55-Unit Mobile Home Queen and The Nightmare 17-Month Rehab

Ashley:
This is Real Estate Rookie episode 100 and forty-niner.

Emily:
I was talking to Tony, about the tornadoes had hit our area recently in Eddyville, Kentucky. And everybody’s scrambling for somewhere to live. So you don’t realize how important having real estate is, especially when somebody’s in emergency and it’s so needed, and it’s a way you can give back also.

Ashley:
My name is Ashley Kehr, and I am here with Tony Robinson.

Tony:
And welcome to the Real Estate Rookie, where every single week, twice a week, we give you the inspiration, information, education you need to get started in a real estate investing career. So, Ashley, what is new, what’s going on in your world today?

Ashley:
Well, I still have a bum leg. I’m still awaiting my ACL and MCL surgery. I did find out that I tore both of them, so my leg can’t bend enough yet to really fit into my podcast closet.

Tony:
Closet.

Ashley:
So that’s why I’m still out here in my living room.

Tony:
Well, I’m so sorry. I’m so sad that you’re bumming it right now, but sometimes it’s good that life makes us slow down a little bit to take it easy. So hopefully you’re enjoying the extra downtime at least.

Ashley:
Yeah. Actually, I took my kids snowboarding for their first time yesterday at the ski resort. We have no snow here in Buffalo, and the ski resort actually ended up closing for today. They’re closed until further notice because we have no snow, just the snow that they made. So I had to crutch through mud holes, and everybody’s just feeling so bad for me. I’m like, “Honestly, this is better than ice,” because then I would just die on crutches, where the mud at least held me steady-

Tony:
Held you up a little bit.

Ashley:
… in the crutches. But it was so fun getting my boys out snowboarding for the first time and getting them that first lesson. It was great. So hopefully they don’t end up like me, though, with the leg.

Tony:
Yeah, no torn ligaments. Yeah.

Ashley:
One thing real quick, before we talk about what’s going on with you, I have one thing I have to ask for. I noticed during this episode, you did not once mention that your Louisiana house is for sale. So this is your opportunity right now to mention it.

Tony:
Well, fingers crossed, but the best news I’ve gotten all year is that we have an offer accepted on that property right now. So, fingers crossed it all goes well; we can actually sell that house in the next 30 days. But maybe we’ll do a-

Ashley:
Oh my gosh.

Tony:
It’s good news, right? But maybe we’ll do a Rookie Reply on this, because we’re actually selling it for a little bit less than what we owe on it. So we’re literally going to have to write a check at closing to cover the balance. But, for us, it still made sense just because we’ve been holding on this property for 11 months now. We’ve been no tenant, but, yeah. Christmas came a little late, but I’m happy that we got it under contract. Hopefully we can get it closed in the next 30 days or so.

Ashley:
Oh my gosh. Wow. That’s exciting. At least even just to have an offer on it.

Tony:
Yeah. It just happened-

Ashley:
How long has it been? How long has it been since you purchased that property and then since you put it on the market? What was that timeline like?

Tony:
We had the house with a tenant in there for about a year. That tenant moved in in January of 2020, maybe February of 2020, and then they moved out in February of 2022. So we started paying the mortgage without a tenant in March of 2021, the year that we’re in right now. So it’s been from March to December, we’ve been paying that mortgage every single month, $1,400. So that’s like $14,000 we spent out of pocket on this house. Then we spent another $8,000 doing some repairs on the house because there was some foundation issues, a leak that we started to find. So we’re all in to this house right now about 22, $23,000. And then we’re going to have to cut another check for a couple grand once we actually close on it. So big learning lesson for us.

Ashley:
Yeah. So you’re not even getting back the money you put into the property for that $8,000 because you’re basically just getting paid a little less of what the mortgage balance is.

Tony:
Yeah. Yeah. We are literally going to have to write a check at closing to cover the balance, because we still have to pay our closing costs, we still have to pay our agent commissions. So we’re literally writing a check to get rid of this house right now.

Ashley:
Okay. We need to do a Rookie Reply on this.

Tony:
We’ll have to do one, yeah.

Ashley:
Yeah. And break down the numbers. Maybe after you actually close on it.

Tony:
After we actually close, yeah.

Ashley:
So you know the final numbers and stuff. Yeah, we’ll do a rookie reply on it. So the infamous Louisiana property-

Tony:
Louisiana house. Yeah. It’s finally gone.

Ashley:
And I can’t wait for somebody to reach out after the episode and be like, “Hey, I’m the one that bought it. I got this great deal. This is what I did with it.” So if any of you listening actually bought that property from Tony in Louisiana-

Tony:
Please let me know.

Ashley:
… please reach out to us, because we would love to know how much you’re profiting off that property.

Tony:
Off of my heartbreak. Yeah.

Ashley:
Well, Tony, today we have a great show. We talk about mobile home parks. We talk about doing your first flip, and how it takes 17 months when you think it’s only going to take four months; how to deal with contractors. So much stuff packed in today’s show.

Tony:
Yeah. We’ve got Emily Fackler on, and she’s a great guest. We met actually in Maui a couple months ago, and just hearing her story, I was like, “Okay, we got to get her on the podcast here.” The other piece that I really like is that she’s dipped her toes in a few different things, right? She’s got, like I said, the mobile home park, she’s got a short-term rental resort, she’s got some flips that she’s worked on. So you get a wide breadth of different strategies in today’s episode as well.

Ashley:
Yeah, and at the end, she tells you what she’s going to do going forward, and what her niche is really going to be. And I think that’s the power of not working and getting yourself into situations like the Maui Masterclass or different events, like the BiggerPockets Conference, or the Rookie Conference we’re going to do. Doing things like that, you learn different things, and it changes your mindset, and it makes you pivot, and it helps you realize, “Okay, this is what I need to focus on. This is what I need to do.” And this year for me, the BiggerPockets conference was really that turning point for me.
So, let’s get Emily onto the show. Emily, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for joining us. Can you tell everyone a little bit about yourself and how you got started in real state?

