or trailers open. 17;23 Frank Rolfe: Yep. Tell me about park number three. How did you come up with park three?
Anthony Quire: Park number three, I actually during the pandemic people were like don't buy anything. Park number three actually came from Mr. Baker. I looked at the mobile home parks and I think it may have been on there, but that was through Max Baker out of Atlanta. So I worked with him.
Frank Rolfe: Max Baker is a broker. I think it's called Mobile Home Park Brokers or something like that?
Anthony Quire: Yeah, it's through Eric Wont who was the broker I worked with to purchase the park in Kentucky. What had happened, the condos that I had for 10 years that paid themselves off, when I bought those they were obviously in the dump turnaround. I turned them around, made profit for those, paid those off, and then I took the proceeds. I tookthe capital gains from them and the net gains and used it as a down payment for the park that I bought in Kentucky, which is in Springfield, Kentucky. I wanted to keep the property there so I took that. Actually I bought that property and I bought a four-plex as well, with the proceeds just from selling that.
Frank Rolfe: Got you. Then what about park number four, how did you find park four?
Anthony Quire: Park number four, I don't know if you know Jimmy, he does assignments.
Frank Rolfe: Jimmy Johnson, the assignment King, I know.
Anthony Quire: He is definitely the assignment king. Working on a deal with him now and another one. So I reached out to him the past two years, and I just said, "Look, I want to do a deal with you." Finally we found something that made sense. It was a 50 lot turnaround park in Fayetteville, 20 minutes from the other park, that was off the market that he had. Luckily, this is one actually I called the bank, got them to reappraise the first park. It doubled in value within three years, took the equity from that instead of putting 20%, I took this and put 10% and refinanced both parks together.
Frank Rolfe: Very creative, okay. How did you find the fourth park?
Anthony Quire: The fourth park, that was through Jimmy, that's the one I discussed.
Frank Rolfe: Oh Jimmy is the fourth park, okay. Then you've got a fifth park that you have in a partnership. How did that happen?
Anthony Quire: So the fifth park actually I met Thomas Miller, who is an airplane pilot, at the mobile home park boot camp in South Carolina a few years ago in Charleston. I met him about three years ago, started talking to him, and ended up starting a PPM, which is where people can invest their money and get a return. We talked for a year, Eric wanted to start the PPM from New York. We had a lawyer obviously start the PPM, and then we got a couple investors that put money in and we purchased a 50 lot park in Marion, North Carolina, that when we bought I think it was around $800,000 and now it's worth double that, it's worth close to $1.5 million within three years. We just raised the rents on there, submetered, and then we paved the roads, fixed it up, and just increased the rent. We just sub metered here in the last six months.
Frank Rolfe: So basically you're following pretty much the textbook method, buying the parks that are broken, buying the cheap, bringing them back to live, fixing them up, raising the rent, filling the homes, selling off the homes, cutting the cost. The basic model. And you're finding it really works pretty well, right?
Anthony Quire: Yes, sir.
Frank Rolfe: Let's talk for a min about what you've learned so far. You've only been doing this now for a few years. Obviously you've done a whole lot in a few years. Let's review some things you've learned about being a good park investor so far. What are some of the key things you think are really important that you've found over the years?
Anthony Quire: I've found obviously with parks, it's about lot rent. So I know at the end of the day, at the end of the road, like you said we've got to have an exit strategy. If you buy something, you've got to have an exit strategy. So you've got to know, as you say, what that film is going to look like at the end of the movie, what's going to be there. So in my mind, I'm thinking how can I take these parks, turn them around, get the lot rents close market or get it to the market where it should be, and eventually as it goes to exit. I think it is very important to understand that parks are about lot rent, you're in the lane game. We want to get homes in there because obviously we're in the affordable homes crisis. People are looking for the product that we have, which is affordable living. I probably get at least 10 calls a week, and I might run advertisements through different sites that I'm using because there's just that much need for affordable housing, that $500-700 is not out there, and we don't have any competition. I think we're giving them a quality product for actually an undervalued price. I don't think the price is very undervalued from what it should be. I see that long-term, there's obviously to be competitive yes, we can stay $200-300 below apartments. As long as you do that, then we don't have any competition. People want a place to stay, they want a nice community that they can live in and take ownership and pride. It's developing the organic relationships with the owners. I'm learning now it's people in the mobile home park sector are very friendly. The owners, everyone is doing whatever they can to help. We're not in competition with each other, we're here to help each other. I think at the end of the day, what I'm looking for is to try and help better people's lives, giving them a quality nice place to stay, and affordable that they can still get value out of. I think that's very important in the value that you're giving people, that they have something to show for it at the end of the day. Apartments, I've owned apartments, and they have nothing to show for it. I can say, "Hey look, I can give you this trailer, put you on a rent credit and then in a couple years the trailer is yours, just pay me lot rent." They love that idea. Where else can they do that at?
