Join us for an insightful conversation with Kean, a medical doctor from California who is also a mobile home park owner! In this interview, we dive into how Kean got into the mobile home park business, the lessons he’s learned along the way, how much time he spends on management, and much more.
The host, Frank Rolfe, brings his expertise from decades in the industry, making sure the discussion is fast-paced and unfiltered. While Frank may not be an M.D., he’s certainly an M.H.D. (Mobile Home Devotee), and he knows exactly what questions investors want answered.
If you’re considering investing in mobile home parks while balancing a full-time career, this discussion is a must-watch!
Kean, like many successful investors, got his start by attending our Mobile Home Park Investor’s Boot Camp, where we provide a comprehensive, no-fluff education on finding, evaluating, financing, and operating mobile home parks. If you're serious about breaking into this asset class, there’s no better way to get the real, unfiltered truth from industry veterans. For those looking to take their knowledge even further, our Mobile Home Park Masterclass offers an advanced deep dive into high-level strategies, asset optimization, and scaling your portfolio. Whether you're just getting started or ready to maximize your investments, these events are designed to give you the tools, insights, and confidence to succeed in mobile home park investing. Learn from those who have done it—just like Kean did!
Checking the Vitals on Mobile Home Park Ownership - Transcript
Frank Rolfe: Welcome everyone, to our lecture series event. This is Frank Rolfe with MHU. Very glad you're here. As everyone knows, we try and alternate these lecture series between me talking on a topic and talking to real people. And that's because we feel if you get a 360 degree view on mobile home park ownership, you need to hear it from someone other than just myself. In this case, we decided we would interview Keen from California because he has a very interesting story and he's a very interesting and pleasant guy. And it's not often that you find in our industry people who are medical doctors that own mobile home parks. It's like there's an old joke about a Supreme Court judge that dies and goes to heaven and they take him to the pearly gates and they walk in and say, we'll show you your new housing. And they're walking towards this giant, beautiful mansion and right before they get there, they hang a left and they go to an efficiency apartment. And the Supreme Court judge says, wait a minute, I kind of thought I would be in the, in heaven's mansion. He says, nah, nah. We have a million Supreme Court judges, but that's our only attorney.
01:01
Frank Rolfe: So in a similar vein, we've got Keen, who's a rarity because we don't really normally get that many doctors in the industry. Although, that being said, the second largest street in America, Sun, was founded by a US medical doctor. So actually the second largest donor of all time, behind Sam Zell, was in fact a doctor. But Keen, we're glad you could take time away from your busy schedule to be here with us. So we thank you very much for your patience in joining us and dispensing knowledge on the industry as best you can. So let's start off with the question most people would ask is how did you get interested in mobile home parks? Like, what made you interested in this sector?
01:43
Kean G:: Okay, well, first, I've always kind of been an out of a box kind of thinker. And I've done real estate since the early '80s. So I did homes then. I had like 160 apartment units. And with the apartment units, they were really a pain because I saw everybody blames one another for this and that, and they always want to get their, what do you call it their unit fixed or whatever. The expenses are usually around like 60%, 65%. So it looks like you're making a lot of money, but you're really not. There's a lot of moving parts. And when the economy went bad in California as you talked about timing, then all the A unit people went down to the B and C unit apartments. So they didn't go to the D unit, though. The D unit were like, what do you call it? They weren't safe, so nobody wanted to do that but the B and C unit. So then I was looking at mobile home park, like the affordability of it. The not that many moving parts, kind of a living cemetery almost. It's really not that not that many things going on with it.
02:51
Kean G:: Little did I know there's a lot more to it than you think there is. But that's why I decided to go with the. I like the affordability of it. I like the idea of it's like doing a good deed. You're taking something, getting rid of the dredge, making it nice for the good people, and making a nice and safe environment. So it's kind of a public service as well to me.
03:16
Frank Rolfe: And Keen, so you had this concept of mobile home park ownership stemming from apartments and single family homes, et cetera, but you knew it was a little bit of a different bag. So what did you do to prepare yourself to buy a mobile home park? What were your preparations you felt required to do that?
03:35
Kean G:: Well, the first thing, I luckily saw this, the Frank and Dave Show. So I had your audio and then I had all the successes and the horror stories from the books. And I found it very, very interesting on all the various scenarios. So that's what really got me involved. And then I went to your boot camp in like, I think it was 2000. You had a couple in Newport Beach, and I took one online.
04:05
Frank Rolfe: Yep. And Keen, so how difficult is it to juggle owning a mobile home park with being a doctor? Because when I think of being a doctor, I think of midnight calls and long hours and preparing for medical exams and all that kind of junk. How do you squeeze a mobile home park in there? How does that work?
04:30
Kean G:: Well, one thing I got to say is, so from being a doctor, I'm an anesthesiologist, so some people say, pediatric anesthesia is like taking care of like a little adult. And nothing could be further from the truth. It's not a young adult. It's a completely different animal. Same with mobile home parks. Like, you think real estate is all the same with real estate? No. So the mobile home park really no matter how much I get prepared, I'm still not prepared. You have to learn from experience and you have... What you have is like a golden threshold of opportunity in that Mobile Home University. But no matter what, your experience has to be tempered with that knowledge to what you're doing. That's what I think.
05:13
Frank Rolfe: And Keen, the, I mean, on average, how many hours... You own three different parks, is that correct?
05:20
Kean G:: Right.
05:21
Frank Rolfe: Okay. But let's say you own just one. How many hours per week would the average person have to expect to spend on a mobile home park per week?