Emily:
Yes. Thank you for having me. I’m very excited to be here and honored as well. In order to talk about how I got started in real estate, I have to tell a little bit of a backstory because it builds up from there. So I was in a very corporate job. I say it’s very corporate-y, meaning you’re dressing up every day. I had to go to the downtown building every day, the tower, and have meetings all day long. And it was just very, very stressful. Before I got my last job, I was in a sales job, and I just loved it. I love sales, I’m highly motivated by money, and I was getting into that situation where you’re just reading all those things about the top five successful people, what they do every morning, and et cetera.
One of them was… I’m sure you guys have heard of it, but seven streams of income to be a millionaire. And I’m like, “Oh, I’m doing that. I am going to be a millionaire.” So I actually started doing direct sales through a company. I sell beauty counter, and I’m like, “Okay.” So I started getting my feet with that. I never thought about real estate at all.
And I was talking to a friend that I worked with in my corporate job, and he was like, “You should really listen to BiggerPockets.” I’m like, “I have no idea what that was. So that’s when I first started listening to that podcast. And I honestly didn’t think I would even do anything with it. I started listening to that podcast, the original one, MFCEO, Ed Mylett. So I started listening to all these entrepreneurs, and then I just took off from there.
So I started thinking to myself, what can I do? Even in the direct sales role, when I was selling the beauty products, I was telling my husband, “This can’t be it. I can’t do this all day. I can’t go to my nine to five job, not see my kids.” So at this point I have three kids. I’m driving my son to day care every day, and then I drive into traffic for 40 minutes. And then I’m there all day. Same thing. Do the traffic, come home, and I’m not seeing my kids. It’s two hours, and I’m screaming at them about doing their homework, bathing, all these things. And I’m like, “I haven’t even seen my kids. I don’t even know my kids at this point. I’m paying somebody to raise them.”
I remember typing on instant message to my mom, because she worked at the same company as me, and I’m like, “I just want to be at home with my kids on Christmas. I want to be at home with my kids in the summer. So I’m going to do this full-time.” Well, I wasn’t extremely gung-ho with that, and then I started learning about real estate, and that’s when I’ve tried to start searching for my first property. So that’s how I got into it.

Tony:
Now, Emily, you’ve got a unique background in that you came from sales, and I think a lot of what you learn as a salesperson can probably translate to being successful as a real estate investor. So what are some of the things that you picked up in your sales career that you think have benefited you as a real estate investor?

Emily:
My biggest thing is no does not mean no. No means no for right now. Somebody tells me no, it doesn’t hurt my feelings. When I was at my corporate job, the last job I had, I had a sales team. I think there was 11 of us. I had retention executives working for me, and then the inside sales execs. And some of them… you either you’ve got it or you don’t, I feel, inside of you, where a lot of people are like, “This person told me they were going to go with us, and then they changed their mind, and they said, ‘No,’” and they would get really upset about it. And in sales, you can’t do that. How many times have you guys been told no about a property, et cetera. I’ve been told no about a property and then you go back to it and keep going back to them.
So I think no’s just a right now. And then follow-up is key. Every sales job, period, I don’t care what it is, if you don’t follow up… and when I say follow up, I mean follow up like 10 times, because a lot of the times you think you’re bugging someone, and you’re not. Half of the time, they didn’t even know you called or text them or emailed them, because they have their own life, and they’re not thinking about what you’re doing.
I’ll just give an example. I had been texting this gentleman last month, and I texted him about three times, somebody gave me his number to reach out to him. So I gave him some space. And finally he texted me and said, “Well, I guess it’s about time for me to call you back.” And I was like, “Yes!” But if I had gotten upset about it and not kept going with that, then I never would’ve followed back up, and I wouldn’t have the opportunity. I’m actually meeting him tomorrow to discuss two of his properties. So those two are just probably the top two in sales, besides your typical relationship-building. Those are a known one.

Ashley:
That’s too great advice, just being a person that’s really bad at responding to people, that I might see something and be like, “Oh yeah, I got to find out more information about this later.” And then it’s just out of my head by the end of the day-

Emily:
I do that too.

Ashley:
… that when people do follow up with me, I’m actually grateful and thankful that they did because I wanted to learn more. I just didn’t have the follow-through to follow up with them at that moment, and then it’s gone.

Emily:
Yep.

Tony:
I want to give the listeners, just an overview of where you’re at today, what your portfolio looks like, what kind of deals, how many deals you’ve done. So give us the 30,000-foot you of your journey so far. How many deals, what does your portfolio look?

Emily:
I started in December of 2019, so just now it’s probably… I think it’s today was the day I got my first property. So it’s two years ago. Yeah.

Tony:
Congratulations.

Emily:
We’ve completed three flips, and then we have a mobile home park of 39 pads. We have a 10-unit resort on the lake that we do short-term rentals here in my hometown, and then we have three side-by-side duplexes that we have as apartments. I am currently looking for more mobile home parks. I love them. And there’s this little area where people aren’t going after the size I’m going… I mean, some people are, but there’s not a lot of people in Kentucky going around, looking for mobile home parks that are… I’ll go down to 20-plus, 15-plus if the numbers work.

Tony:
That’s a lot of growth.

Ashley:
Yeah, and a wide variety too.

Emily:
I’ve got ADD. I’ve listened to every episode of this and the other podcast. I know I need to go deep into something. Well, Tony, when we were in Maui, I was like, “All right, I’m doing trailer parks.” Well, you’re not supposed to say the T word. Mobile home parks. I’m going to do mobile home parks. I love them. I just love offering affordable living. And everybody’s in the tiny home space. I’m like, “Mobile home was the original gangster. Come on, guys. Why are the tiny homes getting so much love? These have been around forever.” So I just love them.

Ashley:
Let’s talk about your progression. What did you start out with? What was your first purchase?

Emily:
My first purchase was a single-family home, and I don’t know if you want to go into that later or now. It’s kind of my deal deep… or whatever. I don’t know what you guys call it, but the one where you take a-

Ashley:
Yeah, your deal analysis. We can go into it now.

Emily:
Yeah.

Ashley:
Yeah.

Emily:
Okay.

Tony:
Yeah.

Ashley:
We’re a pretty easygoing show.

