Bryce McMurray went to Mobile Home Park Boot Camp in 2016 and followed the established science to amass 17 parks with almost 2,000 lots. He did this despite the Covid crisis and Jerome Powell raising rates to the highest levels in 40 years. He did this in the states of Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia, where most investors have sidestepped over the years. It's a fascinating story of success using strategic heavy-lift turnarounds with the classic combination of buying at low prices and then boosting revenue by filling lots and bringing rents to market.
Frank Rolfe served as the host, so the information was fact-based, fast-paced, and had no topic taboo. The discussion will include how he found the parks, financed them, turn-around strategies, lessons learned, and many similar narratives.
Bryce Does It Perfectly - Transcript
Frank Rolfe: Tonight we have a discussion with Bryce McMurray and Bryce has done a terrific job. He started off by going to the bootcamp and subsequently he's bought and or his building around 2000 lots. So very meaty portfolio, but he did it all himself and all one at a time. He has a partner and they have done a masterful job of following all the science behind the industry. And they've done it in a manner where it's very similar to our portfolio. They have not only Mobile Home Parks, but also RV Parks. The one thing they're doing that we've never done is actually build a Park from scratch. We've done expansions, but never done a ground up building of a Park.
00:45
Frank Rolfe: They also are a heavy believers in the value add concept of buying Parks that are not running perfectly. And therefore, as we'll find it in the discussion, I assume it at low prices and then making the Park more valuable by such items, I assume is filling lots, raising rents, cutting costs, and that type of thing. And then generally just making them a better living environment to help you retain and attract new customers. So Bryce, are you here with us?
01:11
Bryce McMurray: I am let's do this.
01:12
Frank Rolfe: Okay, Bryce. Well, let's start off with the question, which I think is worthy of discussion, which is when did you first ever even think of buying a Mobile Home Park? I think you came to bootcamp in 2016, but something triggered you to do that. So give us a little idea on your background and then why you suddenly thought Mobile Home Parks was not a stupid idea. What happened there?
01:37
Bryce McMurray: Frank, so full disclosure, I did think it was a stupid idea at first. I've been in real estate for, I don't know, 10, 15 years or something. I'd been investing, had single family, multifamily had work in self storage doing developments for public storage and extra space and stuff. So 2015, 2016, I think it was my partner Lloyd got a call from a friend of his. He's a West Point graduate and we had met in the military and so he had another West Point buddy of his had called him up and said I'm working on my MBA at Harvard. Harvard business school and I'm doing my final capstone project on Mobile Home Parks. And I'd like to pitch you guys on this. And so Lloyd called me up and he said, Hey, do we wanna listen to this? What do you think? And I said well, let's just do it to be nice.
02:39
Bryce McMurray: That guy's crazy. We're not buying a stinking Mobile Home Park. So anyways, we listened to his pitch and couldn't believe it. I was like, there is no way. I mean, he showed us pictures. His Park is in like Akron, Ohio. I was like, there is just no way that those numbers are representative of what you're showing me in that picture. And obviously we all know that it is the case. That kind of lit the fire obviously started doing some research and homework and went to your bootcamp in 2016, I think it was end of 2016 in Charleston, I think it was. And and it was just like a, an aha moment there. And soon after there, we started buying our first one how it is. All you gotta do is just get one taste and you're like I'm never doing any other asset class again. So.
03:31
Frank Rolfe: What was your initial stigma or your thoughts on the industry before you did that? So had you ever lived in a Mobile Home Park? Have you ever had any friends in a Mobile Home Park? Do you have any prior affiliation with them at all?
03:47
Bryce McMurray: I think that I just like so many other people, I just bought into this false narrative that they're crappy poorly built run down all the time and just total ignorance and it's obviously not the case at all. And that was... And I'd never owned one before, never had any affiliation. It was obviously I just needed to be educated.
04:18
Frank Rolfe: Okay. So now you have this thought about Mobile Home Parks, learn about Mobile Home Parks. Tell us about the first deal. How did you come upon your first deal? Was it direct mail, cold call, broker? And then what intrigued you about that first one?
04:33
Bryce McMurray: So this is interesting. I live in a small town in Alabama, right on the Eastern shore of Mobile Bay. And it's Baldwin County, which is one of the fastest growing counties in the country. And so this is in 2016 and I'm trying to buy a Mobile Home Park and every now and then blue moon, there'll be one that'll come up on the commercial MLS or something. And I would run out there and make an offer and I can never like, it just, there was this guy that was just one step ahead of me the whole way. And this guy had started in 2005 and he's a local guy to the area and he had just started scooping. He's about the same age as me. And he had just started scooping these things up today. He's got about 30 of them in the area. And they vary in size from five to 10 to a 100 plus.
05:25
Bryce McMurray: But he had just started scooping. He was just ahead of me and I just couldn't catch up with him. And finally I called this agent that kept sending the deals to him. And I said, what I gotta do to get you to sell me one. So that happened amazingly. He passed on a deal and so I swooped in and scooped it up and and quickly learned that it was a great deal. So it was 40 lots. And when we bought it, it had, 27 homes, I think. And so obviously we had to do some infill and it had a little mix of RV in there too, long-term RV. And we did the sub metering on the utility. This one had well and septic. We're actually going to do a capital improvement to put it all on a lift station now that the area is grown and there's a sewer available, public sewer available. So we'll do that upgrade. It's been a great little part.
06:18
Frank Rolfe: So what does it cost to in down in, I assume this is in Alabama, correct?
06:25
Bryce McMurray: Yes, sir.
06:26
Frank Rolfe: What does it cost to put a lift station on a Park in Alabama right now, roughly?
06:28
Bryce McMurray: Yeah. So we'll do... We do gravity feed within the Park, obviously to the lift station and then a slow pressure system from the utility provider. And so, have a dual pumps in there all total we'll be into it for about 200,000, so. We have a plumber on staff at this point. And so we were able to save some costs on that. But, as you well know, it's a much... I think one of the challenges is how many septic tanks do you fix or repair before you say, you wanna move over to the sewer? And so, I think that it's important if you're in the long game, you really gotta think like, "Hey, I wanna set this thing up for success in the long run." And it's best to make that move.
07:12
Frank Rolfe: Gotcha. And that first Park, so the turnaround sounds like we're gonna fill up lots. I assume you were gonna raise rents.
07:22
Bryce McMurray: We did that.
07:23
Frank Rolfe: Is that correct.
07:23
Bryce McMurray: We did.
07:23
Frank Rolfe: And then we did generally spruce it up. That's the attack plan, correct?
07:28
Bryce McMurray: That's right.
07:29
Frank Rolfe: And then how did you finance it though? Because obviously the lender looks at it and they don't see the vision because they don't share in the upside, so they just look at nothing but negativity. You got vacancy, rents are low. So how did you finance that? How'd you get over that hurdle in the first part?
07:44
Bryce McMurray: Yeah, that's a great question. And we've just done bank financing and so, it's kind of humorous, when I get these phone calls from a new banker that we're working with, and they tell me that they've driving through our Park, but they kept their gun. They moved it from under their seat to, on the top of the seat or something.