Frank Rolfe: So talk to me about utilities. You've got you said you have a park with this master meter so you've done I imagine some master metered electric or gas, I guess. Tell us about what is your lessons learns on utilities so far, on water and sewer and power and that kind of thing?
Anthony Quire: Water, so I think of the four parks I've got two… the first one was city water/city sewer. It was master metered, the water was, so sub metered that. Then the second park was city water and septic. Of course the tenants paid, it was already individually metered through the local utility. The third park in Kentucky, it was the stable park. I thought I'd pay more for a stabilized park, but it was a turnkey park. There was nothing new other than I'm working on nine more homes into it, and I can add on spaces. But that was individually metered for the water and the sewage was run through the city. Now the fourth park, master metered water, septic sewer so I'm going to eventually probably get that one sub metered. I can tell you the first park, the one in Louisiana, I had a tenant that was there probably for about six months, the bill doubled basically. So found that leak, had to pay to get that… bought the tenant out of there because I was having issues with the tenant and running people in and out of there. I think he was doing drugs, but I bought this guy out. I ended up sub metering the park, and I found out there was a leak that was almost 2,000 gallons day, it was a running toilet. It was costing an extra $300-400 a month on a running toilet. Obviously, when I sub metered that park it’s dropped about a third of what it was before. There’s the value plus the tenants are paying their own water bill. It’s just you see how important that water… water can be your friend or your worst enemy. But like you said if you go in proactive, and use the steps that you teach us in the boot camp, then these utilities can be your friend. But it’s all your perspective, and off of the textbook of what you give us.
Frank Rolfe: How has your… have you had any private utility problems so far – your septic system still working fine, any issues?
Anthony Quire: Nothing major. I’ve had somebody was renting in one of the parks, I think it was came and run over one of the lids and I had some sewage that was runoff, so I had to get that fixed. But really that’s the only thing I’ve had. Obviously, I’ve got to get tanks cleaned out every so often, have issues with that, but that’s a couple hundred dollars, that one is a couple thousand, but that’s the biggest expense I’ve had. So really septic, I like septic. I don’t mind septic. It’s actually I would think cheaper than having city sewer, to be honest, from my perspective.
Frank Rolfe: Have you had any things break down, calls that freaked you out so far? Get a call from managers that something is broken
Anthony Quire: Not really. Nothing out of the ordinary, nothing that I wouldn’t expect with coming from my background in apartments. It’s actually less. A water leak here and there. Every once in a while you have… it’s usually water issues. Sometimes you have issues with electric, but that’s very minimal. I’ve had to replace and update from 100 to 200 amps on the poles. I’m actually going through to get a couple of those done, going from 100 amp to 200 amps on the post. I did buy, this fourth park, I bought probably should have torn down the trailer but I knew it was cheaper to keep her so I remodeled it and I’m actually putting someone on a rent to own, so I’m going through the process of taking the old two bedroom one bath, and I’ve remodeled it all the way up to… it did cost a lot with the material cost, but at this point I was like it was there, and it would probably cost more to take that trailer out and move a trailer in, and I’d already started putting the money into it, and I had a tenant for it. I’ve put money back into the park because it’s lot rent so I’ve fixed up the trailer, remodeled it. It’ll be a nice trailer for whoever is going to live there. For the person that’s moving in there.
Frank Rolfe: You own, Anthony, a lot of different stuff at this point. Compare and contrast with people the difference between a mobile home park ownership and a single family, condo. What do you think the primary differences are, either the benefits or disadvantages of mobile home park over those more typical things?