Emily:
Okay. Yeah. It was a single-family home, and I had… Listen, I’m pretty much like, “Okay, if somebody’s done it before, I’m going to take those steps; I’m going to do it.” So I was listening to Brandon saying, “If you have a house that is over 1,000 square feet and it has two bedrooms and one bathroom, it’s instant equity. You can add a bathroom and another room in there.”
So I had set up Zillow in my hometown. I currently wasn’t living there at the time. I’m living here now, but we moved last April. And I set up a Zillow alert so it would send me any houses that fit that criteria. So, finally, it sent that, and it was so cheap. It was listed for $25,000. I saw the picture. It needed a ton of love, but it had this gorgeous front porch, and I’m like, “This is it. This is the one.”
So I called the realtor. My friend is a realtor, and I was like, “Oh, I’ve got to have this house.” Left him a voicemail. He didn’t answer right away. In the meantime, I saw the realtor that was listing it, and I texted my lender and I’m like, “Do you have her phone number so I can text her?” And he said yes. So he sent me her phone number.
Both real estate agents came back to me and said, “It’s under contract.” It was six hours ago. I’m like, “No, this is the one. This is it.” So I texted the selling real estate agent, and I said, “If this falls through, let me know.” And she said, “Well, it’s a cash offer, and it’s going to be in seven days, so it’s not going to fall through.” So I followed up seven days later, and I said, “Did you sell the house?” And she said, “Yes, we did.” And I just texted her and I said, “Well, congratulations on the sale,” because she is a saleswoman; I’m like, “Good for her. I’m rooting for other people too.”
I get a text back a couple hours later that said, “The buyer says he’ll sell it to you for $25,000.” He bought it for 19, so he is going to make 6,000. I don’t care. I’m like, “Yes, this is it. This is my first one.” So we bought it 30… well, I think it was less than 30 days later, and we bought that house from him, so he did wholesale. And I heard around town that he had told somebody later, “That’s the easiest $6,000 I’ve ever made,” and it probably was, but I was just tickled to death because this was my first deal getting into it.

Ashley:
That’s such a good point too to bring up, that wholesalers sometimes get a bad rap because they’re making a profit. But did this turn out to be a good investment for you? And you were willing to pay that extra money to get the property.

Emily:
Yes.

Ashley:
That just because somebody else is making money off of you, that isn’t a bad thing. That’s a good thing that you’re both able to work together to make that happen. So after you close on the property, what happens next?

Emily:
I knew I instantly wanted to put a bedroom in and a bathroom to add that equity. And I was texting around town, who could I hire to do this? And we got started on construction. It took us 17 months to finish this house, and I can go into that. But basically it was a lot of mixture of, okay, we’re going to do some of it ourselves. We’re going to drive in every weekend, and we’re going to paint it ourselves, and my husband’s going to do this, and I’m going to do that. And it didn’t work. We were tired. We’re not good at it. We’re not skilled in those things, but we were trying to save money, which was a big mistake.
We under budgeted. We contacted a contractor and he’s like, “Yeah, it’ll probably cost about $25,000,” which it didn’t. It cost way more than that. And one of the big mistakes I made was I gave my plan to the contractor and then I just thought it would magically get fixed, your fixer-upper’s going to be done, and he would say, “It’s going to be finished in two months.” And I’m like, “Yes! Oh my gosh. I can’t believe we got this great deal. It’s going perfect. Who said this is hard,” right? And it didn’t.
So I wasn’t checking up on its budget and timeline, and I wasn’t checking on those things very well because I didn’t know what I didn’t know, and I thought if somebody says they’re going to do something that they will do it. So it was a long, a long journey, and lots of lessons learned for that one. And I don’t know what other questions you have about this deal, but I have a really interesting story about the end. So just remind me at the end for a crazy story.

Tony:
Yeah. Well, we always love a good, crazy story, but I just want to make one comment, is that your experience with the contractor and it maybe not turning out how I was originally promised here, I think that’s a common thing that a lot of new real estate investors have to deal with. And I’m fortunate because I’ve been on both sides of having a good contractor and having a bad contractor. I feel like my first few BRRRRs that I did, I had a really, really solid contractor that was just a standup guy, pretty much came in spot-on on budget, timeline was pretty close to what we’d originally anticipated, and just really did a phenomenal job. I was in California. The job was in Louisiana, managed it from afar, and everything was great. And I was like, “Man, people make this sound a lot harder than what it really is,” right? But it’s because I had a really good contractor on my team.
Now, fast-forward, we just finished a rehab in Joshua Tree a couple months ago, and it was the exact opposite. This guy was like the worst contractor I’d ever worked with in my life. And I was closer to the property. I was able to drive there every week, and that project still took longer, went over budget because the contractor just wasn’t doing a good job of managing.
So I think that the person that you choose plays a huge role in the amount of time, energy, and success that you have in any given project. So my question, Emily, is, how did you find this contractor, and is there anything you would’ve done differently knowing what you now know?

Emily:
I really just ask around and do word of mouth. And if I know someone, I trust what they’re doing. But on the flip side, I want to say that I was a terrible homeowner. I was a terrible person to work with as well. And what I mean by that is, I didn’t have a plan for them. I didn’t have, “This is what we’re going to use for this room, and this is…” I had our contractor go in the very first day and lay down flooring. The very first thing I had them do… because I had the flooring. I bought the flooring, found it off Facebook. It was a dollar a square foot. Let’s get this flooring in. It’s going to look so good. And it did look good until it was trampled all over.
It turned out fine, but I was terrible. I wouldn’t have wanted to work with me. Like looking back, I would’ve been like, “She doesn’t know what she’s doing.” And they were trying to be nice. I ended up saying to one of the contractors later… because we had so many people in this house over the course of 17 months. And I said to them at the end, “Why didn’t you tell me not to put the flooring down?” He was like, “I just met you. I didn’t want to ruin our relationship and boss you around.”
So I’ve had to redo a lot of the things that I’ve done. I don’t want to say anything bad about any of the contractors that worked in there because I wasn’t doing that great of a job either, but I just didn’t know what I didn’t know.

Ashley:
Emily, what would be some advice that you could give to our listeners so that they can be more prepared as the homeowner to manage this project? Do you have any kind of systems or processes in place, or contracts, anything that you do now that you would’ve done on this first property?