[laughter]
08:08
Frank Rolfe: Right.
08:08
Bryce McMurray: Which is crazy. 'Cause like I said, we are heavily involved in construction, so, when you're working in the Park, you get to know the residents and they're just normal people, just like everybody else. And they just want a nice, safe place to live. They don't wanna have, dumpy, drug dealers in the neighborhood and neither do you. So you've got a shared common goal to try to achieve to get those people out and to stabilize the community. So on this Park, we did get that phone call from a banker and he said, "Bryce, are you sure you guys wanna buy this thing?" We'll, finance it for you, but, my God, man, that thing is rough. And so obviously that's why we wanted to buy it. If it was all polished up, we didn't see the same type of upside if it had been all polished up. So, we did, I think the first deal, and this is 2017, so I'm reaching the back here in the file, try to remember, but I think it was, 30% or it was either 25 or 30% down. And my wife had a little inheritance and, so we threw, $60,000 into it or something like that. And my partner threw in some money and off we went.
09:21
Frank Rolfe: Right. And so on that very first deal, 'cause most people the first deal can make or break it. 'Cause if it's a horrible experience, you say, "Oh, I hate that." And move on to something else. Obviously this case, it wasn't but there were probably some things you anticipated which didn't work out like you thought maybe the cost of the homes you brought in or the availability of the homes or whatever. What were some of the initial learning lessons learned from that very first part?
09:48
Bryce McMurray: Yeah, let's see. Well that's a great question, Frank. So I think, one of the things I think is a challenge is when you're buying value add is, if you're getting in a bank finance or owner finance, you gotta figure out the how... Where are you gonna get the money from to do the CapEx repairs, right? Even to this day, like I said, it's myself and Lloyd that are just the sole equity owners in this venture. And so, that means that we either gotta tap into it or we gotta use, save money or something like that to be able to do those CapEx improvements. And when you don't walk into the project with a huge bag of money and endless reserves there's more of a challenge there.
10:30
Bryce McMurray: And so I think that quickly will slow your pace and you can see when you're operating and if I can just get... I already know the recipe is gonna be successful because I've filled, three lots and they immediately leased up. And so, you can see that there's huge upside to doing that is just the, how do I get there with the cash? I think one other thing, sorry, I'll just throw this out. You frequently talk about these mega trends, and I mentioned that we're in Baldwin County, Alabama, and it's one of the fastest growing counties in the country and it's having the wind at your back. And so, there's huge upside in that. And I think that, we did buy a Park that's in, kind of a more rural area and I think, you gotta be careful about doing that and that Park hasn't worked out as well. So, that was sometime later ago, that was like Park, I dunno, 15 or something like that. But it's important to have the location. At the end of the day, it's real estate, right?
11:37
Frank Rolfe: Yeah.
11:37
Bryce McMurray: So it's location.
11:39
Frank Rolfe: And my first Park was one of my least favorite of all time, but it sounds like your first Park in the end, because of that location and on all the growth going there, that actually is one you would do again today, right? Because both my day's First Park, we'd say, "Oh, we'd never buy one like that again." But that would became an actual template going forward of the kind of Park you would buy. Is that correct?
12:02
Bryce McMurray: It is. I think the other thing, that Park was only 40 lots. And another, lesson learned is, don't go under 50. And really, if you can, you want to have land so that you can expand and get it up over a 100. So that's the smallest Park that we own today, is that 40 lot Park. And it's right in our backyard, so it's okay from a management side perspective. But, I guess just as a general rule of thumb, try to have stuff that's up closer to that a 100 mark. And it, and maybe that means that you just gotta buy the land next to it, to make that work. Or if you've, got a bunch of them that you can pair up together.
12:41
Frank Rolfe: Okay. And so obviously after the first Park, you've done what 15, 16 more after that. So let's break them into tranches of those 16 that followed, what percent of those came from brokers? What percent from cold calling, direct mail, give us an idea of how those came to be?
13:03
Bryce McMurray: Yeah, that's a good question. So, we bought I think six Parks from the same broker. And most of our Parks have come from brokers. I think I heard Kevin Bupp say one time, if you wanna buy a Mobile Home Park and you approach a broker, just make sure you already own a Mobile Home Park. [laughter] So, which is a tough thing. You gotta start somewhere, right?
13:27
Bryce McMurray: But if you treat a broker right, which I mean, it seems like obvious but sometimes for some reason, some people tend to kind of chew them down. They bring tremendous value. So take care of your brokers don't try to chew them down on their fee because they're bringing you... If they're bringing you a good deal and you're gonna buy on it, it's definitely worth the fee that you're paying. So I would say that of the 17 Parks that we have probably most, almost all of them. Maybe there's one or two that haven't come from a broker, but I would say most all of them have come from brokers.
14:06
Frank Rolfe: Okay that's same as we've experienced. So with the bulk of our portfolio also is from brokers. So brokers are number one. All right. So you've got again, 17 roughly Parks total. So other than the first part on these next 16, what percent of those are, I think you mentioned they're all bank. So it's all all bank finance. Is that correct?
14:29
Bryce McMurray: That's correct. Yeah, that's right.
14:30
Frank Rolfe: Any conduit, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, or literally just all regular good old American bank.
14:37
Bryce McMurray: Good old American bank. We did do like six Parks that we coupled up together, took them to one bank, pulled out some CapEx money to keep making improvements. But yeah, all banks. A couple that we just paid cash for like $100,000 $200,000, something like that.
14:58
Frank Rolfe: Okay. I obviously have a lot of experience with banks. What are some things you've learned about banks and financing Mobile Home Parks? What are some of the things that have been your magic secret tricks to get banks to make the loans?
15:16
Bryce McMurray: So we've worked just with with regional local banks. I said, say just, that's not true. We've got a great relationship with a bank out of Maryland, but we've worked with a lot of local regional folks, especially on the acquisition side at the initial purchase. When you're doing these value add deals obviously you build some equity in them and then you're gonna look to refinance them so you can pull that capital out and keep the train moving. But I think speaking to a lot of banks you can't just go to one bank and then this is important. You've got to find banks that understand the product. If you go to a bank and you present what you have or you need to meet with that banker and he turns to the conversation and says that's really nice what you have there Bryce, but this is why apartment deals are so much better. You're probably not gonna convince that guy that he's dead wrong. And that MH is a 100 times better investment.
16:18
Bryce McMurray: So find people that understand MH and they're out there. You just got to look harder. But find people that understand MH and when you find those people, they're gonna write for you.
16:32
Frank Rolfe: And have you had any... When you talk to a bank who is not enthusiastic about Mobile Home Park, how often can you get them enthusiastic or how often is it just the old adage easier to change people than to change people and just move to the next? Like how many banks do you call on before you find the bank? Is it like one shot, one score? What's it like?
17:00
Bryce McMurray: One shot, one kill. No I would definitely say that's not the case. So we do typically when we finance a deal with a bank we'll go back to that bank and do three or four with that same bank. Then at some point it will be, hey Bryce, we're getting close to our lending, lend a bit or that's enough for us. Or maybe they don't say, they don't want the next deal, but you can figure out in the conversations that it's not going anywhere. And so then you've got to look to another bank to finance that next one.