05:31
Kean G:: Well, I have to say mine, I did a 1031 exchange, so I had one that needed a lot of rehab. So the rehab took a lot of my time to fix it up and to do this and that and the other. And then I learned a lot of management issues. I learned a valuable lessons. I really did. So now once the park is running or whatever, hardly takes any time at all. I'd say, like, maybe four or five hours.
05:56
Frank Rolfe: Okay.
05:57
Kean G:: I mean, once everything's all straightened out and good to go.
06:01
Frank Rolfe: Right. And that transition from the turnaround, kind of like a rocket ship trying to break out of the earth's orbit, the engines run for so many minutes or seconds, and then go to the next stage. In the turnarounds you've done, how long has that turnaround piece taken? And I know obviously, you learn more about each turnaround every time you do it. But if you were...
06:21
Kean G:: It could be over a year to turn them around.
06:24
Frank Rolfe: Okay, so your first stage of the rocket was about a year. And so how difficult a turnaround was that? What were we looking like when you bought the thing? How bad condition was it, et cetera?
06:32
Kean G:: So the problem was, I had this impression that when you see these older people, they're good and they're moral and they have integrity or whatever, I haven't really found that. I found that they lie through their teeth. They're just looking for a profit, and they're looking to move on to whatever they're doing. So that's kind of what I wound up getting involved with. The septic was like... When anything is out of context, like it has a well, it has a septic. I didn't investigate it thoroughly because I'm working as a doctor. So it was hard for me to evaluate the whole situation. But once I got in it, then it took a lot of my time.
07:09
Frank Rolfe: Right. And Keen, what are some of those early lessons learned from those parks on the turnaround phase, about things that popped up you weren't expecting? Or if you could talk to the younger Keen who was just about to buy the first park now as a three-park veteran, what would be some of the things you would say, hey, younger Keen, be sure and blank. What would the blanks be?
07:31
Kean G:: Right. I would say really pay attention to the Mobile Home University due diligence. Really just, that's going to save you a lot of heartache and a lot of pain that you're going to, that if you don't follow and just shoot from the hip, that's what's going to happen. Like I said, from the pediatric anesthesia, it's a completely different animal to real estate because the infrastructure can kill you because it'll just take you forever to catch up. And these people, the one guy was shoveling crap and telling me he had no problem with the septic. It was kind of like, and then when I got in there, I saw that. There was another one where the guy says, oh... This is the one in Washington. Oh, you're going to just move one mound of dirt to the other side. It's not a big deal at all, the guy was telling me. Then two weeks after it closed, I had his attorney call me and say you do know there's a 17-page ecological report on this mobile home park, right? So I had to satisfy the people on what was going on there, you know what I'm saying? So it was just the lack of due diligence that I didn't do.
08:37
Frank Rolfe: Gotcha. So basically need to turn over every stone and not just a few stones. Gotta hit it all. Correct?
08:45
Kean G:: Right.
08:46
Frank Rolfe: And then Keen, on the parks in general, did you find them from brokers? Did you find them from online messaging, cold calling or how did it happen?
08:54
Kean G:: I found them exactly the wrong way. Yes, I learned in your master class that I went to like two or three times. You said, don't get online parks. Guess what? They were all online. So they were all kind of like, it was just like one lesson after another. But it taught me a lot. And when you get that, I learned more from my failure than my success. And when you get that and then you've helped me a lot with, like I used to call you and ask you for advice, whatever. And it was really like I was dealing with this city on, they wanted me to remove the storm drain. I was going to go to an attorney. You said, you know what, sometimes you deal with them and you do what they want to do. And that, what do you call it, that relationship is worth a lot. You know what? It was. So really just that practical advice really saved me big time.
09:46
Frank Rolfe: And Keen, you're in California and you've been there a long time. I assume, were you born in California? How long have you been in California?
09:52
Kean G:: I was born in New Jersey, but I've been here since '76. So I've been here a long time.
09:57
Frank Rolfe: Okay. And you've seen California obviously evolve and morph over time into what is collectively fairly valuable real estate, right? I mean, the most expensive mobile home park in America. Well, it's a toss up now. It's is the one in Sunnyvale, which sold for 240 million, or the one in Malibu that they won't reveal the price, but it's assumed to be 2 to $300 million. So you're in one of the most expensive real estate markets in America yet looking to buy a mobile home park, and you elected to stay in California, is that correct?
10:29
Kean G:: Correct. I have two parks in California. Correct.
10:32
Frank Rolfe: Right. So how did you not do what many people do? Many people say, I'm going to look for stuff anywhere but California, too expensive, regulatory environment, strange political climate. Yet you stayed in California. Why did you make that decision? For those watching who are like, I don't want to be in California. Why California?
10:52
Kean G:: I love California. And I just figured, I look at the parameters and I can survive in those parameters. So I just chose to live here and do what I'm going to do. I raised their rents. So Newsom has this thing where he has a rent control, like 8 to 10% or whatever it is. And I just make sure I always raise their rate. And then, I shop around with a local, say, $600. So I raise them up 10% and they're going to go up to that rate after that. I always do a rent raise. Then that was advice from you. Even I go up $15. Whatever, they're going to all get a rent raise, whatever that'll be. But I don't know, I just found it works out okay.
11:33
Frank Rolfe: Did you ever look outside of California or has that always been... I mean, I know you're, one of your three is in, was it Washington State? Is that correct?
11:40
Kean G:: One's in Washington State, the other one's in Southern California. It's in Kern County.