Emily:
Yes. You can go as simple or as extravagant as you want with your systems and your checklists and stuff like that. I think if you’re starting out at the very beginning, find someone close to you or online or whatever it is that has done it before, that has systems. Not just somebody that’s done it before, but somebody who has even a little checklist that they use or something that has helped them go through it.
I think you need to have… I’ve read the BiggerPockets books, the rehab book, and that’s still that… even after I even had that spreadsheet, if you don’t follow it, it doesn’t matter if you read it and downloaded all the checklists. If you don’t look at it every week and say, “Where are we on budget? And where are we on timeline? And who needs to do this?” and have that ready for everybody, then you can get all the knowledge you want in the world, but unless you’re very organized, it’s going to go over budget probably. So that’s my biggest thing in any sales role, period, that I’ve been in, if you’re not organized, it’s just not going to go well.

Tony:
I want to ask both of you a question to get your insights. Ash, I’ll go to you first, then, Emily, we’ll have you answer afterwards. But if you have to choose between there is a rock star general contractor who comes highly recommended, maybe you’ve used them in the past, you know their work, but say that they’re four months out from being able to take your job. You have a property that you own today, but you got to wait four months before they can start; or option B is you go with a different general contractor who comes with maybe a couple question marks, but they’re able to start today. Which contractor do you go with? The one that’s going to make you wait four months or the one that’s ready and available today, but you’re not as sure of their work? Ash, you go first, and then, Emily, we’ll jump to you.

Ashley:
Well, I would get freaky in the spreadsheets on this one, and I would run the numbers. So with the bad contractor, I can estimate that maybe the project is going to go longer, maybe it will go over-budget, so I play with the numbers a little bit to show that, but then I also build out a model showing a four-month longer hold period to wait for that good contractor to see what the difference is there. But I have to say, I love convenience, and I think that waiting for, just off the top of my head, waiting for that good contractor would actually be my preference.

Tony:
Yeah. Emily, what about you?

Emily:
I’m the same because I have experienced this a few times, and it’s worth paying that… just to go off of this, not just waiting, but paying them more. It’s worth every bit of it, because if I look at how many months I paid a mortgage, electricity, water, a lot of people don’t think about all the fixed costs, the holding costs that you have to pay, like you said, Ashley, in the spreadsheet. What’s going to cost you more? Getting a contractor that delays the whole project. This flip that we’re talking about now, I could have gotten it done, I want to say, four months, four or five months. And it happened in 17. Well, you’re paying all those costs for 17 months. So I would use the one that I trust, for sure, and wait for three months.

Ashley:
Emily, how did you finance this deal?

Emily:
This is kind of crazy, but I actually had it financed by my bank. So I know it’s a tiny amount, like 25,000. We were so scared to throw all of our money into it and just… I don’t know. Anyway, we didn’t know what we were doing. I’ll just tell you right now. We had put the down payment down. Our bank financed it. They did it at a six percent, which, I don’t care. I’ll do it all day long because they gave me a shot, gave me a chance.
And then we were pouring our own money in for the rehab. We’re both in sales and both make commission, and we thought it would only take $25,000. It ended up taking 65. So this actually hurt us so bad because at one point I was like, “Oh my gosh. We are broke. We are poor right now,” because we spent every… What is it, the entrepreneurial poverty? We spent every bit of our money, because I wanted prove myself. I didn’t want to use anybody else’s money, because I need to show that I did this, and this is my project. So we spent all of our own money on the project, and finally got that money back. But it was rough for a little while. I was like, “Ryan do not spend money on anything. Don’t get on Amazon. Don’t do anything.” So that’s another lesson learned too. I was so proud. I wanted to use my own money, but now I’m trying to never use my own money.

Ashley:
Yeah. That OPM, other people’s money.

Emily:
Yes.

Ashley:
So, Emily, how did the deal turn out? You’d bought it for 25,000. You put in, what was it, 65,000 for the rehab? And then what did you have to [inaudible 00:24:46]-

Emily:
We had two buyers. This is my crazy story. We sold it to this young couple, and they had a VA loan. I’m like, “Cool. I don’t care. I don’t want to discriminate on people’s loans.” I’m like, “I’ll wait it out. It’s not a big deal.” They were a sweet, young couple. I’m like, “This is perfect. A little starter home for them.” And we had the walk-through, the inspection. Everything was fine. They signed off on it. And then their VA loan, they needed five more days before they could close. So they had to move their closing later on.
And they were homeless at this point because they were going to an apartment to our house, and they said, “Can we rent here?” I’m like, “Great. We’ll just charge you rent for those five days,” or whatever. So they move in, and they call me and they say, “The heat is not working.” We already had inspection, remind you. And I’m like, “Okay, we’ll have somebody come out there.”
Well, they came out there and they said that the water heater wasn’t connected to the gas line. So they never hooked that up. So they got upset and said that we lied to them and that we were being dishonest sellers and said… the wife of the husband, so he’s the one getting the VA loan. And he was gone, so she was going to be the only one signing on it. She texted the realtor and said, “We are not buying the home. I’m not showing up tomorrow, and we want to earnest money back.” And I’m like…
So I’m texting her, the agent’s texting her. The agent’s calling me because I’m selling the house by myself. I didn’t use an agent. But I know the agent, and she’s like, “I’ve never seen this happen, and I’ve been doing this for years and years and years. I’ve never had anyone not show up, even after the inspection and whatever.” And it wasn’t just not show up. She ghosted. She didn’t talk to any anyone for two days. So there wasn’t any like, “Hey, can we talk this out?” Complete ghost. And we did not sell the house. I kept earnest money, but we had to find another seller. It was crazy.

Ashley:
As you should.

Emily:
I know!

Ashley:
You wasted all that time on the VA loan, waiting for it, and then right before closing, for her to back out, wow. And just think, they probably lost more money too, paying the appraisal-

Emily:
They did.

Ashley:
… or I guess it depends what state they’re in and stuff. Sometimes with a VA loan, you get a lot of the closing costs covered, but just waiting on buying that house, and to back out last minute for one thing that really wasn’t an issue. Wow.