17:33
Bryce McMurray: And I would say kind of I mean this might blow your mind, but I'll call upwards of 30 banks to find one that's gonna be the right deal. And when you do, when you hit a swath that large you're gonna rank order them like, Hey, this guy's offering me the best rate and terms, but these other five guys or six guys are all really good prospects and I'll take the next deal to those guys. And we've done that also but like I said, I've reached out to a lot of different banks upwards of 30 to build my list of who we can work with. And you gotta... Sometimes you gotta kiss a lot of frogs.
18:19
Frank Rolfe: And how do you get your list of banks to call it? Do you take like the Park is in this county and you just call every bank in that county or like, how have you built your banking list? Like if someone is buying a Park, like how would you recommend they make that list?
18:36
Bryce McMurray: We just started by Google and so just when you're looking for local folks we just Google banks, and but the key is to try to find the person in that bank that is open to this product. And like I said, you're gonna you call 30 banks, but, 10 right off the bat and they say, we don't do MH and they have that misinformed perception. And so bam, immediately day one, you're down to 20 now. So and then as you go along, they say, well, we only do nice, stabilized, pretty looking assets. Well, then you just lost another 10. And so it's just kind of a war of attrition. And so you gotta keep playing. I think the other thing too, is that there is so much to be learned in going to conferences and, you do a great job of education. Frank and I listened to your podcasts all the time. I obviously attended your bootcamp and there's other folks out there that do the same thing CCO and MHI...
19:36
Bryce McMurray: There's conferences put on by state associations, getting out there and meeting those people. And there's lots of banks that go to those conferences and are members in those associations that like the product and you don't have to like convince somebody that has a misperception about the asset class that it really is good. So getting out there and meeting other people and going to those conferences, I think knowledge is power.
20:05
Frank Rolfe: And you have an unusual geography 'cause you are mostly in Alabama and Mississippi, is that correct?
20:11
Bryce McMurray: It is, yes, sir. Yeah, Alabama, Mississippi, and then we have one Park in Georgia, south of Miami.
20:17
Frank Rolfe: So, which is a part of America, as I've written articles on, that most people in the industry have avoided historically, right? I don't think there's a single REIT property in our sector in Mississippi, is there? I don't think ELS or Sun or anyone owns anything in Mississippi. I imagine there is probably some institutional ownership in Alabama, but so tell us about that. In other words, I mean, obviously you live in Alabama. So it would make logical sense you would start in Alabama, you move out. But I've also, as I'm sure you were, written articles and said many times, even at bootcamp, that as far as fertile land to grow crops of Mobile Home Parks, that is some of the best soil in America because most people skipped it and still skip it, right? I mean, that's just, when you talk to most people, what region are you investing in? Oh, great place, Midwest, Southwest. You rarely hear Southeast. And if they say Southeast, they normally mean Florida, right? So you talk to people and they're like, where are your Parks? Oh, I'm in the Southeast.
21:25
Frank Rolfe: Where exactly? Oh, I'm in Florida. They don't come up with Alabama, Mississippi. Has that been one of your weapons? In other words, you could probably not have grown as quickly, as large as you are today and pick any other region because there's more people who have looked at Parks or are looking there, but I assume often in the deals you've done, typically Mississippi, you're probably the only buyer looking at the deal at that time, is that correct? Or how does that work in those states?
21:56
Bryce McMurray: Yeah, I think that's exactly right. I mean, I think, what's the old adage? If you wanna be like everybody else, do what everybody else does, so. We obviously started in Alabama 'cause, this is our backyard. At the end of the day, all real estate is local. So and then we kind of branched out from there. And we have about just under 350, 350 lots right now. And then we have a lot of Parks or something like that in the Gulfport-Biloxi area. And then we have another Park that's South of Jackson. And so, and then we got a Park that's up near Prattville, which is just outside of Montgomery. And then the majority of our stuff is in Baldwin and Mobile counties.
22:41
Bryce McMurray: So we have a construction team that goes and does the work to turn these Parks around. And the way that we've kind of decided, where we're gonna go is based upon, drivability. And so, I got to send a construction crew out.
22:57
Bryce McMurray: I don't want to send them to Kansas because, I need to be able to go check on them and see how things are going. Construction is expensive and we have to be safe and we've got to be effective and economic in that process. And so, everything that we have is within a couple of hour radius of Mobile. And so that's kind of driven that train, but I would absolutely agree that, just, I think that, and I've seen it, the tide has changed. And I remember 2015 or '16, it was, don't ever go to the Southeast. The lot rents are too low. And so that has changed, and we have a new project that we're getting ready to build and we're gonna be doing, lot rents between 450 and 495 and the median lot rent in our area is 400. And so, it's not... Maryland, where you're at 800, but it's moving. And I think there's great opportunity with it. And we don't have the competition to get, with all these players coming from, or we haven't historically. And I think that you even see that less in Mississippi, because like you said, Alabama, Georgia, obviously Florida, have kind of led that charge. But I think that you're gonna see Louisiana and Mississippi are gonna follow.
24:21
Bryce McMurray: We don't have anything in Louisiana, but I think you're gonna see the same thing occurring, so.
24:26
Frank Rolfe: And let's talk for a minute about lot rents, because again, the reason a lot of people avoid Mississippi particularly is the assumption that rents are around 100 a month. And I remember back in the 2000s, not in recent times, but back in the 2000s, brokers brought me some Parks because I own Parks in Louisiana. And they said, hey, here's a Park in wherever Mississippi. And I would say, well, what's the lot rent? We do a quick valuation and they would say, well, it's $95. And I was like, $95, you take out your expenses and what do you make, like $5? So I was like, no, dude, I would never buy that. But in modern Mississippi, in your Mississippi Parks, what is your average lot rent in Mississippi?
25:10
Bryce McMurray: So in Mississippi, I think we're around 350 is the average and we're under market. I think market is 400, or more. So I think that that brings an opportunity when you can come in, you're 100% right. I mean, buying a Park that's at $100 a month in lot rent, I mean, it's like, man, you don't wanna go in there, you gotta be the right, you gotta do things right. You can't, screw people over and, take it from 100 to 400 on day one. And so that presents a challenge, but if you can purchase it at the right price and move those lot rents up, I think you can, there's great value to. To achieve so.
25:53
Frank Rolfe: Right and let's talk for a minute just about the laws, both Mississippi and Alabama, I assume are red states are they not as far as politically their orientation.
26:06
Bryce McMurray: That's a big plus. That is a big plus.
26:09
Frank Rolfe: Yeah, so I assume it's also an environment where it's politically fairly easy 'cause they're probably not anti landlord they probably don't have a lot of crazy laws or restrictions correct so it's an area that you you like and it sounds like you'll continue to focus on and, and so you're like the poster child that it's okay to invest in Mississippi and Alabama because obviously, people like myself who don't have any experience there were wrong about the rents being 100 bucks 'cause you're getting 400 and I know from traveling through the areas, you do see a lot of development in Alabama, Mississippi is a little freakier, I mean last time I was in Jackson, even the fancy hotels they had boil orders. Weird. But okay well that helps, people understand that regionally you can invest there, it's a fine fine place to be on that front. Let me ask you about homes for a minute 'cause you fill lots and filling lots is complicated anymore because in a post world the new home prices are just freaking out the roof, they don't make any sense. Often you're stuck trying to buy used homes although also down in your part of America you have access to plants like the true plant.