11:43
Frank Rolfe: But did you ever look to the east or did you just say, no, I'm just staying in California by design.
11:49
Kean G:: Well, right now I just really look, I really just like California. And I had a broker who told me, said, you know what he says? If you get a... And maybe this is crazy advice, but he says wherever you get your mobile home, he says, get it in a place where you'd like to visit because you're going to be there a lot, whatever. And if you're going to enjoy it you might as well have it in that area. And that's kind of when I looked, they're like one's by the Columbia River, the other one's by the ocean, like a mile from the ocean. And this one is by the Kern River where there's great trout fishing or whatever. It's a natural paradise. That's kind of what I chose to do.
12:23
Frank Rolfe: And if you were to jump in your car right now and drive out to those three, how far a drive is it for where you are right now to you're closest and your farthest one?
12:31
Kean G:: So the one in Kern is about a three and a half, four-hour drive, which isn't too bad.
12:36
Frank Rolfe: Okay.
12:36
Kean G:: The other one is like a 12-hour drive, Klamath.
12:39
Frank Rolfe: Okay.
12:39
Kean G:: So I take a plane out there and then the other one, I take a plane to Portland and it's about 50 minutes away, so it's very easy.
12:48
Frank Rolfe: And once you get out of the turnaround mode and into the, just the cruise control mode, how often a year do you go out to look at those properties?
12:57
Kean G:: So the one in Washington, I'm in the cruise control mode and I had, probably haven't been there for seven or eight months. I have great managers and I really don't have to go there. It's just, I use that GoPro camera and the various things that you guys suggested and it works out well.
13:14
Frank Rolfe: And do you have one manager per property? Is that how you're set up?
13:18
Kean G:: That's how I'm set up. Right.
13:19
Frank Rolfe: Gotcha. So you have one manager per property, no maintenance men, I assume?
13:23
Kean G:: No, I have, actually, I have a maintenance person. I have a maintenance person part time in Jasmine Jewel. That's the Washington one. The Klamath one, I don't have anyone there. It's only like eight units right now. It's zoned for 22, which I am going to do but I'm going to see how that's going to go. And then the other one is zoned for 50 and I only have like 4 spaces vacant there on the RVs.
13:48
Frank Rolfe: Gotcha. And can you... Do you use Rent Manager or what software do you use?
13:52
Kean G:: Oh, yeah, yeah. I love it. That's from you guys. I use Rent Manager. Yeah, it's really good.
13:57
Frank Rolfe: Okay. So the chain of command is Keen at the top and then in the little pyramid, and then you got the three managers, got the maintenance person, got Rent Manager running the show. And seemingly, all of that is working adequately for you.
14:12
Kean G:: Yeah, so I basically have me at the top. It's like search properties and then on the bottom of that, then I have the three different LLCs. The top one's an LLC, then the bottom three LLCs, and then the people I manage or whatever.
14:26
Frank Rolfe: Gotcha. Okay. And so going either from the first property you bought or collectively the three, what have been some of your biggest lessons learned about mobile home park ownership to date? What have been some of the moments where you suddenly had this revelation, ah, that's an important thing I need to never forget. What are some of those big things?
14:48
Kean G:: Well, the first one is like I said, to do your due diligence. That's one of the most important ones. To look at everything that no matter what they say... One of my friends, he's one of the tenants of a mobile home. He says, be like Ronald Reagan. You know, what do they say? Accept it as truth but verify. Right.
15:09
Frank Rolfe: Truth but verify. Right.
15:11
Kean G:: And that's what you need to do. So that, and so basically, and something, when something squirrely like they have septic, they have a well, they have this that, that really needs to be looked at seriously. That's one thing that I found. The other one is the vacant lots, you think it's not a big deal. It is a big deal. Filling those lots, getting a mobile home on there. How you're going to do it, as you guys talked about, like you're going to put a new one, you're going to... Maybe you'll overdo the value on it. Maybe you should get a used one. However you're going to fill that lot. Also the rehab on those mobile homes can be horrendous. Sometimes you're better off just getting a new mobile home and then spending the money on it. Especially here in California, nobody really wants to work or do the labor. So it's kind of a little bit difficult to do that.
15:58
Frank Rolfe: And Keen, what kind of lot rents are you getting roughly? Just ballpark.
16:03
Kean G:: Well, in Klamath, believe it or not, the guy just, he nickel dimed it. He never did too much, whatever. He started off with I think 200 or 250. And the rate is like $500 a month. Well, I can't get up there that quickly. So right now I'm up to like 360. I'm going to raise them up in another month. I try and do it in March, like February, March because you have 90 days to give them the thing. I raise them 10%, so it'll be like almost 400. But then I have another two or three years before I get up to the rate I want to be at that. The one in... And they all bitch. They all complain about the rent raise or whatever, but like you said, you need the rent raised. Otherwise, they're not going to. It's not going to be a mobile home park. It'll be something else. So the one in Kernville is The rate is 600, and a lot of them are paying. They were paying like 400, and they were all over the place. I got a lot of them are 484. So it's going to be at like 535 this coming, this next kind of rent raise. So it'll take me another couple of years.
17:04
Frank Rolfe: Have you ever seen a park in California where the rent was so high they had no customers? Because there's a park, I believe in Laguna Beach, where the rent is around 5000 a month. And we're all familiar with the ones in Malibu, Point Dume and Paradise Cove. Those are in the 2000s, approaching 3000s in rent. In the markets you serve, obviously, your rents are maybe half of what the market rent would be.