Emily:
And the inspector didn’t catch it, so that’s another thing of, you need to double-check some of the things. But the worst part about it was that… this is crazy, but we had two other flips going at the same time. It was so dumb of me, but I found these houses, and I’m like, “Let’s go.” So we were like, “We need this money that we’re getting to fund these other ones too,” so we’re stuck in terrible positions. I ended up having to get partners on this other deal, which was fine. It worked out perfectly. It was my dad and his best friend. And we all came out on top and made money, but the way I had planned it all worked out. It was just crazy. So we had to find another buyer.
We sold the house for 119,000 at the end with that second buyer, so I actually used the agent that the seller, the first seller that backed out, I was like, “Will you just sell my house? I don’t want to mess with this anymore. I’m not going through this anymore.” And she was like, “Sure.” She ended up selling the house for more than they were going to buy it for. I know a lot of people are like, “Should I use an agent? Should I sell my house on my own?” I’ve done it both ways. I love talking to sellers, but the buyer part, it’s so much easier for me to have a agent sell my house than just having to do all that stuff.

Tony:
I’m glad that it worked out for you, that you were able to sell it for more as well. That’s like the universe giving you some good karma back. How long did it take after that first buyer backed out for you to find the second buyer and get everything closed?

Emily:
It was on the market for two weeks, and then I think it was a 45-day close. So it wasn’t too bad.

Ashley:
One question I have… so you mentioned there briefly, for the next two flips, you had to take on partners, and then it was your dad and his best friend. How did you approach this? Asking family, especially, to partner with you on a deal can be kind of a hard situation. What did that look like? How did you structure it? Did you actually put together a contract?

Emily:
I’m very lucky. I have super supporters in my family. I’ve done a deal with my mom, I flipped with my mom. I’ve done a flip with my dad and his best friend. And then we own the resort with my in-laws who… they’re fabulous. And with that one in particular with my dad and his best friend, they had said, “If you see something in your area, let me know.” And I thought they meant a house that they can rent out, because in our area it’s very… it’s on the lake, so a lot of people will buy a house just to come down from their area. We are an hour and a half from Nashville and Evansville, so a lot of people come here to go out on the lake. So I had mentioned to them, I’m like, “I can’t do this myself. I’ve taken on too much at one time.” And we were in contract with the resort, so I was just overwhelmed. I’m like, “Can you guys help me with this?”
And I said it to my dad’s best friend, because he told me he was interested, and he’s like, “I think your dad would want in on this too.” So we just met together and did that. We did not do any sort of operating contract or anything like that. We are doing one that we have to show for taxes, so I kept the mortgage in my name, so when we get that money back, I just have to have something for my CPA. But it was very informal, and I’m just lucky to have that trust.

Tony:
I think one thing that’s important to comment though is that you were already talking to them about working together before you actually found that deal, and I think that’s something that we harp on a lot on this show, is that be very communicative about the journey that you’re going on. Even if you haven’t actually closed on a deal, just talk to your friends and family about the fact that you’re looking for something, and you’ll be surprised at what kind of connections you’re able to start making just by having those preliminary conversations. Because if you can plant those seeds early on, then when you do have the deal, when you have found the deal, it’s easier to go back to those folks and say, “Hey, do you want to work with us?”

Emily:
I asked my mom. She had some money in her house. She bought her house for $100,000, and she’s fixed it up a little bit. And she went to get it refinanced. She’s like, “Oh my God, it’s $250,000.” And she’s like, “I’ll do a deal with you.” And I’m like, “okay.” She’s like, “But I can’t do anything.” I’m like, “I’ll do it all.” So I had called her midway through, and I’m like, “This is what I think we’re going to make on it.” She’s like, “I just feel terrible you’re doing all the work on this. I just feel awful.” And I’m like, “I’m not spending any of my money. You’re spending all your money.” I didn’t spend a dime. I’m like, “You are spending all of your money, a big chunk of money. So I feel bad.”
The point of that is, you’re not bugging anyone or asking them to do something bad. You’re helping them. You’re helping them make $20,000 or whatever it may be. So I think that’s another thing. People are so nervous about bugging people or hurting their feelings or asking them of too much, but you’re bringing them a solution. If they have the money, why not get an investment on it?

Tony:
I’m so glad you said that, Emily, because I think this is something that newer investors struggle with a lot. And I had a friend, a mentor, tell me this early on, is that when you have a good investment and you share that with somebody else, you’re not doing them a favor… or they’re not doing you a favor. Let me rephrase that just to make sure I’m saying it the right way. They are not doing you a favor by investing into your deal. You are giving them an opportunity to invest in your deal. And I think that change in language is what a lot of new investors have to work on, because they need to understand that they’re not going around asking for handouts. You’re giving people an opportunity to passively make a return on their money.
Your mom did zero work. Outside of maybe wiring in the funds that are needed for this transaction, she did zero work, but she got a really good return on her money. And you, on the flip side, you put in no money, but think about all the sweat equity, all the time, all the energy you put into making that deal happen. So there is a value to be had on both sides. So for all of the rookies that are listening, change your perspective. People are not doing you a favor; you are giving them an opportunity to make a smart investment.

Ashley:
So, Emily, you did a couple flips. And then when did you decide to pivot? Was it the mobile home park next? The resort?

Emily:
We bought that first single house in December of 2019. And then I was listening, of course, I’m listening to BiggerPockets, and I heard Brandon talking about mobile home parks, and I was like, “I know there’s a mobile home park in my hometown.” And it’s right in town. It’s really nice. It’s really peaceful. And I’m like, “I wonder who owns that?” So I had that in my head. Then I started asking people, I was like, “Who owns the mobile home park in our town?” Kept asking. I asked my best friend’s mom. She’s like, “Oh, Dennis owns it.” I’m like, “I know Dennis, he’s really good friends with my parents.” So she actually called me the next week. She goes, “Emily, I saw Dennis at the courthouse. He said, he might sell you that trailer park.” And I’m like, “Oh my gosh.”
So I called Dennis. I got his number from my mom. And he was in a situation where he was like, “Yes, anything I have is for sale,” is actually what he said. And he gave me a price, 130,000 for a 39-lot in Kentucky. My best property ever. Nothing’s going to beat it. It’s so awesome. And that really changed my life because, at the same time, I’m redoing the single-family house, and then we have the mobile home park, and it’s giving us money, and I’m putting out so much time and work on the single-family flip and I’m like, “What? What am I doing? I need to be doing more of this.”
So I really enjoy the long-term renters because, one, we have a property management and that type of thing, but you do have this sense of relationship with the tenant, even if you aren’t talking to them every day or permanent… working with them normally, because you’re giving someone somewhere nice to live.
One of the joys I get is, in our apartments, we’re putting in new floors, we put on new roofs. And it’s nice to be able to help… Everybody wants a nice place to live, no matter who you are. They do. And it’s nice to be able to give someone a really nice place to live. Especially recently, I was talking to Tony about the tornadoes had hit our area recently, in Eddyville, Kentucky. And everybody’s scrambling for somewhere to live. So you don’t realize how important having real estate is, especially when somebody’s in an emergency and it’s so needed, and it’s a way you can give back also.