[overlapping conversation]
27:25
Frank Rolfe: Are in fact cheap. So how are you filling your lots or is it mostly new homes used homes are you getting used to homes from repos, wholesalers, how are you, how are you finding the homes to fill lots?
27:34
Bryce McMurray: Yeah, that's a great question. And you asked me earlier about lessons learned maybe that would be one of them. So we started off. It's funny, during the COVID years we called Clayton and said hey we'd like to order some homes. They literally said like, don't call us we'll call you.
27:49
Frank Rolfe: Right.
27:50
Bryce McMurray: And literally we'll call you in a year so don't call us between next year. Then how times change, we have 100 homes on order for the year, and new homes, and so, obviously when when Clayton wasn't interested or the others folks had, orders, coming out their ears they weren't interested in selling to us but that obviously has substantially changed and kind of corrected itself. Prices have come back down on new homes. And so we're buying... We buy a lot of true homes. We did during those years when you couldn't buy in the COVID years we did go by used homes. And the problem with buying used home is, is that there's always like a mystery in the wall, and you just... You can buy the great looking home but then you find something and it just... I think it's a challenge.
28:45
Bryce McMurray: And if you can buy a new true home for the same price as a used home you can buy a true home a three to elation for like 32,000 delivered 35 is a win zone to, so it's why not just buy the new home. There's and it's easier to finance I think that's the other part of it is, you take it to, 21st or try and it's a used home. You're quickly going to gobble up all of your cash. If you're just trying to buy used homes and you're doing projects that have major infill I mean we're buying Parks that have an average occupancy of like 30%, you got to figure out how you're going to overcome that and get that infill. And if you're out there buying all these used homes, you're going to burn through a lot of cash between the purchase of the home the moving the home, all the repairs that got to be done. Whereas if you're doing it as a new home.
29:32
Bryce McMurray: You can finance everything from the purchase delivery and set up all into the deal so. So yeah, that's we've, we've got 100 homes for the year that were our goal to purchase 100 homes we've received something in the neighborhood of about 60 or so. We have a lot of lots to fill. So, anyways that's our.
29:54
Frank Rolfe: And when you take your true home new factory three bedroom two bath finance let's say through the cash program. You add on your lot rent, at 1000 a month under 1000 a month, what are you seeing as far as your price point that.
30:12
Bryce McMurray: Yeah, we're right around 1000 between nine to 1100 somewhere in there so yeah right around $1000. And depending where you're at in this area, rent rates in Baldwin County or like $1800 a month, go over to mobile it's a little less maybe you're like, 14, 15 something like that so there's, you're offering a three bedroom two bath home somebody can purchase it, and they can... It's all the things that you talked about they can get some equity. They can build something that they own. I think, one of the core tenants of our company is to create a win win. And when you have... When you're providing an opportunity for homeownership and people can can get some equity and something that's a win win. And so we want to be a part of that.
31:00
Frank Rolfe: And someone watching this who has never tried to fill lots before would be saying well now why is he going out there to true homes. I own a three bedroom. Two bath, why doesn't just have the dealer down the street, bring the homes in, and I assume in Alabama and Mississippi like the rest of America, that didn't happen anymore. I mean in any given year, you get hardly any homes coming in from street dealers, street retailers. I assume it's the same in your markets is that correct.
31:27
Bryce McMurray: It is I mean, we have such... We're buying these turnaround projects. We need so many homes. If I can get, we offer the incentives what will offer an incentive somewhere between three to $5000 for somebody to move their home into our Park into, sometimes we'll have folks from a dealership that will, sell a home to someone and they'll move it in. But those are like onesie twosies right and I need 100 homes or more, and so I can't just rely on that we we've gone down that road and try to advertise it and, tried all the different things to get people to organic moves or all different types.
32:06
Bryce McMurray: But we will still continue to pursue those and those are definitely anytime you can get one of those, it's a huge home run. And so you got to take care of those things like they're gold and treat those customers fantastic and help them and help to pay for the cost of the move and set up with some incentives and offer some incentives to the salesperson at the dealership. So anytime you get those, that's great. But like I said it's onesie twosie, and if you need volume, you're gonna have to go purchase homes.
32:36
Frank Rolfe: And in a lot of the markets we're in today, we do get a continuing very small percent, but ongoing RVs that actually move into Mobile Home lots is typically it's a senior, they sold their house, they already owned an RV. And they thought, what, I'll sell my house for 100 grand, bank it, get my RV in the Parking lot, and live in that from now on. Do you see that also in the markets you're in? And do you have any problem with that? 'cause we don't, we look at our an RV is basically a more expensive Mobile Home. Typically, that's a higher end user. But do you have the same kind of stuff going on in your markets?
33:18
Bryce McMurray: We do. We have several Parks that are MHRV hybrids. We will do exactly what you just described. It's a quick way to start generating some revenue off of that lot. And so, yeah, absolutely. One of the challenges that we run into is sometimes you have these municipalities that basically have created this, these rules that say you can't have RVs inside Mobile Home Parks. And if you go and watch how these rules are made, it is mind boggling how the decisions to put this kind of information are written into code that basically you and I have to live by. It's just, it's crazy. I mean, it's this... You would think this stuff would be written by subject matter experts. No, it's written by somebody to their credit, I mean, there are volunteers that are trying to help and they're trying to make their community a better community.
34:18
Bryce McMurray: And they don't have unlimited resource some small town and they don't have unlimited resource to spend on consultants to come in and tell them how best to do that. So then that creates a challenge that you got to overcome and you got to go and try to help educate that municipality on why it's to their benefit. Sometimes you can be successful and sometimes you can't. So but yeah, anytime you can do it, it's a home run.
34:45
Frank Rolfe: Let's talk about raising rents for a minute, 'cause obviously that's the thing that everyone criticizes Mobile Home Park owners for. We're horrible people. We raise the rents. Of course, everything in America is up 20% during the Biden era. But if we're up 1%, we're the ones, the reason that people can't afford to buy medicine or food or whatever. So it's always been a very touchy topic, but I try to always remind people, if you look at apartment rents and home prices, we are literally dollar tree of housing. And you can't touch anything as cheap as we are, but even then you buy a Park and it's in turnaround mode and mom and pop had the rents at $200. The market's at 500. You can't leave it at two, 500 still insanely cheap, but yet you want to moderate your price increases so that people can plan for them and survive them. And in most of our Parks, we try and hold it to roughly about a $50 a year increase, which for most of our tenants, because we don't really deal in people say that Park owners deal in the poor. We don't, I don't know about your clientele. I mean, our clientele, they're not poor people are basically in apartments for the most part on section eight programs for our customers.