Anthony Quire: Coming from the background of apartments and single families, obviously the expenses are a lot less in mobile home parks, probably 20%. Me doing the books, it’s at least a 20% difference. 10% at the minimum, 20% difference in expenses. I just think there’s more stuff, like for instance the four-plex I had, somebody I had to evict. This is here and now, we have work to do, just a lot more money you have to spend. I would tell anybody investing, multi-family mobile home parks that’s what I want to be an expert in, so that’s why I focus so much. I can still do single families, the fix and flips, but I don't know just something about mobile home parks that to me is just… It’s not that it’s easy to do, it’s not as time consuming. Once you get the system down that as you teach in your mobile home park boot camp, it doesn’t take a lot of time. To get a decent income for not much time, I think that’s a winner to me. So that’s what I looked at it from this is common sense approach. Single families takes a lot more time. If I’ve got to pay insurance, I’ve got to pay taxes on that single family every year that’s only one income versus obviously people are flocking to mobile home parks because of the tax base, how much tax it costs, and the insurance which is about the same as having a single fm home. It just makes sense.
Frank Rolfe: Let’s talk for a minute about things, your thoughts or what you've learned about locations. Obviously, you're working southeastern part of the US which is a much less known part of America. We own virtually no parks down there. We have one in Florida, we have one in South Carolina, but it’s an area that’s really the final open frontier for the park business. You're there and you're liking it. Tell people about the southeast, what your lessons learned are on parks in the southeast.
Anthony Quire: Again, this is I guess the bread and butter. A lot of people are flocking to the south because obviously it’s a cheaper cost of living. Obviously you have a lot of people coming from New York, New Jersey, from the north flocking to the south just because of the cost of living. I can see in the south, parks there’s really a need and a lot of these parks that I’m running you have the old mom and pop park owners that don’t know the syndication of how parks are supposed to be run. There’s a great opportunity I think for anybody that’s wanting to invest in the mobile home park in the south, because again there’s a big demand for affordable housing, and there’s not enough supply. Like I said, a lot of the ones I’m buying we need homes. So it my goal now is obviously get homes in there because you're getting five to 10 calls a week of people needing affordable housing. It’s a big opportunity I think right now interesting he south. There’s a lot of again parks that were for various reasons the previous owners have clocked out. You need someone that wants to come in and turn things around, take care of it, and give value that people want to be there. There’s a big opportunity in the south for anybody that wants to invest in mobile home parks. Again, there’s 40,000 parks and at any one time there’s probably I’m looking at the Mobile Home Park Store, and the stuff that’s on the market there’s probably at least 100 in the south at any time. There’s a lot of stuff that’s off the market that’s not on Mobile Home Park Store or Loopnet that’s off the market. When people ask me how I’m doing this, I develop organic relationships with the brokers, with Jimmy Johnson, with people in the industry. They bring this stuff to you. I probably get two to three deals a week that I’m getting sent to me. I’m at the point now it’s not about me, it’s about helping others. I don’t want to do it by myself, I want to do it with other partners. I know the operations part, I’m good at the operations, and I’m getting better. Obviously, I participate on your calls that you do monthly and weekly, and just doing research and talking to other owners. It’s something that I feel very confident that it’s a future for me and my family right now that I feel very confident that we’ll finance, take care of us.
Frank Rolfe: And, on that note, let's talk for a minute about how you mesh park ownership in with your very rewarding and important day job. So you've got your career there, helping kids in need, special ed. And obviously, you don't want to give that up because you like to help people. So you're helping people in that. At the same time, you're helping people on mobile home parks having a nice, safe, clean, affordable place to live. But from a time perspective, how does Anthony merge those together? How much time is truly needed on the mobile home park side of your life as opposed to your regular day career?