Ashley:
Emily, with the mobile home park, how did you finance that property, and what does it look like today? What are some things you’ve learned going from flips to being a landlord at a mobile home park?

Emily:
We partnered this deal with my best friend, which was probably my most exciting thing because we had always talked about, “Let’s do business together.” Of course, when we were young, we’re like, “We’re going to run a physical therapist company,” because both into health care, and neither one of us are doing that. We’re both stay-at-home moms with no jobs. That’s what I was telling my people. I don’t have a job. But we loved it.
So she put in half the down payment; I put in half the down payment. And it was… both of the money that we had were both from our grandma, or my husband’s grandma who had passed away and her grandma had passed away. So it was very sweet that we got to use both of our grandma’s money at the time to do that for the down payment.
And then we started managing it ourselves, which we were terrible at, and we’re just not very good at administrative work. We both don’t like it. And at this time it was COVID, and all of our kids are home, and we’re homeschooling our kids, and it was just a nightmare. So one of the things I’ve learned is I love my property manager. They saved my life. They’re amazing. They’re honestly… I guess it’s because I love it so much, it hasn’t been a pain at all. I’ve really enjoyed it. I’ve liked trying to get… I guess the hardest part would be getting homes in there, into the park, because right now, it’s a grind. You have to get on Facebook and try to find a good deal. Or, a lot of the times, the people that are moving there, they want a lower rent, so bringing in a mobile home that costs three to $4,000 just to move is difficult.
So, right now, one of the main issues we’re having is getting homes in the park. And that’s what we’re really focusing on in 2022 so we can bring our revenue up. So we bought the park. They were paying $60 a lot for rent. And our market rent is like 175.

Ashley:
I can’t even imagine that $60… even anywhere, $60 for lot rent. Wow.

Emily:
Yes, $60. And so we were like, “Let’s raise it to 75,” because we don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. And we’re managing the park, and we’re friends with people that live there. That’s why we hired a property manager. Courtney and I are so… we don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, and we’re like, “We’ll just raise it $15? I hope nobody’s mad at us.” So after we were working with our property manager, she’s like, “No. You need to raise these up, and we’ll stair-step it, and we’ll go up, and it will be okay. They won’t be mad at you. They will understand. Nobody can live anywhere for $75. And you’re basically eating the cost of this. This is your business. You need to run it as a business.” So using the property manager’s been the best.

Ashley:
Yeah. Can you just explain real quick what doing the stair-stepping is, what that would look like for somebody that’s looking to increase rent, one of the ways to do it?

Emily:
Right. So when we think about it, we just don’t want to hit anyone hard with a huge increase. The market rate for our tiny town is 175. If you go about 30 miles from us, they’re charging all the way up to 250, so we want to take it… when we first bought it in April, we immediately moved it to 75, and we haven’t changed that. And then they were just notified that it will be going up this year up to, I believe it’s 125. So we just want to do that in a way that we step each year. Or you could even do it six months if you want, to where people aren’t surprised and shocked and don’t want to live there anymore because they had a fixed income of a certain amount and then you’re doubling their rate. So you can step it up as you go by month… by not really month, but every few months or every year, however you want to do that.

Ashley:
Yeah. I love that method for increasing rent. I did that with a tenant. She had paid $300 a month for that… because she lived there for 30 years, and it was like a 500, $600 unit that she was living in. So we did, just for six months, we did just raised it by like $25 a month until we got her to that increase. But that definitely is a great way to work with tenants instead of giving them a huge increase right off the bat too. But having that property managers as a buffer… how did you find your property manager?

Emily:
This is funny. The realtor that was the seller that we just talked about, that I had sell my house, her broker is a property manager. So now I use her.

Ashley:
So you got the property manager from a referral?

Emily:
Yes. From the agent, yeah. She’s like, “My boss does property management,” and I’m like, “Sweet.” I had used another property manager. I’ve been through other property managers before that, where we weren’t aligned. So I used other ones or another one before, so… You got to figure out what works for you.

Tony:
Yeah. I just want to dig in a little bit, because $139,000 for 39 lots, that’s a really low per-unit cost, right? So what kind of revenue, now that you guys have had this for a little bit longer, what kind of revenues are you guys generating on those 39 lots today?

Emily:
Monthly? What do I get monthly?

Tony:
Annually, monthly whichever, yeah. Whichever number makes it easy for [crosstalk 00:40:02]-

Emily:
Monthly, right now, I get… [inaudible 00:40:06]. It’s about $1,000 a month, right now, as of today, that we get on the property. But it’s got huge potential. Another thing we learned when we bought the properties, Dennis, who I told you this, the seller, he’s like, “By the way, the rest of that land, it’s approved to have 11 more lots. So you can have up to 50 lots.” I’m like, “What? This is like a gold mine. I love this property.” So once we fill the eight, we’re going to look into that as well. And you’ve got to be patient and look at the long-term game too. If we would’ve looked at what it was making at $60 a rent, it may not have made that much sense. You’ve got to look at the big picture.

Tony:
So when you say fill those empty spots, does that mean you have to find someone that has a mobile home that’s willing to bring it into your park?

Emily:
Yeah. Right now we’re looking for investors to move one in there because you’ll make a good amount renting too. And some will rent it immediately. I have people ask me almost, I want to say, every five days, if we have something available, and we don’t. It’s a huge rental need. So I’m working with investors to try to put mobile homes in there. I’m working with people on Facebook all the time to try to get them to move there, and then getting ready to meet with like a mobile home… I’m sure you’ve heard of Clayton Homes. There’s some girls that call themselves the Trailer Chicks or something locally, so I’m going to try to work with them so we can get mobile homes in those eight lots that aren’t rented right now.