35:58
Frank Rolfe: If it's a $50 increase, it's probably one casual dining event a month that is cutting out, maybe even even that. So that means if we go up 50, it means, okay, we're not going to Red Lobster once a month, or might even mean we're going to Red Lobster, but we're not having the infinite Shrimp beast at Red Lobster. How have you approached raising rents and roughly how much on a Park that you'd bought back in 2016 versus today how much up is the rent?
36:32
Bryce McMurray: So I think I'd say a couple of things. One is that, I said earlier, like our median home rent is like 350. If you're making 15 bucks an hour and you got to take into account for taxes and so forth, but, 15 bucks an hour, if you're working an eight hour day, that's basically three days, So it's just, it's where else are you going to live for three days pay? I mean.
36:57
Frank Rolfe: Nowhere. It's absurd. Yeah.
37:00
Bryce McMurray: So I think to that point when you read these articles from these media organizations about like they raised rents and it's unaffordable and rent went up by 30%. Okay. Well, when it goes up and when you're taking rent from $100 to $150 that's obviously more than 3%. But anyways, when you're doing that the reason why they say in percentages, they talk in percentages, not in dollars, because if they didn't talk... If they talked in dollars, everybody'd be like, what, like, what's the fuss about?
37:30
Frank Rolfe: Exactly. Correct.
37:30
Bryce McMurray: It's just an example of the story being kind of twisted and I think that's unfortunate. The thing that's sad about that is, and this is not all folks in the media, but you're really kind of doing a disservice. I mean, the media is there to be a check and a balance. And I think when a story is presented in that way, you're really just... You're hurting folks because like you said before incentive drives behavior. And if a Park is not making any money, then why own the Park? Like, I mean, you're there to make a profit. You're not trying to kill everybody and making that profit, but you should be incentivized. And so if you take away the incentive, we all know what happens when you take away the incentive.
38:14
Bryce McMurray: Then folks come along like myself and buy Parks that haven't been maintained and basically become drug havens and have to go in and do this major turnaround. Nobody wants that. So it's important that we have incentives for people to take care of the Parks and treat the residents as they should be and provide a safe, affordable place for people to live. So in terms of the rent increases, we basically do the same kind of thing that you do, Frank. I would say our average lot rent increases $50 or less. And so our goal is usually get it up like I said, up to that average rate of like 350. We try to be a little bit under market rate.
38:52
Bryce McMurray: And I know other folks they kind of push it. I know other folks in our area that are all over 400. And so I think one other thing that I would say that I think is really important. And it kind of goes back to something that we've talked about, is education. When you do a rent increase, I think it's important to write a letter and say, hey, and you've talked about this we've done these five things to improve the Park this year and to help pay for the next improvements that we want to do we need to do it at an increase. And thank you all for being a part of this community. You're the best part of it. But communicating, we have to communicate. We have to tell the story as to why this re-increase needs to occur because it does need to catch up with where housing costs as a whole are, so.
39:38
Frank Rolfe: And you probably, I don't know if you read it, but I do this thing weekly where I go over all the news articles of the week on the industry. Just try to point out the insanity because half of the articles are reporters mad that Parks are being torn down and the people are being homeless. And the other half of the articles are criticizing like $20 rent increases. It's like, no one has figured out these two kind of go together. I mean, that's why I always put all those articles in giant and in all caps low lot rents equals redevelopment. I mean, like figure this non-rocket science out that the the guy would not have torn the Park down if his rents had been higher. So the articles need to be basically how high should rents be to not be torn down? Like that's the big question. No one wants to talk about, but that's how we look at it, is Mobile Home Park locations typically have good frontage, lots of other uses for them are just a Parking lot. But we don't feel bad about raising our rents because we raise our rents reasonably. We're still the cheapest thing in the market.
40:43
Bryce McMurray: Yes.
40:43
Frank Rolfe: And if we don't raise them, the things just get torn down. That's kind of how it works. Let's talk for a minute about the you own both, as you said, Mobile Home Park and Mobile Home RV hybrid. You may even have like a, a full RV Park in there. What, what, what do you find the difference being in these segments of Mobile Home versus RV? What do you like of one over the other? What are your thoughts on Mobile Home and RV Parks?
41:10
Bryce McMurray: So we have... You've described the different types of RV Parks. So the long-term stays, the destination campgrounds and then like the locations that are convenient or maybe next to the national mall or something like that. So we we have two of those types, which is the long-term and a long-term RV is, it's really no different than MH. Obviously I prefer MH because there's less likely that that RV is going to move. But by and large, it's the same thing. A long-term RV also has oftentimes less... You've got to submit it to the utilities. That's an important thing, by the way it's really important when you have RVs, if you have everything on a master, that's, you're just going to get hosed and it's not good. I've had people that have come up to me and said well, Bryce, when you submit it or utility, all of a sudden I had to start turning the lights off and I couldn't just crank the AC and leave the doors open all day, literally they will...
[overlapping conversation]
42:17
Bryce McMurray: Instead of driving here. So I think that's important. You got to submit those utilities for RV Parks. But I don't think that they operate all that different for the long-term stays than a Mobile Home Park.
42:29
Bryce McMurray: We do have a couple of the Jellystone RV campgrounds, which are a very different business model. And so those are great. You're basically... But you're running a resort which is different, very different than the MH model. So you just kind of know what you're getting.
42:48
Frank Rolfe: The RVs are like running a restaurant, almost. 'Cause it's an actual business as defined by the government. I mean, you can get SBA loans on a Jellystone resort because it is a business.
43:01
Bryce McMurray: That's right.
43:01
Frank Rolfe: Which means you have all the things a business has, which is, greater turnover, risk, people, all this. So yeah we also own those. We we tend to prefer the MH 'cause we're more passive and non-risk taking and never really wanted to own a restaurant. But still, now also you're a ground up, Greenfield development, correct? Right now.
43:23
Bryce McMurray: Yeah.
43:26
Frank Rolfe: Okay. You are, which is unique because people talk about them all the time. And then you mentioned, you go to a lot of the different industry events. And I know if you go to the TMHA or Texco event people all the time walk around saying I'm doing Greenfield development, and then you say, well, where is it? They can't name any, right? And often they go out and they raise money to do these developments. They get plans drawn and then you revisit it five years later and not a single one's been built. Like I asked a guy that we've used on the show, a guy that we've used on some of our expansions he has all these roles of plans.
44:00
Frank Rolfe: So how many, all these Mobile Home branding, Mobile Home Parks you ever built? He said, well, none at this point. And he's been doing it for like 10 years. You're like, okay, wait a minute. But okay. So you actually have one going in.
44:12
Bryce McMurray: We do.
44:12
Frank Rolfe: How did that work? Like, how does that... Obviously, you're into filling vacant lot. So you've got that mastery. So you have the way to create the value, which is to take the land and to build the lots and to fill the lots. But how did you get the permits to build it in a location that you think people will want to live in? How did you overcome that? Which state is that in? Is that in the Mississippi, Alabama? Where is that?
44:35
Bryce McMurray: It's in Alabama and it's about 30 minutes down the road from us. So it's like literally right in our backyard. My belief is that the tide is changing on that. As lot rents have gone up it becomes more feasible to do these. And I think that... I think this is the next wave of MH that you're going to see is, is these developments are going to start occurring. And it's funny. I was talking with somebody yesterday, a broker and they were telling us that they had funded like 4000 lots being developed in Dallas, Houston, and Austin. And I guess the first ones are supposed to be breaking ground here this month, or they just broke ground.