17:28
Kean G:: Right.
17:28
Frank Rolfe: You think there's a limitation in mobile home park lot rents that you've ever seen? I have not seen it yet. Have you seen even in California where they're in the four digits, have you ever seen a park where you heard a park owner tell you, hey, Keen, I can't get anyone in my park because my rent's too high? Have you ever heard those words at all?
17:44
Kean G:: No, no, really, I haven't. No. And the thing is, and as you said, the lot rents are super low. I mean, super low. I mean, I see America, the affordability becoming more unaffordability because it's just, it's getting less and less of what's going on. It just seems like, you have a mobile home, there's no common walls, you have your own yard, you have a lot of really goodies along with that. Maybe it's a little cheaply than a regular house, but you have your privacy and your comfort and that's really what people want.
18:17
Frank Rolfe: Right. And Keen, when you got into the business, obviously you had from your experience in apartments and single family, you probably had some basic expectations of what the park business would be like. We all have seen it on TV or the movies before anyone ever bought one and some rough ideas on the tenants and that type of thing. How much of that has proven to be stereotypical and how much of it has proven to be true? What are your thoughts as far as what the average American thinks of a mobile home park who's not in the business, never owned one, never lived in one, how much is it like the media and how much is it different than the media?
19:00
Kean G:: Well, I find it really different from the media. They're good, decent folks and they just want to live in a clean, safe environment. Now, there is some trailer trash, ungrateful people who expect the world and doing nothing. But those are tenants that eventually you want to get rid of. You don't want them really around your park. Now, if they pay their rent and they say to themselves, I don't do anything with it. And that was your advice, and I don't do anything with it. But however, if they create a ruckus or they're a problem or their mobile home looks like hell and they don't want to do anything and don't want you to fix it, well then you have to do something because then that one rotten apple brings it on to the other people. But I find that they're really good people, good, wholesome people, like they're blue collar workers. And even when I was doing the residential real estate, they used to say, you know what, when you rent, rent to a blue collar worker because he's not going to look to do this or that or the other thing, they're not going to be like a pain in the ass kind of tenant.
20:00
Frank Rolfe: And Keen, there's this general feeling in the American media that landlords are inherently evil, right? Bad people to be despised. There's political movements now. There's one that their tagline is evict the landlords. That housing is a basic human right and it should be provided free of charge in America. How would you respond to those who say that you're an evil guy? You're a landlord. Here you are talking about trying to get people a nice, clean, safe, affordable place to live if they're nice people and all. How does that all, how do you parallel that with this whole woke media?
20:37
Kean G:: You know what I love, though? If I put that person in there in my place, he'd be the first one to yell and scream, right?
20:47
Frank Rolfe: Oh, no, I hear you.
20:49
Kean G:: It's easy to talk from there, but once the dirty water hits your feet, then it's a different story.
20:54
Frank Rolfe: Right. And Keen, obviously, you're a medical doctor and you swore an oath of whatever they call it. I don't know, what is the medical oath? What's it called?
21:04
Kean G:: Hippocratic oath.
21:05
Frank Rolfe: Hippocratic oath. Right. So you swore a Hippocratic oath to help people. You seem like a nice guy who likes to help people. So would you not say that most of the mobile home park owners you know, including yourself, are nice people trying to help people? I've not really met, I know they're out there somewhere, but I haven't really met any evil landlords. I've met landlords that were more jaded than others because maybe tenants had taken advantage of them too much, and they had lost their compassion for mankind and they were just, okay, yeah, I'm going to collect the rent. But they still keep the property in good condition. I haven't, I don't see. We have bought parks from moms and pops who weren't evil. They just got worn out, right? And they got tired of doing it, and they didn't want to do it and they got burned out. But they weren't mean people. I don't think I've ever bought a park from a mean landlord. I don't know any mean landlords. So is the mean landlord thing, I guess let's debunk the mean landlord concept. I don't know any, do you know any mean landlords?
22:08
Kean G:: No. I agree with you. No, that's true. No, I think what you said, though, is true. They get old and tired and they don't really do that much. And they kind of let the rent go too, because they don't want to really raise the rent because they're afraid they haven't done much. So they don't want the tenants to walk away either. So that's kind of an ideal improvement situation for you to get into, if you can get into it.
22:30
Frank Rolfe: Right. And let's break down, Keen, some of the items for people as far as why people love the product, and you pointed some of them out. They love the product because, number one, they have a yard. That became a big deal during COVID. If you were in an apartment, you had no yard, you were told to stay away from people, and you couldn't stay away from people because people are all around you. That's one biggie is having a yard. And another one is having lower density, no one knocking on your walls and ceilings. That's huge for people.
23:01
Kean G:: Exactly.
23:02
Frank Rolfe: Parking by your front door. Who in an apartment complex wants to park and walk a hundred yards at two o'clock in the morning when it's spooky out, or it's raining out or it's snowing out? And the answer is no one on the earth wants to really do that. And then you have the sense of community. I assume in your parks, like our parks, people hang around for lifetimes normally. They know each other, they build support networks. You get sick, they bring you food, your car breaks down, they take you to work. Right?
23:33
Kean G:: Right. It's true.
23:34
Frank Rolfe: So these are some of the benefits. So then let me ask you, based on those benefits, why is it that many people feel that mobile home parks have to have rents lower than apartments? You've been an apartment owner, right?
23:47
Kean G:: I have been. Yes.