Ashley:
And do you have no interest or desire in owning them yourself and then renting them out? Do you want to keep it strictly lot rent? Because I know that’s one thing that Open Door Capital does, is they really focus on the lot rent only. So you don’t have to deal with maintenance and repairs and things like that, and it’s also very costly to move a mobile home. So when people do decide they want to leave, if they own that trailer, it’s very expensive for them to move it to another park. So you most likely will have more long-term residents because they own their trailer too.

Emily:
I have this battle and like, “I don’t want to use my own money anymore.” So I’m battling that, but I also love cash. I love income. So I’m like, “What do I do?” I’ve been working the numbers. I think we will bring in a few of our own, because the numbers just make so much sense. And then you can use that depreciation for your tax purposes too. So it’ll end up helping us out in the long run. So we’re going to look at that.

Ashley:
What about doing rent to own or seller financing on the trailers too?

Emily:
I would definitely do that. I would do either. Now that I have a property manager, it doesn’t seem tough. So I’m like, “Okay, I just want to do the lot rents. It’s so easy.” Well, if you have a property manager, you’re not the one getting called anyway, so what does it matter? That doesn’t really seem like an issue to me anymore. Now you’re like, “Which house are you going to get?” So when you bring in a mobile home, you want to make sure it’s not so old that you know you’re going to have to repair it and spend all that money on that. So it’s just getting particular about what kind of home that you bring in.
Doing at lease to own, I would totally do. And I think people need that too. A lot of people can’t put a huge down payment on it right now. So that’s another thing where you’re helping people in your community get the financing that they can’t get at a bank, and giving them somewhere to live and own their own home.

Ashley:
Unless you’re in New York state, I don’t recommend doing rent to own, because there’s some weird law that was passed a couple years ago, where if you do rent to own for a mobile home trailer, if the person pays their monthly amount and then it’s time for them to buy and they decide not to buy it and they’re going to move out of it, you have to give them all that money back. You have to give them their payments back because they didn’t end up purchasing the property. And I don’t know a ton about it, but that is just such an outrageous law to me, that you would have to do that, because the people still live there-

Tony:
Right.

Ashley:
… and it still should be considered rent, so-

Emily:
Right.

Ashley:
… don’t do a rent to own in New York.

Emily:
Yeah, I will not.

Ashley:
And I think that’s one of the reasons Open Door Capital doesn’t invest in New York either too.

Tony:
Yeah. Interesting. Well, Emily, thank you for giving us the deep dive on your experience investing in mobile home parks. I know there’s a lot of folks that are interested and intrigued by that, so we appreciate you sharing your insights there.
I want to take us to our next segment, which is the Rookie Request Line. This is where we give our listeners an opportunity to call in and ask some questions to our guests. If you guys listening would like your question featured on the show, give us a call at 888-5ROOKIE. Leave a voicemail, we might use it on the show. So, Emily, are you ready for today’s question?

Emily:
I’m ready.

William:
Hello. My name’s Will, William, calling out of Columbus, Ohio. I’m a new investor. I’ve purchased my first duplex about three months ago. I ended up using the VA loan. And then the second one, the deal was so good that I couldn’t pass up on it. I had to put 25% down. That was another duplex. And I’m trying to figure out strategies to pick up a third one, preferably a four-plex. If could help you out, I’d appreciate it. Thank you.

Emily:
I know it’s easier said than done, but I would say use someone else’s money. So if you can show somebody why it’s beneficial to them, we touched on this earlier, and I’m like you, Ashley, I like the spreadsheets. If you can show someone why it’s beneficial to them, they’ll do it all day. And you might ask three or four people and they tell you no. And they’re just not ready for that. And you may ask someone else, or you may even… you could seriously put it out on Facebook and say, “I’m looking for somebody to partner with me on a duplex,” you’ll be so surprised on what you get back. And just show them the amount of money that you need, what it’s going to cash flow. Like if you’re going to bring the rents up, what are the expected rents, what you’re holding back in reserves; really show them that you’re a professional and that you have it taken care of, and they’ll be like, “Why not?”
A lot of people are waiting for something to do, somewhere to put their money besides the stock market. There’s so much money out there available that I think if you just put yourself out there and ask other people, that you’ll have someone help. And then you guys can negotiate how you want that to be. Do they have equity in the property? Or is it just a note to where you’re paying them back after a certain amount of point of time? And that’s all up for discussion. If they said, “No, I don’t want to pay the $25,000,” you can say, “Well, would you be open to having equity in the deal?” “Okay. That might change the discussion.” So you need to bring a couple different ways to form the deal and just find the right partner.

Ashley:
I think that’s the hardest part, is figuring out how to structure the deal. There’s always this thing, what is right, what is wrong? And once you do your first partnership, you realize there’s no wrong way as long it’s as legal. But then you go into something different. You’re buying another type of property, or you’re looking for different kinds of partners, and it’s just the same thing. How do I structure it? What’s right? What’s fair? If you’re doing just one partner to do your first flip compared to doing a syndication, how to structure that? There’s always that mindset hurdle of, how do I do it? How’s everybody else doing it? And I think just using other people as benchmarks, looking at how they’ve structured it, but then tailor it as to how it’s going to work for you and the people that you’re partnering with.

Tony:
Let me add just one more thing for William here, and this is something that I’ve shared before as well, is that I feel that everyone who is a new investor should have some sort of platform to document their journey. It could be that you start a separate Instagram profile, if you want to start a YouTube channel, if you want to start a blog, you want to start a podcast, but just start documenting your journey, wherever you’re at. If you have five deals already, if you’re at zero deals, wherever you’re at in your journey, start documenting today and sharing it with people, because the more you can get in front of people and they get to know you, they get to like you, they get to trust you, the easier it will be for you to find someone who’s open and willing to partnering with you.
So, William, if you’re not doing that already, I would highly encourage you to find some platform that resonates with you so you can start sharing that journey with other people.

Ashley:
Yeah. A great example of that is our friend Lili Thompson. She was on episode 91, and she started a YouTube channel just documenting her journey and just the connections she has made and the partners she’s been able to find through her YouTube channel, just really just showing people what she was doing when she decided to get into real estate, not trying to even teach anything or pretend that she knew all of the answers or giving tons of advice. She literally just showed what she was doing, the mistakes she’s made, what she excelled at. And now it’s kind of turned in where she’s become a very experienced investor through all the deals she’s done, and she can give advice now and everything like that. But just, Tony, that was a great comment. Just start documenting it to show people. And be honest and show what you can and you can’t do.