45:14
Bryce McMurray: So our development is 240 sites or 239, excuse me, right now. There's a little bit of room to expand it up to 300. We've already taken down the land. We own the land. It was zoned MH. I think that's an important distinguishing...
[overlapping conversation]
45:30
Frank Rolfe: Okay. You didn't rezone. This is a whole different animal.
45:34
Bryce McMurray: It is.
45:35
Frank Rolfe: So this was a... You're taking something that someone had zoned but had never built. And you're... Okay, that's a different kind of project. All right, so got it.
45:47
Bryce McMurray: Absolutely.
45:47
Frank Rolfe: All right. So what we're doing here is we're tapping into your expertise in filling lots.
45:48
Bryce McMurray: That's right.
45:50
Frank Rolfe: Using pre-existing MH zoning. That makes a whole lot more sense because, again, I'm sure you've done some expansions at this point.
45:58
Bryce McMurray: Yes.
46:00
Frank Rolfe: We've tried to do a lot of expansions and the normal expansion, I show up at the council meeting and I am nearly tired and feathered, right? If I can get out of there without being murdered in the Parking lot, get in my car and drive off without bullet holes in the windows. I'm feeling pretty good about it.
46:17
Bryce McMurray: Yeah. That's Right.
46:20
Frank Rolfe: Right. So zoning wise, and so even when the guys talk about funding these thousands of lots and stuff. Often those are tiny home things or not normal. It was like the guy at the Texas event that talked about his big ground of development. It wasn't a Mobile Home Park. It was what was highly tiny home subdivision. And it had no parallel to Mobile Home Parks at all. None.
46:46
Frank Rolfe: But are you seeing like, people getting zoning to build real old-fashioned Mobile Home Parks in Alabama, Mississippi. Because I'm not seen it anywhere. That's why I often mention it in my weekly newsletter thing. I don't see them. I mean, do you see them?
47:05
Frank Rolfe: Not your deal. Your deal is under genius. You find the Park that's already zoned. The land zoned MAH We finish it. I understand that. And I've seen people do that. I've never seen anyone successfully get a ground up permit in a desirable area. I guess. I guess that's the preface have you seen that at all.
47:21
Bryce McMurray: I haven't. So, I think, you're making a that's an important distinguishing item and so yeah, I haven't seen anybody that's gone into an area that was desirable and then able to get land rezoned. I do think that that's going to happen. I think that there is a tide that's... It's gonna take a long time. I mean, we're talking, I think it's gonna take decades, but I think that people are gonna wake up and realize that, when it's... The median home price in our area where we're building this Park is $400,000. Median home price is $500,000. I mean, when you come in and you're offering somebody to be able to purchase a three-bedroom two bath home for the low one hundreds I mean it's just it it's a no-brainer, the people will speak and they will require that those that are in government make these changes to be able to support this it's going to happen.
48:18
Bryce McMurray: And I think that, kind of like we talked about before with being in Alabama and Mississippi, kind of being on the forefront, first to market, so to speak. I think that, I think that there's an opportunity for that to occur. I think it's going to take time for it to be common knowledge to everyone like, hey, not all Mobile Home Parks are this perception of what the 1970s, grandma's trailer are. And so it's just taking some time and, like MHA on the mall and these other events are an effort to change that perception. It'll take time, but when it does, you want to be first to market, right? You don't want to be the last guy to show up.
48:57
Frank Rolfe: Right. And you're obviously well-versed in homes. You're buying a lot of homes. You're buying 100 new homes. Do you think a lot of what the industry needs in order to go into the future, is a better look at home on the outside. I mean, it's the only part of the industry I've never figured out is we've got the Park owners have got the Park thing down pat, right? I mean, our level of play today compared to when I got in the industry 30 years ago is not different. Like I never even, I rarely even see your classic dirt road crappy trailer Park anymore. Normally everything I see has got the white vinyl fence, it's got the signs, got the amenities. Park owners got it all figured out, right? But home manufacturers are lost in the sauce, to me, on the appearance. I mean, I'm not in any way impressed. When I go to the Mobile Home shows, yeah, the inside's looking great, man. You go in the Clayton Pavilion and you marvel at how good they are at making these things look like a condominium or stick built. But from the outside, they're horrible. They're ugly. And do you think they could ever overcome that? You think 3D printing may overcome that? I mean, what are your thoughts on that? Because that's what causes the stigma, in my opinion, is you have this shoebox on stilts. It's a total consumer turnoff. Do you find that to be true? Or what are your things? Maybe you like the homes out there. What are your thoughts on that?
50:29
Bryce McMurray: I think that that's changing also. I think that, there's just so much opportunity. I mean, even today there's just such great demand that these home builders have. Even with high interest rates, they still have great demand. And, it's an area that's flourishing and it's only going to continue to flourish. These guys, when you're building in a factory, you don't have to worry about rain delays. And subs are not showing up to the job site and all these things. So they're going to be able to control the costs. And that's going to... Because they can control the cost, they can get things at a better price delivered to a site. There's it's going to drive innovation because more people are going to come into the space. And and I think that that's... There's going to be an evolution that's going to occur. And that exterior facade improvement is going to be a part of that evolution.
51:22
Bryce McMurray: I think that... Mama is the one that makes the decision on what house we're buying. And so what does Mama like? Mama likes a beautiful kitchen and beautiful bathrooms. And obviously, she likes curb appeal, too. But when you walk into the home and you open the door, and there's a marble or granite island in the center, and it's got an open floor plan, and she goes in and she's got the the nice beautiful clawfoot looking tub, those are the things that she says this is where we're living. And so I think that that is where it's starting at, is on the interior. And I think the exterior is the next piece in that evolution that's going to occur. So, the future is...
52:01
Frank Rolfe: Let me ask you. You've been... Since you've been doing this since 2016, you've been through two of the great crises of modern times with Mobile Home Parks: One being COVID, the other being the interest rate increases starting in 2022. Let's talk for a minute about those two out-of-nowhere, not on anyone's radar screen things. I mean, the COVID thing, we had no prior warning. It was just like getting hit with a pie in the face out of nowhere, just walking down the street, going to go to Bennigan's or something. And suddenly some guy runs up and hits you in a pie. It was initially shock because I never thought we would shut the United States down ever on anything. I thought even if we had nuclear war, we would still be functioning. But suddenly over a strain of the flu, we shut everything down. And how did your Parks fare during that?
52:55
Frank Rolfe: Because we did just fine. I mean, people kept paying us. It was terrifying, but yet we survived that. What was your collections and stuff like? Were you guys okay during COVID?