23:48
Frank Rolfe: And so, okay, so the average apartment rent in America is 2000 a month. And the average mobile home park lot rent is about 3 to 400 a month. Why are we so low? What's your opinion on why? Do we have to be that low? Why are we such a fraction of apartments?
24:02
Kean G:: It's kind of crazy. I think it's just a stigma that we're operating on because it's about one third of the rent, of an apartment rent. It just doesn't, it really doesn't make sense because there's more advantage to the mobile home park than to the apartment.
24:16
Frank Rolfe: Exactly.
24:17
Kean G:: Yeah.
24:17
Frank Rolfe: Yep. Well, let me ask you this. I see if we had somebody on here, they would say, well, wait a minute though. You're not counting the cost of the home. But in our parks, about 80% of our customers own the home free and clear. So if they're paying 400 a month lot rent, there is no additional number. There isn't a mortgage, there isn't anything. Because every home prior to like 2000 to 2010 is paid for at this point. Do you have a lot of tenants in your park that have mortgages on top of rent or is it mostly people who are mortgage free?
24:48
Kean G:: Mostly they own it. And if they don't, like the ones in California, even for California, they're like 30 to $50,000. I mean, they just, they're going to pay cash for it and then that's it. They don't really have a big mortgage on their home.
25:01
Frank Rolfe: Right. Let me ask you this, Keen. On the manager side, what characteristics or traits of your managers have proven to be better than others? In other words, when you've chosen a manager or hired the manager, the ones who excel, what do they have better than other people? What are their superhuman characteristics that you look for?
25:24
Kean G:: I gotta tell you, I went to the seminar once and the guy said, if you think you're a good judge of people, you just haven't met enough people yet.
25:31
Frank Rolfe: Right. That's pretty true.
25:36
Kean G:: But what I do when I look at the manager's application is I look for longevity on how long they've been there. They've been there... Every, if it's every year, I really don't like that manager. I like somebody who's going to be in there for the long haul. So if they're there 5 years, 10 years, whatever, and they have some kind of managerial experience or something with people, that works for me. It's more important.
26:00
Frank Rolfe: So people skills are the essential ingredient, correct?
26:03
Kean G:: The most. It's a people business. That's the most important, right?
26:06
Frank Rolfe: Yeah, absolutely correct. Now, Keen, let me ask you this, because I know you're a deep philosophical thinker, and do you see any change in the ever increasing demand for affordable housing? Do you see any solution out there for the affordable housing crisis? I mean, we're all sitting here as park owners, but we are just a tiny fraction of the American housing market. Right? They say that mobile homes are 8% of American housing, but if you read the disclaimer, mobile home parks are only about 3% of American housing.
26:47
Kean G:: That's amazing.
26:47
Frank Rolfe: So we're just a tiny little pinhole. So we can't solve affordable housing. In other words, like you have a park with 50 lots and you have how many vacant?
27:00
Kean G:: Four vacant.
27:01
Frank Rolfe: Four vacant. And when you fill the four, you have none. And so Keen's ability to solve affordable housing is over. You can't take any more folk. And many of the parks out there, when you buy them, they're 20% vacant, 10% vacant, 5%. And in pretty short order, a lot of those are then full. Is there any risk to our business model as far as the demand for affordable housing? That's question one. I'm sure in California and where I am in Missouri, I drive by retail malls and they're half empty. And the internet has killed it.
27:37
Kean G:: Oh, yeah. That's a big problem, especially with the internet.
27:40
Frank Rolfe: Yeah, the internet just killed them. Right? If I want to buy something today, you know what I do? I go on Amazon because I can buy it online on Amazon. They deliver it. I don't have to go haul it over and I don't have any gas costs, time cost, anything. Is there anything you can see out there in the world of housing? People talk about affordable housing all the time. The Biden era, for four straight years they talked about they would do great things with affordable housing, and not a thing happened. Is there anything that can happen? Is there any way to solve this great crisis we have that single family homes are 400 grand in the US and California? God knows how much they are. An apartment's a few grand in America. God knows what they are in California. How do you solve this thing? How do you solve affordable housing? If you had... If you were... If I appointed you the commissioner of affordable housing under the Trump regime, how would you solve affordable housing?
28:33
Kean G:: I mean, the problem is the permits and that way to do the mobile homes, it's very difficult to do. Unless they make it easier to make these kind of homes, I don't see any other way they're going to solve it. Do you? I mean, I don't see any other way.
28:47
Frank Rolfe: I don't know. I don't see any solution at all. And I've read all the articles and been to all the seminars and everything else, and it looks to me an absolutely hopeless cause. I mean, the average lot in America is 80 grand, right? So to build a thousand square foot house, you're already at 300 grand. It's 200 a foot to build an 80 of lot. That's not affordable.
29:09
Kean G:: Yeah. I don't know. Do you think they'll make it so more that people... Right now, you can't really build, make sense out of a mobile home park. Maybe they'll try and do something where maybe you can, but that's the only thing I can see. I mean, it's like, because you're not going to do it, like you said, on the lots in the home, and that's just not going to work. It's not going to happen.
29:27
Frank Rolfe: Right. Yeah, I don't know, but I'm just trying, I'm trying to then segue into the question, what worries you about the mobile home park model? In other words, we've seen many. You've been around since the '70s in business. I've been around since the '70s in business. We've seen businesses that did great and then failed. I did a video just the other day about Howard Johnson's, the esteemed orange roof thing that was the largest restaurant chain in America through the '60s and '70s and then completely plummeted to earth, crashed, burned, and there are no more of them. What could sink mobile home parks in the decades ahead? What is there out there that would destroy our model where people would say, we don't need those trailer parks anymore. We're gonna move into that fancy subdivision with giant stone gates out of... You see that happening? How does this all. How can our model unravel, I guess.