Anthony Quire: Right. Like I said, in this I found to have a balance. At first it was a little, I guess when I started on the smaller, the first park in Louisiana, I didn't know how to differentiate the time that I'm putting in. But over the years, I've found that it's only usually about, I work my day job, I enjoy giving back and helping with kids because I work with kids with disabilities and also with troubled youth. I enjoy doing that because it's a way of giving back, and using the formal education that I've found. But I've heard Jim Rohn, you can, you know, it's good to have a formal education, but a self education will make you wealthy. So I've used that concept. In general, a formal education will make you a living, but self education will make you wealthy. So in saying that I do my teaching profession, where I travel through the district working with kids, and then a lot of times during the day I may have to answer a text, answer an email. So really I would say about an hour, maybe that. Again, the first through the 10th maybe an hour and a half, but after the 10th through the end of the month you don't get that. In my mindset, I'm constantly doing something to better myself, and I'm doing something small on my business every day. So I'm trying to make it better. Just take 10 minutes to develop yourself, but also take 10 minutes in I had to make a call this morning to the plumber that I needed a drain taken care of. So I have my phone. I use the calendar in my phone to make to-do lists that I have to do for each day, and I just look at that list what I have to do every day. It's not a lot of time. I have a family. I have two younger kids, a wife that is going through a medical illness right now. And so it's good to have this income to fall back on if I need it. So that's the blessing in it, just finding a balance between working a job, running the parks, helping other people, and having family. I tell people you have you health and you have your spiritual life, and I say if you have that in place then the money, the finances will follow. But I think it's important to have a balance, and that's what you have to have in your life. And definitely this helps you get a balance in your business. My goal is obviously probably in another five to 10 years where I can do this full time. I'm making steps to get there, but I'm not there yet. So I want to continue to invest the profits that come into the parks, and I know I'm in my late 30s. In the next five to 10 years, I have that option that hey do I want to leave or do I want to stay. I think that's a good option to have for anyone. But it takes work. I've invested a lot of myself, and going to like a mobile home park boot camp which you make very affordable, but you've got to invest in yourself, and that pays off. Honestly, the money that I've invested it's well worth to me over multiple millions of dollars just that little boot camp that I learned from you. That's one of those things you invest in yourself and it pays dividends.
Frank Rolfe: What would you say has been your best day and your worst day ever as a park owner? What day, whatever happened in the day where you thought why did I ever get involved, and what was the day where you were like wow I'm sure glad I got involved in this? What was the best and worst day?
Anthony Quire: I think there's obviously during the pandemic that I've really learned like, man, this was a smart move going into mobile home park business. I'm realizing now this is paying off what I did, you know, five to 10 years ago when I got a multi-family, but five years ago, when I got into mobile home park business, I'm like it's really paying dividends now knowing that you still have an income coming in, and you don't have to be there. And I'm thousands of miles away. So I've seen the opportunity, I think the worst time, I think when I got started, I had a trailer that I had to evict. The guy was doing drugs, and I had to evict and it was a big ordeal. And I just, I wasn't really burned, I was like, man, I want to give this up. But I've always been the type when I start something, I want to finish it. And so in my mind, I've always looked at from the concept, like I'm going to stick in there, because I know in the long run, it's going to pay off. And this is just you've got to earn your stripes and you've got a stick… I'm learning now that any type of business you've got to stick with most people give up and quit on stuff. And this is one of those things if you stick with long enough and you stay that it will work. And you've got to have good mentors, like yourself, that really care about and want to help people, and also want to have the industry to see the industry in a different light. So I've really, you know, that's where I'm coming from is just kind of whatever you're doing, there's a concept I learned from Grant Cardone, "model, mimic, and master." I'm kind of modeling what you're doing, I'm going to mimic it what you're doing on your system, and then hopefully I'll be able to master and that takes time. So you know, use those business concepts because I want to invest in myself and I want to be able to help others learn this business because I feel I have a pretty good grasp on it. I don't know everything, but I know enough that I can help myself and help others.
Frank Rolfe: Well, you had been through now COVID and you're old enough that you were through the Great Recession although you would not have been that old back then. You would have been probably in your in your 20s. See my daughter who will be turning 25 she's never actually experienced a recession because the last big one we had America was 2007 so she would have been roughly 10 years old. So that whole generation, the younger end of the millennials, have never seen recession depression. In your age group, are you a millennial, or are you different, are you one of those generation "something"? I always get lost on that.
Anthony Quire: I think I'm considered, it depends, I've looked I'm between and consider myself a millennial because I'm still very… I still have a lot of the old school or the tendencies of hard work ethics pays off, but I understand technology, you've got to streamline. I'm using even with my pay now the younger millennials they don't want to go to the bank and pay. They want to pay using Cash App, use PayPal, use Rent Manager. They don't want to do the old stuff, and I have old tenants that want to pay the old way.
Frank Rolfe: You bought properties during the-
Anthony Quire: The recession, and I bought some during COVID too ,now that you tell me, yes sir.
Frank Rolfe: Okay, so let's look at it from when you were buying those condos from the bank. Those things were selling at what kind of discount?
Anthony Quire: One bedroom condos in 2008, I bought at $9,000 a piece.
Frank Rolfe: And how much were they originally?