53:10
Bryce McMurray: Yeah, we were. I think that that's another plus of being in the red states. We didn't... I don't want to say it was business as usual, but it wasn't much of a deviation. So thankfully, we were able to continue to operate. And we didn't see this, I think everybody was kind of scared at first, hey, what's going to happen? But it didn't take long for things to kind of sort themselves out and for folks to realize in our local area that like, hey, we got to continue to move along here. And so like in our area, I think an example would be that I think schools were let out for like, after spring break or something like that. The kids didn't come back. Well, they went back to school the next fall. I have friends that live in Colorado and out west, and they were out of school for an entire another year. They're out of school for another year. That's big. I mean, that's huge impact, just in every facet of our economy. And I live in God's country. So I spent 25 years with Uncle Sam, traveled all over the world, lived in lots of different states. There's a reason why I came back to good old Sweet Home Alabama.
54:23
Frank Rolfe: Okay, and now let's talk about the interest rate increase, right? So we're all minding our own business. We knew that rates would go up eventually. They couldn't stay at zero forever. And then suddenly in Q1 of '22, at the end of Q1, Powell takes the rates from 0.25 to 5.5, right? And yet our industry has weathered that so far pretty well. I mean, it has not impacted cap rates. I mean, I'm not even hearing still of any real banking pain in our sector, just because banks still like Mobile Home Parks. And I think because people had inherently bought Parks where they could still raise rents and fill lots, all the stuff you're doing to help, moderate that impact. But have you seen the impact of that so far?
55:15
Bryce McMurray: It's interesting. Last year we purchased... We bought eight Parks last year. That was a little bit more of an increase than we normally buy for us. And so we saw that the rate increases actually kind of helped us a little bit because we're buying value-add projects. And so, with higher rates and deep improvements that are needing to be done, banks have been more selective. They've kind of tightened up what they're going to loan on. And so that's created an opportunity for owner finance. And so we bought a Park in December, 123 lots, 5% interest on an owner finance. We bought another one in Georgia, we bought an RV Park over there, at 4%. So I think that's created... The rise in interest rates has created an opportunity for mom and pop still want that higher number and you can find a way to get there if you can negotiate on the interest rate. And so.
56:17
Frank Rolfe: That's same, same, same exact thing that we are seeing. But let's talk for a minute about management. You've got about 2,000 lots, so yours is a big business. I mean, 50 grand a lot, that's a 100 million dollar portfolio, right? So it's not fair for me to ask you, well, how much time do you spend a week because you're not just a guy with one Park, you're a guy with 100 million dollars of Parks. Alright, so let me just ask you some basic management pop quiz questions. Like what do you use for software? You use Rent Manager, Yardi, what do you use?
56:49
Bryce McMurray: We use Rent Manager and we communicate within our team using Slack. On the RV side, on the campground side, long-term side, we've just converted over to New Book.
57:02
Bryce McMurray: Okay, so like accounting software wise, we currently use QuickBooks, although we're looking to migrate. And we've been talking about moving over to Sage.
57:20
Frank Rolfe: Okay. And we are also Rent Manager fans. That's who we use. And then the endless debate of which there really is no science yet is how you structure when you have a bunch of properties. That level of administration between Park managers and home office, right? So obviously I assume you have a manager in every Park. You have some kind of warm body in every Park. Is that correct?
57:43
Bryce McMurray: So we are more regionally focused. So we will have... We've got six Parks in Mobile. We have a manager and assistant manager that'll manage those Parks that are all within 15 minutes of each other.
57:55
Frank Rolfe: Right. Okay. Right.
57:56
Bryce McMurray: And that's four or 500 sites or something like that. Now, if I got a Park that's over in Prattville, which is just north of Montgomery, I have a manager for that one Park. Again, I got another clump I mentioned earlier out there in the Gulfport-Biloxi area. I got a manager that kind of manages all of that. So that's kind of how we're organized. And then we have a regional manager that oversees those. And then we have some maintenance staff that support them. We've got an admin that handles all the rent manager collections. Like you talked about, we do all ACH. Nobody's knocking on a door. We're not doing that stuff. So, yep. That's kind of it.
58:43
Frank Rolfe: And think back on your very first Park back in the 2016 era. How did you manage that first Park? I assume you had a manager in the Park, and you would, what, call them up every week, or... Oh, you're self-managing then. Okay. Well, that are the questions. All right. Back when you were self-managing, let's say, what were some of your top three on that first Park and then today what are your top three management issues, problems, concerns, big focus items? What are they?
59:21
Bryce McMurray: So, just for some clarity, that first Park that we bought was the first, last, and only Park that I've ever managed. So I quickly kind of like your story of sitting in Glen Haven, waiting for somebody to knock on the door. I realized like, yeah, this is probably not the best use of my time.
59:39
Frank Rolfe: Like, What am I doing with my life? Or Why do I exist? Yeah, same thoughts I had in Glen Haven every day.
59:44
Bryce McMurray: That's right, yeah. So, I almost cringe at telling you some of the things that I did. I've never been directly involved in the apartments or houses that I've had. I've never gone and knocked on doors. So what I would do is set up an account in a bank, and then I would have the residents go make the deposit at the bank or whatever and I could obviously see when it hits the account with online banking. So, I did something similar with... And this is before I had rent manager and any management software. It was me in a spreadsheets. I did something similar like that and set up a bank account and had folks go make a deposit.
1:00:23
Bryce McMurray: Then, I'd see the deposit ticket and know who it was from and so fourth so. Park number two came along by the time we had we are at Park number three, it was "Hey, we need to sign up for rent management software." And so we quickly did that. Obviously, it's kind of one of those things where it's like, I don't know how the heck we ever did without having that. And I can't imagine... Every now and then I talk to somebody who's got four or five Parks on a spreadsheet and I'm like, "Wow, man, there's an easier way in life. So I think from a lesson learned, that'd be a big one. I think some of the things that we've done, we do our sales like for our infill, because that's a big part of our company is, is doing infill.
1:01:15
Bryce McMurray: We have like a sales office, and then we have some folks that specialize just in the sales. We have another guy that specializes in just managing the Clayton relationship with the receipt of homes. You got a 100 homes rolling in through the door, there's gonna be problems. I mean, just sheer volume. So you gotta have somebody that manages all that. And I think as our company has grown and changed, you recognize, hey, look there's this need for somebody to handle titles. And so I think something that we're kind of seeing as an evolution in the industry and there's other operators out there that have this down or doing this better than I am, but there's so much of this is done remotely.
1:01:58
Bryce McMurray: And so paying $30 an hour to have somebody do it in the US is not necessarily, necessary. I mean, you can have somebody in the Philippines manage it or south America or something like that. And so there's some cost savings there that can be achieved. And then when you find great people that are US based now you are shifting them to managing tenant relationships. Like, Hey, I want you to make sales. And in order to be able to make sales, you have to connect with people and have some commonality. And so having people that are local so you can take those back office things overseas and then you can have your front office folks and you kind of reposition those people into sales or other things that are, are gonna help your organization grow, so.
1:02:43
Frank Rolfe: You had mentioned self storage on the front end, and obviously a lot of self storage people are just getting killed right now. Between declining occupancy, declining rents, people fleeing urban centers. They're getting murdered, retail is ruined, office is ruined. Even some commercial industrial is going down the drains. Do you ever marvel at how lucky we are just from a megatrend perspective? Because isn't that just weird? When I got in the Mobile Home Park business, Mobile Home Park people were freaks. We were nobody, banks would laugh at you. I'd call up, try to get a loan. A bank would be like, I put my name on a trailer Park. Are you freaking serious? The guy would be like, just hang up on me. Hey, we're like one of the few things that still can walk proudly and actually pay mortgages and hit budgets and make money.