Tony:
One last thing, Ashley, a lot of folks know that I have my own podcast before I joined the Rookie show, and I launched that podcast when I had absolutely zero deals done. I was interviewing other investors before I even closed on my first deal. And it was through that podcast and all these other things started to happen. So you don’t need to be super experienced to start documenting that journey.

Ashley:
And that was how you learned too, and you got to make those connections with other investors because you were the host of the podcast, yeah. I don’t think I ever realized that, that you had started it before you even had any deals.

Tony:
I had no deals.

Ashley:
That’s interesting. Yeah. That was such a great idea, because the podcast was… what was it? Getting for first deal, or-

Tony:
Your first real investment.

Ashley:
Yeah. Your first deal.

Tony:
That’s all it was about, right? It was your first deal. Yeah.

Ashley:
Yeah. Okay. Emily, we’re going to the Rookie Exam. This is a newer segment that-

Emily:
Gosh, I’m scared.

Ashley:
… Tony and I have put together. This is just rapid-fire, quick answer. You can get to it. The first question is, one actionable thing rookies should do after listening to this episode?

Emily:
I’m going to target someone who hasn’t done anything yet. Maybe somebody who wants to leave their W-2 job or wants to get started. Back-end to how you’re going to do what you want to do. Let me give an example of that. When I wanted to quit my job, I would never have made that jump if I wouldn’t have taken a spreadsheet and put in what I make, what my husband makes, what our commission is, every dumb thing I’m spending money on, Netflix, Hulu. List all the things, all the subscriptions you have that you don’t need. We had my son’s day care, which we were paying for, school that we were paying for, because in this area it cost that much money. And then eliminate what you don’t need out of that. And some of it’s going to be a hard decision.
For example, we moved town. We cut our mortgage in half. We did all these things. If you really want to do it, back-end your way into the financing and say, “How can I do it?” And then you’ve got to figure out how you’re going to make that money. So you’re basically… you’re cutting all the money that you don’t have to spend any anymore, you’re sacrificing. And then you’re going to make a goal on how you’re going to make up that money.
So let’s say you make $1,000 a month. I’m just making that up. That’s your job, that’s your income. What can you do to replace that $1,000 to get you started? Or let’s say you’re trying to get a down payment for something. Can you sell 10 things in your home to make $1,000 each month? People have stuff sitting around; there’s money available. Start taking action now and figure out how you’re going to do it before you do or you’re just never going to do it.

Tony:
Love that advice, Emily. Let’s jump to our next question, which is, what’s one tool, software, app or system that you use in your business?

Emily:
Okay. I just started using this, and it was a referral from Alex Camacho, PropStream. I love it. I’ve gotten so nerdy in there. I’m in there every day, stalking properties. And I do Google Earth too, where I’m looking over, and then I see all those mobile homes. I’m like, “Nailed it. This is the one.” And I’m going deep into that. I love PropStream. And you can do that for seven days free, I think. Free trial.

Ashley:
Yeah. It’s a seven-day free trial. We need to get them as a sponsor, I think, Tony.

Tony:
For sure. I feel like we talk about some way too much.

Ashley:
Yeah. I love them too, but you’re right. It’s just like, you can get lost in there. For people that love going to Realtor.com or Zillow and just looking at listings, PropStream you will love even more. And I think it ends up being $99 per month. And my business partner is like, “You pay that for this?” I’m like, “We literally use it every single day.” What would we do without it?
Okay, Emily, the last question in the Rookie Exam is, where do you plan on being in five years?

Emily:
I’m going to be the mobile home lady. I’m going to be rocking it with mobile home lady. My three-year goal… or, no, my five-year goal starting two years ago was to make $10,000 a month. I’ve moved that this year for 2022 to 15,000. So that’s my goal. I want to be generating 15,000 a month, and mainly by mobile home parks.

Ashley:
That’s awesome. Congratulations on moving up your goal too-

Emily:
Well, thank you.

Tony:
[inaudible 00:53:13].

Ashley:
… knowing that that 10,000 is too easy for you to achieve and you need to make it higher.

Emily:
It’s not too easy, but I was like, “After I’m around people,” the importance of getting around like-minded people, you were like, “My goal sucks. I’ve got to raise it.”

Ashley:
It’s too small. Yeah.

Emily:
I know.

Tony:
Yeah.

Ashley:
Yeah. You got to think bigger. Emily, you let everyone know in the beginning of the show that you are the mobile home park person, and that you are looking for mobile home park, so where can people send you leads and find out some more information about you?

Emily:
Yes. So if you’re driving by your hometown and you see a mobile home park, preferably that doesn’t have a name or is not on Google, you can send it to me on Instagram. It’s emilyjfackler. And then I’m on Facebook as well. I’m on BiggerPockets. Any of those.

Tony:
Awesome. Emily, I want to give a quick shout out to our Ricky Rockstar before we wrap up for today. So, again, if you guys want to get highlighted, feel free to reach out to Ashley and I on Instagram. I’m @tonyjrobinson, she’s @wealthfromrentals. Or you can get active in the Real Estate Rookie Facebook Group. We’re at like 40,000-plus members in there. Or you can get active in the BiggerPockets forums. We’re pulling them from all places these days. But the Rookie Rockstar for today is Cali S. from Iowa, and Cali says, “Wrapping up our very first BRRRR. Purchased it at $56,000 using a HELOC and some savings. The rehab was about $16,000. It took four and a half months. And the property just appraised at $124,000. Currently rented at $1,200 per month with great tenants so far.” So Cali, congratulations on knocking that first BRRRR out of the park.

Ashley:
Cali, that’s awesome. Great job on that. Well, Emily, thank you so much for joining us. We loved hearing about your journey and all the advice that you shared with us and our Rookie listeners. Make sure, you guys, if you guys want to get into one of the boot camps, registration closes today. So make sure you go to BiggerPockets.com/bootcamps to sign up.
And I am Ashley, @wealthfromrentals, and he’s Tony, @tonyjrobinson on Instagram. But before you guys go, let’s check out something at BiggerPockets.com.