Anthony Quire: In Frankford, Kentucky, the capital, I bought for $9,000 in the recession.
Frank Rolfe: What were they selling for originally, before you bought those for $9,000?
Anthony Quire: They were in the $30,000 range I think.
Frank Rolfe: Right. So basically recessions are pretty nasty, right? You get killed.
Anthony Quire: They are.
Frank Rolfe: A lot of people in the great recession, we've had other people on here who had large single family, we had Todd on here recently who had 65 single family homes, doing everything perfectly, and then kaboom, values fall to nothing, the banks call the notes, and you end up with a big old pile of disaster even though you did nothing wrong. Right now, you're not old enough to have been through the other recessions, because you're not old enough to have been through the dotcom bust because that was back in the 90s.
Anthony Quire: Yeah, still a youngster back then, or still a teenager so I didn't really go through that one.
Frank Rolfe: But give people your thoughts. Obviously since you bought through the pain and suffering of others during the great recession, here are these condos that somebody bought for $30,000 or $40,000 who knows how much, and then they lost them, and then the banks are auctioning them. What are your thoughts regarding the future? You've been through the pandemic with mobile home parks. Where do you think mobile home parks will land in the next great recession? Because we're definitely prone to one.
Anthony Quire: I've been through this one and I think-
Frank Rolfe: Between these insane stock market valuations, which blow my mind. I've read all the Warren Buffet books, I'm not a stock market investor, but I know the basics of how the industry is supposed to work, and I know what's going on right now is not in any way how it was engineered at all, just wild speculation. We're not buying based on net income, we're buying based on the sexy story, the logo, it's insanity. So I know that's going to blow, and meanwhile single family home prices make absolutely no sense. You can rent some of these homes for the same as the property tax plus maintenance, which makes no sense. So when this thing blows, which it will blow, probably not today but economists predict within two years the whole place blows up and burns to the ground, where will parks end up do you think because you've seen that stuff? Where will parks end up when the world blows up?
Anthony Quire: Parks will stand in the gap, stand at the top. I think obviously we're seeing right now it's a sellers marker, not a buyer's market for anything right now. It's a big seller's market but you can buy stuff in the ground like I bought. I've seen mobile home parks, because again the demand for the affordable housing, it's a supply and demand and the demand will continue because we see the gap, the middle class is being eroded. You've got a rich and then you've got a poor. I think that's kind of what's going on to a degree when you look at the economics of supply and demand. But I think with inflation, the costs and with the mobile home parks where they stand as an industry, the loan default rate, and then just standing with the affordability of the product we have there's just where can you go wrong? Most of the gone wrong with mobile home parks is in the operations typically where you see the demise of a mobile home park, is in the operations. Not the mobile home park itself, it's just people don't know how to operate it. To me, like I was telling if you stick and stay, and can learn what we're doing, some of these guys that come that don't know it they're going to lose it. Because they don't know how to operate it and that's the key. It's key in really anything in real estate, but especially in this niche of mobile home parks because you've got to know how to operate, and you've got to know how the policies and procedures, and have check points in place when something happens. You can't go to the ground, you've just got to get through it. That's one of the things, you've got to have policies and procedures in place. If I do have a problem I don't know, I call you, I'll call somebody, I'll call another park owner that I know that can help me through it. That's what I do, if I don’t know, I guarantee I'll find somebody that does. So I think at the end of the movie with the recession that we're going through, and obviously I maybe had one, maybe two or three that I had do a couple evictions in Louisiana during COVID, but really as far as paying it probably dropped maybe 10%. Went from 90% to 80% as far as paying, and that was during the pandemic. I didn't see that much of a difference pre versus post pandemic as far as paying. So I think at the end of the movie, mobile home parks are going to stand on top. I know self storage, I've talked to people in self storage, I know that's pretty decent. But again, self storage may come and go. It's a whole lot harder to move a mobile home in the middle of the night than to go into a self storage and move all your stuff out. That's one of the things where…
Frank Rolfe: I was going to say if people are afraid you're going to have a heart attack or something, or you're not in good physical shape, they put you on a treadmill and measure your vitals and give you a stress test to see when they stress you, when they stress your body, what happens. To me, COVID was kind of a stress test. Not just on COVID because we may never have another pandemic like that, we might who knows, but it was a good stress test on what really happens in the next depression. Because it showed those industries where people need them enough they're going to pay even when times are tough, versus the ones that they don't. the park industry, I think you would agree, held up really well. No one had ever been through anything like that and our collection rate was down about 2-3% from pre COVID level. I talked to people in the retail sector, they were off 50%, and then here's a… he's off 70%, and here's a lodging guy he's off 100%. So I agree with you, I think that basically what the pandemic was, it was a stress test in between recessions since there hasn't been one since 2007. It kind of showed you where things aligned. To be honest with you, even those storage guys, they didn't do that great. A lot of storage guys, their collections plummeted just because in the real dire emergency, the end of the world scenario for people, they weren't that worried about their Christmas tree, I'm not paying that, I'm buying food. You can't eat the Christmas tree. I feel pretty good on the way parks will survive when this blows, because it has to. Anyone who has been through multiple recessions, and I've been through all of them way back to the 70s, and you can just totally see this is it looks exactly the way it did in all of the ones that I've ever seen, same everything. The sentiment of the investors, just the general atmosphere. So yeah. I think when things do get gloomy, your collections were good during COVID.