30:24
Kean G:: I can't see it unraveling, quite honestly. I just can't see it unraveling because it's supply and demand. It's just like, and it's in high demand. You're not going to be... You're not going to get housing. You even stated that, the housing and the money that we're charging them, it's nothing. It's like a joke. And still, and these people, it's funny. The seniors, they'll bitch over a $4 raise or a $5 this or that. But where are you going to live like that? You can't live like that anywhere.
30:52
Frank Rolfe: And Keen, let me ask you this. I'm sure in your parks, as in our parks, you have people whose cars, a single car costs five to ten times more than the mobile home, right?
31:04
Kean G:: Exactly. Yeah.
31:05
Frank Rolfe: Okay. So when the media criticizes the industry and says, oh, you're gouging people with your insano rents. Transportation cost in America right now is the third largest household expense behind healthcare and childcare. And then it's transportation if you look at the actual government budgets of the typical American household. Because that car payment is probably $700 a month easy, and they've got two to three of them. Right? So I'm just trying to impress upon people how insanely low cost we are compared to other costs.
31:49
Kean G:: We're 400 to $600 a month for our mobile home, the mobile home cost. I mean, it's like crazy.
31:56
Frank Rolfe: And if you doubled the rent over the next few years, would you then be expensive?
32:02
Kean G:: It still wouldn't be expensive. No.
32:05
Frank Rolfe: You'd be stupidly cheap. Right?
32:07
Kean G:: Right.
32:08
Frank Rolfe: Yeah. Okay, well then, let's go off on a tangent on that one for a minute on investments. Because most people on here are investors by nature. Any smart person wants to do well with their money. Right? They want to do well with investments. So you have your standard investments of stocks and bonds, and obviously you chose to do something radically alternative, whether it was apartments or single family. Why didn't you just...
32:39
Kean G:: Because the other one, you have no control over what's happening. The other... When you deal with real estate, you're taking a risk on yourself. You're betting on yourself. The other one, you're betting on the human sentiment, you're feeling how the government's going, this, that or the other thing. I never cared for that. That's just something I think is like super risky for me. They think that's a conservative investment. I think that is just like, that's a super risky investment to me.
33:08
Frank Rolfe: Okay, well, Keen, on that note, let's talk for a minute about something that only people like you and I can talk about because you had to be around in the '70s to truly see the peaks and valleys of American economics. Right?
33:22
Kean G:: Right.
33:23
Frank Rolfe: So you were there for Carter. I was there for Carter. It was bleak, right? Bad times. Then we had Reagan. Reagan was great, but we had rates of 18%. That was kind of bleak. But it all worked out good in the end. So if he hadn't done it, we probably would have all just become a hunter-gatherer society. And you were there for the savings and loan crash. You were there for the dot com crash. You were there when California crashed. I remember it well, back when they had the Northridge quakes. I don't know. What year was that? That was 91?
33:55
Kean G:: 94/95. Right?
33:56
Frank Rolfe: 94.95. Right. So LA just hit the skids.
34:00
Kean G:: That's when I bought those parks for like nothing.
34:03
Frank Rolfe: Yeah, I remember I had my little billboard company in LA and I got a copy of the LA paper, looking for advertisers, and the section was this thick. It must have been 100 pages of locked up, foreclosed houses, bankruptcy. Every listing was or best offer. Just make offer. We'll take anything. What are you asking for the house? 800 grand. I got $30 on me. Okay, we'll take it. But who do you make the deed out to? We saw the Great Recession, 2007/2008. Do you think we're going to have another recession someday? What are your thoughts going forward? Do you think the country has learned how never to have a recession again?
34:43
Kean G:: No, no, no, we're definitely going to have a recession. It's a cyclical thing. You're going to have it. But the thing is, mobile home parks will weather that recession because like I said, from the apartments, they go from A to B or C, where it's safe. We're going to... You're not going to... We're the lowest rung on the ladder. Where are you going to go below that? You have to go to someplace that's affordable and safe, and that's a mobile home park. And then I found one rung below that as an RV park. But like, they're all kind of like the same thing.
35:14
Frank Rolfe: And if we have the next big recession, which has to happen. In fact, let me ask you this, Keen, because I know you read a lot of things. You're a doctor, so you're used to looking at empirical evidence, making your own opinion. Do you think there's a possibility that Biden might have lied a tad on our economic stats going into the election? I mean, we already found 850,000 jobs vanished on a later retraction on the job stat. Is it possible we may already be heading into recession? Recently they said we had positive GDP in Q4, but if you read it, the only thing that made them think that things were going good was employment and spending. Both came from the government. The hiring was government, and that so the government can manipulate data to some degree. Do you think there may be a big reveal now with Biden out, that maybe there were stats we didn't see or how do you see the potential recession unfolding? What would be a trigger, triggering mechanism, do you think?
36:08
Kean G:: I see a lot of stuff that Biden did big time. Like it's just like a big dog and pony show. And, now that the dust going to be, now that the dust will be settled, they're going to blame everything on Trump. I could just see that right now, where it was already, I already had one of my liberal friends complain that, oh, well, the food's so expensive. I was going to say, give me a break. The guy's been a president for one month. What do you think happened in the prior four years? You know what I mean?