1:03:35
Frank Rolfe: I think it's really just the world real estate to me today revolves around kind of a Mobile Home Parks, RV Parks, apartment complexes, and single family homes. It's like all the rest of the real estate has just been destroyed, in my opinion. Now again, I live in a small town south of St. Louis. St. Louis is a terrible spot if you are in office. 'Cause it's at 50% occupancy and retail's at 50%. So everywhere you go, you see these giant skyscrapers that are now abandoned. I think there was one in St. Louis, it recently sold for 3 million. That cost a 100 million to build back in the '80s. It's St Louis's biggest building. But isn't it just amazing how the trade, the Mobile Home Parks kind of just watched all of the competitors get taken out by this sniper called the internet.
1:04:27
Frank Rolfe: And it is just... Isn't it just kind of crazy 'cause you've been around to see it also, if you... Even in 2016, it's like every year we watch our arch competitor just have a car wreck, train wreck. Do you also sometimes wake up and just go, my God, we're lucky because I... That wasn't skill I got in the business just because I thought it was interesting and profitable. I never dreamed that all of our big competitors would be wiped out. Do you also share those thoughts sometimes in the middle of the night?
1:05:00
Bryce McMurray: Yeah. Absolutely. The developer... I worked for a developer in Florida and we were building the three-story, 100,000 square foot self-storage facilities. We'd build them, like I said, for a lot of the large operators. And you've obviously seen those things trade and the cap rates or three caps or whatever they are. And it's just... There's so many... It doesn't make any sense to me. Like if you're educated on what MH is, you're basically renting dirt, right? So if you're running a tenant at home model which, in my opinion is the preferred option. So, but if you're running a tenant home model, you're renting dirt, you're renting space, a parking lot, like you said. And if you have a self-storage facility, this three-story, you got... You have to allocate a significant portion of your budget to repairs and maintenance. And you've got to have the staff of people in there cleaning the thing all the time and manning the desk and, all these other things. And so I don't think, in my opinion, I'm sure self-storage is a great asset class, and office and all those other...
1:06:16
Frank Rolfe: Not anymore, to be honest with you. It's not anymore based on everything I see in here. It's not looking healthy, but go ahead.
1:06:27
Bryce McMurray: No, I agree. To each their own, but I 100% for me and my money, I don't do 401 [k] s. I do Mobile Home Parks. So I put my money where my mouth is and I believe in this asset class. And if you sit down and you talk with someone, you lay out the pros and cons of a office or retail, we've had office and retail, all this other stuff too. So, you lay it all out and then you compare it to MH. It just... Once you're educated, it's clear as day, it's black and white. And anybody that says anything any differently is just basically responding on emotion and ill-informed perception is really all it is. If you're watching 8 Mile, you might think that, that Mobile Home Parks are all going to be dumps. And so but that's just not real life. Hollywood is not real life. So.
1:07:26
Frank Rolfe: Well, and 8 Mile was a set. Even more bad, bad, bad option. All right. So what's your future plan? So you're at about 2000 lots in the Southeast. Is the goal to get to 200,000 lots? Become a REIT. What is the master plan?
1:07:46
Bryce McMurray: That's an interesting question. Folks ask that a lot. I'm already... I'm retired. I kind of hit that point in life where I don't have to keep grinding, but man, I love it. It's fantastic. We've got a great team of folks. I enjoy going out and seeing my guys on the construction team and busting their chops and having a good time. And I enjoy the folks that I work with on our operations team. So we're going full steam ahead. I don't... There's not a magic number. Do I think we'll be at 10,000 lots? Yeah. Absolutely. Will we keep growing from there? Absolutely. As long as it's fun, we'll keep doing it and we'll keep plugging away and keep building. And I don't see anything out there in the megatrend sphere, that's going to slow that down or change that. And I think that, kind of, we talked about, I think the future at some point... I know there's a lot of consolidation left that still can occur out in the market.
1:08:50
Bryce McMurray: But at some point in these high demand areas, the opportunities are gonna become less, but the demand and requirement for affordable housing isn't gonna change. And I think that what we're gonna see is more stuff being built. And so we're doing that in our own backyard. We see the opportunity to build some additional Parks in the future. Trying to find stuff that's zoned MH is tough, but I think if you can rezone things to MH, I think there's huge value in that too. So.
1:09:26
Frank Rolfe: Right. Well, Bryce, this has been a great, great conversation and we really appreciate all your time here. And it's remarkable that Mobile Home Park people are so open and honest and willing to talk about the industry. 'Cause if we held something with someone in, for example, self-storage space, they wouldn't wanna talk about it or they would view everyone as potential competition or... But, in our industry, it's almost like a fellowship of people because it's such a weird industry, that if you're in it, you kind of like to talk about it. You kind of like knowing that people actually even care are interested in it. It's kind of like, I live in a small town like you do, and we have small town car shows and you can't live in my small town. If you don't have a collector car, you got to have at least a 65 Mustang or a Corvette or something.
1:10:20
Frank Rolfe: And you go to the car shows and people will stand there literally for 10 hours talking about the micro minutia of a Mustang. And then if your Mustang is broken, they'll fix it real quick for free. And I always find that to be... I always like things and being involved in things that are just weird enough that people are so into it that they'll just talk and... You know what I mean? It just makes life fun.
1:10:45
Bryce McMurray: Yeah. Absolutely.
1:10:46
Frank Rolfe: It's worth more life than money. People like just talking to each other without all this political correctness and craziness that people do today. So we appreciate you being part of the fellowship of Mobile Home Park owners and so willing to take, over an hour of your time to give people some direction, whether they're looking to buy in their first Park or if they already own Parks or trying to figure out what they need to do differently or where to go from there. I also appreciate your bravery for doing this down in an area, which most people do not understand. All I really know about Alabama is it's got really good barbecue and the same with Mississippi. And it's fun to drive through as a tourist. I don't really understand them at all, but I've always thought there's opportunity there. But I didn't really know it. So I'm glad you're here from that zone because I don't think we've ever actually had anyone on here that does Alabama, Mississippi specifically before.
1:11:45
Frank Rolfe: So that's also unique. And then of course, I also appreciate you being in the heavy lift turnaround mode because that's what we do. And in my thinking, that's the, not only the most profitable sector, but that's the one that has the best impact on everyone, tenants, the community, the surrounding community at large. So it's like the biggest of all win wins, but again, it takes some degree of bravery. Maybe it ties back to your military career or something, because... Glen Haven, which was horrible, heavy turnaround. It scared me to death, yet I kept persevering with it, but it's not for the faint of heart jumping into like a property that mom and pop will get let terribly run down knowing you have to bring them back to life and stuff. So again, we really appreciate you being here. That kind of wraps up this lecture series event. But again, I hope everyone learned a lot from this and we will talk to everyone again soon. So thanks everybody.