Anthony Quire: If you're doing the numbers, it's probably one in every 20 tenants that had an issue, so again that's what it was. If you look at the numbers, probably one in every 20 tenants had an issue. But like I said, I put them on payment plans. One didn't pay me for a few months and she got the government to pay me for five months, so I was fine with that, I signed that and got it at the end of it. I still got the rent at the end of the movie, and I worked with them. That's what you have to do, you have to work with people.
Frank Rolfe: Yep, totally agree. Anthony, where do you go from here? You've got your career, you've got these four parks you own by yourself, the fifth park that you bought as part of a Reg D PPM. What is your ultimate goal? How big are you trying to be eventually? What's the target?
Anthony Quire: I guess my goal, I want to continue to grow. I'm in my late 30s. I want to grow until… I really want to go to work hard until I'm 50 years old and see where I'm at. I'll put my hat up when I'm 50 and hey, do I want to put on the accelerator or do I want to put on the brakes, so I want to keep full speed ahead for the next 10 years. I'm trying to partner with others that want to partner. Again, I tell people look man, I'm learning this industry. I know enough to be dangerous and I'm going to continue to grow. I'm looking for someone that's interested in investment as far as the capital, and I can take their capital and make it work for them. I can get the capital access, but I'm looking for I guess a money man to help me get to that next level, or partner with other people that have the money to continue growing. Obviously, we're trying to get people on our Reg D, but if people want to do looking at JVs and stuff as well, because I've actually got a friend that owns hotels - Marriott's, restaurants - I've reached out to him. He actually put a little bit on this last park, but he sees the opportunity and says, "You know what you're doing, man." This guy, he's building a pharmaceutical plant in Africa right now so the guy has access to a lot of capital. So I've been working with him that he wants to invest in mobile home parks. He doesn't know how to operate it, but he knows that know how to operate it. I've got the connections. So there's really a value to growing. I really want to continue to buy parks that make sense. I can do the valuation, I know the formula, to look at a park and be able to offer someone a price that makes sense. I did due diligence on five deals, and everyone has been happy with the due diligence I did in the deals. So I want to continue to grow.
Frank Rolfe: Where do you, now put it in your crystal ball for a moment, where do you predict the industry will be in 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years? You've been a Lonnie dealer, you're familiar with the product itself. Can the industry itself build a better product? Is there a future beyond mobile home? Will mobile homes 50 years from now still be shingled and vinyl, or will they be more futuristic? Where do you see this thing going?
Anthony Quire: I think obviously when you see the housing, you see the homes that they're putting together now are much more efficient, last longer, the codes are better, the codes that they're using to build these homes are much more resistant to the storms. I think it's going to improve. I think it will be a shadow of itself. As you continue, every 10 years you see generational changes in the markets, in the homes, so I think that at some point maybe will it be like the tiny house, I think there will come to a point where the wood itself, because I think you hear a lot of people are going to the metal building, but I think there's products that are coming out. You heard the other day that there's a car that flies now, so these things are coming down the pike. The industry is continuing to change, and continuing to become more robust and get better. I think there are materials out there that will make it much more cost efficient for mobile homes than they are now. I think it will get better, will improve, and will be more cost efficient for the products, which will make the industry… again, I think 20 years from now our industry will be such as the apartments that were 10 years ago, that will be the same. The syndication will be in the same realm within the next 10 years because of a program that you set up, and people are starting to… The people that are coming and buying want to syndicate and understand the market, but they want to understand how the operations part of mobile home parks, and you have more savvy buyers than you did 20 years ago. Changing for the better.