36:37
Frank Rolfe: Exactly. Correct. Well, so Keen, back when the Great Recession hit, 2007/2008, what were you investing in in 2007/2008, and what was the net impact of that recession? Because you didn't own any parks then, right? You were not in the park business.
36:53
Kean G:: No, I was more in the apartment. I was still doing the apartments. I did it like major rehabs and brought them up. They were about a six, about a five or six, I brought them up to an eight. And it was that kind of, I was kind of on cruise control around that.
37:07
Frank Rolfe: Right. But in the apartments, I assume you were able to stay full probably as apartments during the crash, were you not? Were people still needing cheap places to live or not?
37:17
Kean G:: No, actually, during the crash, it was still hard to fill. There were like 35, 40% vacancy on the crash.
37:25
Frank Rolfe: On the apartments?
37:26
Kean G:: On the apartments, yes.
37:27
Frank Rolfe: What kind of rents were the apartments at?
37:31
Kean G:: Yeah, it's hard to remember, but it was that they were, still they were on the low side. But the problem is the people who had the apartments, they, what do you call it? They were slum landlords. They ate all the profit out of the apartments. So, they were like crummy places to live in, probably like a D or whatever, you know what I mean? Yeah, I would say like a low C. It was safe, but it was an ugly place to live in. So if you just made them better, then it made a little more. I said, the better the cage, the better the animal.
38:01
Frank Rolfe: Right.
38:01
Kean G:: So, like, it becomes a better situation.
38:05
Frank Rolfe: So the interest rates, Keen, going into the recession, the Great Recession in 2006, were 6 1/2 to 7, identical to where they are now. We saw the rates drop with Obama down on mortgages, down into the threes. In fact, we got to the high twos at one point. So did you net benefit from the recession on your apartments? I assume when you went to sell them, then your cap rates were significantly lower than they had been prior, is that correct?
38:29
Kean G:: Well, on my apartments, I gave one, the 100 unit, to my sister and the other one to my ex wife. So I didn't sell either one.
38:38
Frank Rolfe: Okay, you never sold one. All right. But still, the moral was the typical recession brings down rates about 2 to 3 points.
38:46
Kean G:: Right.
38:47
Frank Rolfe: Right? So that's, since 1950, that's been the norm. So I guess my question is, do you imagine rates will be going down in the future? I mean, you can't have a recession without lower rates.
38:58
Kean G:: Yeah. What do you think? I think they're gonna go back down to maybe five. I don't think they're gonna go down to three.
39:01
Frank Rolfe: That's what I'm thinking.
39:03
Kean G:: But that's kind of what I'm thinking.
39:04
Frank Rolfe: I would agree with you completely. I think they'll come down where mortgage rates will be down to about five, whereas right now they range at...
39:10
Kean G:: Not this year, but probably 2027.
39:13
Frank Rolfe: Totally, totally agree with your modeling on that. Let me ask you on apartments, Keen, because you had a lot of apartments. I've never understood apartments. I've looked at them. I know people who have bought them. I've had people who wanted me to invest in them. In the olden days, I watched how it performed for them. I was never impressed. They didn't never seem to make any money. It was always, there was this verbal narrative, we're going to make tons of money. But I actually never saw anyone make any money. And when I modeled the things, I found that normally people promoting them were not showing accurate repair and maintenance cost. And then when I got in the mobile home park business, I had some apartment complexes that came with mobile home parks. Not big, but the classic was I had an eight unit, which to me was a whole lot of apartment in front of a park in Shreveport, Louisiana. And I tracked that thing to the penny financially. I had its own separate budgeting, P&L, everything. And that thing, here's how it would normally work. I was making money. I'm making money. I'm making money. And the pipe would burst in the upper unit and it would flood the lower unit. When I got done repairing it, it wiped all the profit out back to zero.
40:30
Kean G:: Right.
40:31
Frank Rolfe: And then I would be making money, making money, making money. And the roof would leak. I had to re-roof it. I blew out all of the money for that year. Every year. No freaking money. Did you in your apartments, was that your experience? How did apartments work for you?
40:47
Kean G:: Well, I gotta say, the apartments did very well for me because like you and I were talking, the timing in California when you buy them. I bought that one apartment for like 2.2 million. It's worth like 20 million now. But not on income flow.
41:00
Frank Rolfe: Well, but that's a little unfair because you're in California, which is insanity.
41:05
Kean G:: I'm just saying, but the income flow, no. Just what you said, you do that and then you need another repair, then you need another repair and all that money goes out. You're not making anything.
41:15
Frank Rolfe: Right. So Keen, when you value the apartments, then you're valuing it based on what? If they're not making money, then how is the 2 million apartment worth 20 million? What is the driver? Is it just the betting on the future potential or something like that?
41:30
Kean G:: I think what it is, is... Well, no, because then, what happened is the amount of money they were charging for the rents went up dramatically for whatever reason. Like, after the COVID thing, it went up to like, maybe a thousand it went up to like 2,500 or $3,000 for each apartment. So you multiply that times 100, it makes a big difference.
41:51
Frank Rolfe: Right?
41:51
Kean G:: Yeah.
41:52
Frank Rolfe: Do you think that could happen then with mobile home parks, though? If apartments are inferior and they're at a thousand and they go to 2500, don't you think the mobile home park rents can follow suit?
42:03
Kean G:: It's something, anything could happen because it's supply and demand. If the supply is low and the demand is high, yes, it can happen. What do you think?
42:13
Frank Rolfe: Keen, my opinion is that mobile home park lot rents should be in rural markets, probably 500 a month, and in urban markets, about a grand.
42:22
Kean G:: I agree.
42:23
Frank Rolfe: Would be kind of the fair fair positioning. Yet in the urban markets, they're half that and the rural markets are half that.
42:29
Kean G:: Yeah, it just doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense.
42:34
Frank Rolfe: So Keen, what's the future of Keen? Are you gonna try and buy more parks?
42:39
Kean G:: I'm gonna buy more parks, absolutely. Yeah. I would like to buy more parks and I intend to go more to your classes and learn as much as I can about what to do. And I just like to say, that that master class is... The boot camp was great but there's a lot of people over there or whatever. But the masterclass, there's like, not that many people. And it's great. You can ask questions and you're always there to like, with your experience and your knowledge to fill that in. It's wonderful. And then, also the investors club, have a question, whatever. Put it there. Brandon gets right back to you as far as what there is. And from the '80s, I've been to many, many seminars. I've been like, a lot of these people, they just sound good, but they haven't really done anything. They just like, they're all talk and no walk. You guys, you've done it. You're in the trenches. You're number five on the doing mobile home. So, like you walk your talk. And I think that's, that's like an invaluable thing.
43:33
Kean G:: So, like, if anybody's interested in mobile home park, they should attend the class. What do they say? You're either going to fish or you're going to cut bait. Right? So, yeah, really, that's what you need to do. You need to like, get in it and start doing. Like, to me, I find the knowledge is great, but when you do the action and I get burned, Frank, or I do this or that and then I call you, that's a lesson that I'm not going to forget. That's kind of, to me that's very important.
43:58
Frank Rolfe: And Keen, will you continue to look just in California or will you expand your net?
44:03
Kean G:: I'm going to look, yeah. I'm going to really look all over as far as what I'm going to do. But for me, I just, I like this whole coast. I may go from California to Oregon to Washington, whatever. Just look at anything around by the ocean that's mismanaged or that has any potential possibly. Or Michigan maybe by the Great Lakes, maybe that or wherever. I'm just saying, but I'm not excluding anything, but I'm going to avoid Florida or Louisiana or those kind of those kind of states. That's not going to be my big thing. But I'm going to be open and and see what's available.
44:38
Frank Rolfe: Right. Well, Keen we really appreciate you being here again. It's one thing to be involved in something, another to be willing to share your experiences with other people. And one of the nice things about the mobile home park industry is there's kind of a fellowship among owners, kind of like you find in classic cars and hot rods and sailboats, where people just like to dispense knowledge with no strings attached just because there's so few people who do this stuff. In your world, how many other park owners do you know in your private life, like, if you go to a cocktail party, how many people say, oh, geez, Keen, I also own a mobile home park, how many?
45:22
Kean G:: Zero. I met zero.
45:23
Frank Rolfe: Zero. Same with me. Any event I go and people ask me, what do you do? I hate to even tell them because I'm a freak. So I'll just say, I'm in real estate, whatever. But it is one of the nice attributes of this business is that everyone is so nice and pleasant and willing to talk about it, because we don't really feel in competition with each other. Because there's no way I can in any way steal a customer from your park in California, nor can you get someone in a park in Ohio to want to pack up and move the home across America. Right? So maybe that's also one reason why we're also friendly with each other.
45:56
Kean G:: Right. But I have to say, though, in your class, in that master class, your passion, really, and your knowledge is infectious. I mean, like, you want to... You really, like, when I go back, I'm like, all geared up and you really want to put into action. Let me just show you one thing that I did do. I did this. You had this thing. Need help?
46:17
Frank Rolfe: We can't read that case. It's too small. Can you put it way up there, higher? Oh, go, hold it up a little bit higher. What's it say? We can't read letters on it.
46:25
Kean G:: Okay. It just says, need help and my phone number and two hands helping one another.
46:31
Frank Rolfe: Yep.
46:32
Kean G:: So I got that from your class. So I'm going to put the... I'm going to add an email to the bottom of it. It's so wonderful, because if the place is mismanaged or there's a problem with the manager, which I did have, they'll call you. You get four or five calls, you're going to know right away that that's what you need to change management.
46:47
Frank Rolfe: Yeah. So you're talking about the Helpline concept.
46:50
Kean G:: Correct. Correct.
46:51
Frank Rolfe: Right. Which allows tenants to get around the errant manager to reach the owner and say, hey, things are not going well. Don't have to answer the phone. They don't have to know who the owner is even. But it gives them an ability to force change. Right? So their voices can be heard, because the manager will always block them out so that no one ever knows how bad the manager is. So, yeah, I totally, we're huge fans of that program. We rolled that thing out, I think, about a decade ago, and we have found...
47:19
Kean G:: That was so smart. It can save you thousands of dollars. Thousands.
47:24
Frank Rolfe: It really can. When you first bring the program out, you will find in your park so many things that you did not know were bad are bad, particularly regarding the manager or the manager's actions. Yeah, it's extremely telling. It certainly is. So, Keen, again, we really appreciate you being here to discuss Keen's world as far as your mobile home parks and everything else going on. And that pretty much wraps up this lecture series event, but we're glad everyone's gonna take the time to be here. We know everyone's got lots of choices with your time, and you're glad that you were able to spend some time with us. So on behalf of myself, Keen from California, Brandon and Dave from MHU, we wish everyone a good evening. So thanks, everybody, and we'll talk to you again soon.
48:10
Kean G:: Thank you. Take care.