Frank Rolfe: Do you think, is there anything that could make our industry obsolete? I get asked all the time what out there will kill the mobile home park industry, because you have technology which is so insanely focused on you had the Betamax, then the Betamax was killed by the VHS tape, and the VHS tape taken over by the DVD. Everyone thinks an industry, there's some moment when a new product or a new technology, and then the old just gets killed. So people say somehow that mobile home parks are so old the way they look to people that oh yeah, well just around the corner there's this new technology, and bam trailer parks, nobody needs them anymore, throw them in the trash can. What are your thoughts? Can you come up with any way mobile home parks actually would become obsolete?
Anthony Quire: If you take a look at supply and demand, they're not making new land. What does swamp land in Florida run? So you see the supply and demand that we're looking at in mobile home parks, they're not making new land every day. Obviously, at the price point they were in, there's not much competition. People in my line, I get people who can compete with mobile home parks because of the price point? If we can find something cheaper and the density that you have in a mobile home park that would be a great product, but what, it's not there yet. The other part is the development of it. You've got to have systems in place, you've got to have the county commissioner, you've got to have the local city planning and zoning in place, you've got to be able to put the electric. Maybe whether they'll have at some point they might have electric parks where they're not even attached to the public, you have a box and it may be able to run wireless for your electric at some point. I think stuff like that is coming down the pipeline. You've got waterless hot water heaters now that just stands up with the hot water heaters that are run from gas. I think you can see that will help the industry, or help mobile home parks as we syndicate that, but I don't see it replacing. It would be different if they were producing new land that you could build stuff on every day, but they're not, they're having to clear stuff off to put something there. I don't think there's any… this is an industry that will continue to stand, and weather storms, and whatever comes it'll still stand at the top in what's to come.
Frank Rolfe: Really appreciate your time here. And again, if people have any questions and want to reach out to you, would you be kind enough to respond to them if Brandon forwards you emails? If someone has a question for Anthony, okay for you to get some emails here?
Anthony Quire: Yes sir, I would do whatever I can to help people. Like I said, I like this industry. I like the people that are in the industry and I'll do whatever I can to help if anybody has any questions about mobile home parks and operations, or just any questions they have direct them to me and what I'm doing.
Frank Rolfe: That's great. Well again Anthony, I always enjoy what I call the fellowship which is basically the fact that park owners, because there's so few of them, are so willing to talk openly and honestly about their lives, what they bought, and how they bought it because it's a refreshing change. I'm sure back if you got all the guys that own condos together, they wouldn't even talk to each other because they consider it competition, and this industry is a little odd in many aspects. One aspect that's always been strange is how open park owners are to discussions, and even disagreements end in a cordial way, because again there's just not that many park owners so everyone feels like it's a sacred thing when you find somebody else that invests in the industry, because there's just so few people who do it. So we really appreciate you taking the time to be here. Again, it's a fascinating story of how you've been able to get into the industry at a relatively young age and do well at it, and at the same time hold down a successful day job career. It's really a kind of inspiring story for a lot of people may be out there who have one of those two components. They've got the regular day job but they want the security of another stream of income, because coming out of COVID and it scared everyone, and they need to be scared because the real big depression hasn't even hit yet. That was not even… that was an appetizer according to I think all world economists the actual depression they estimate will happen within the next 24 months. For those people out there who are aware of that, but have not taken the plunge into mobile home parks because they say I can't do it and do my day job, you are an inspirational person here for those people to let them know you can do that. The time commitments are not that bad, it is completely doable. Have you ever had a day in which you thought I just can't keep doing the parks and my day job? Have you ever had that moment?
Anthony Quire: No. I've always enjoyed doing my day job, but I enjoy doing this because I feel like it's making a difference on another level. It's one of those things where I can continue to do what I'm doing, and enjoy my life and try to grow and get better, and make a difference as I go.
Frank Rolfe: Totally agree. Again, we appreciate everyone being here and we will talk to everyone again soon. Thanks Anthony, thanks everybody, and see everyone again soon.
Anthony Quire: Thank you, Frank. Appreciate it. You have a good day.