BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast - 361: Using $3,500 to Kickstart an "Unsexy" Investment Empire with Tristan Thomas

Episode Date: December 19, 2019

Traveling the world on mobile home cash flow at 26 years of age? Yes, it’s possible! On today’s show, Brandon and David interview Tristan Thomas, a mobile home park investor who parlayed a few thousand dollars into a life of financial freedom. Tristan shares some great info regarding how he chooses his markets to invest in, how he finds deals in those markets, and some of the key differences to holding title to mobile homes compared with traditional real estate. He also shares a fantastic perspective on how using “rent-to-own” financing can eliminate maintenance and repair costs, motivate your tenants to take better care of the property, and help you build wealth with very little of your own money. Tristan is a great example of how to find financial freedom at ANY age and shares exactly how he did it himself! Download this inspirational episode today, and subscribe to the podcast in your favorite app so you won't miss the next show. In This Episode We Cover: How Tristan got into mobile homes How he finds deals in today's market The key differences to holding title to mobile homes compared with traditional real estate How to use “rent-to-own” financing to eliminate maintenance and repairs costs How to motivate your tenants to take better care of the property How to build wealth with very little of your own money Making a 100% return on investment within 12 months His 5 biggest lead generators that are all free The criteria he looks for to find the best mobile home deals Getting into real estate investing for financial freedom And SO much more! Links from the Show BiggerPockets Forums BiggerPockets Youtube Channel BiggerPockets Podcast Survey BiggerPockets Webinars Josh's Twitter Profile Podcast Survey Grant Cardone on Multifamily Investing and Why You Should Never Buy a House! BiggerPockets Events and Meetups Mobile Home Park Investing Boot Camp BiggerPockets Podcast 315: How to Read Human Nature to Succeed in Life with Bestselling Author Robert Greene Check the full show notes here: http://biggerpockets.com/show361 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is The Bigger Pockets podcast show 361. That's what's so cool about mobile homes. I think it might be the only asset class that you can actually transport these things and set them up. And that's a great exit strategy. You can buy them in one park, you know, rent it out. If it's not working out, you can go ahead and pull it, put it in another park, put it on its own piece of land. So there's just all kinds of exit strategies that made me feel confident that, hey, look, even if this doesn't work out now, I know it will work out somewhere else. You're listening to Bigger Pockets Radio, simplifying real estate for investors large and small.

If you're here looking to learn about real estate investing, without all the hype, you're in the right place. Stay tuned and be sure to join the millions of others who have benefited from biggerpockets.com. Your home for real estate investing online. Hey, what's up everybody? This is Brandon Turner, host of the Bigger Pockets podcast here with my co-host, Mr. David the Grinch Green. What's up, man? How did you find out about my nickname? The Grinch. I used to be much grinchier than I am right now.

Working as a police officer sleep in three hours a night, we'll do that for you. But now I'm a much happier green. Wow, you are. I never thought about your last name and he's green. You're a mean one, Mr. Grinch. I assume that's why you were going with that, but I gave you too much of it. I didn't. Yeah, no, I'm not that clever.

Well, David, Merry Christmas, happy holidays and all that good stuff. It's coming up here. And if you're listening to this, the week it comes out, this is Christmas week. We're coming up on it. So it's a busy time of the year. And I just had a little baby, which a little wilder Turner is now here. And we're not sleeping at all. But, you know, that's life.

We expected it. It's pretty fun, though. Well, Merry Christmas to you guys. And I cannot wait to meet this little guy. Now there's someone other than just Rosie to play with when I come out there. Exactly. You won't play with it. You can't really play with a three-week-old.

You're like, hey, buddy, you're throwing him around. He's just bawling his eyes out. Just wants milk. You just give me another one of the people that have doubted me. I'll find a way to play with a three-week-old. Didn't it take you like two years for Rosie to even like looking in the eye? Well, I know. She still won't look at me directly in the eye.

But I can be in her presence without completely freaking her. You have to like bring her a bear and be like, look at what I got for you. And then she'll be happy. Yeah, that's it. Yeah. Hopefully Wilder warms up a little bit, a little bit easier than. Yeah. He's going to be a little strong little dude.

He already like in the womb, like every picture we have of them in there. He's like arms are up like he's flexing like his muscles. And then when he came out like that's all he does, 24 seven. And if he's not in his little swaddle, his arms are up like muscles. Like it's really cute. Anyway, so he's going to be a little muscle man. With that said, it's time to get on with today's show. And by the way, David, I'm officially inviting you out to come see a little Wilder,

your little nephew wilder. Yes, I've been waiting for this. I've actually been telling people whenever I do bigger pockets webinars to message you and say congratulations on having David's nephew instead of your son. I've been getting those messages every day. This is what you used to do to Josh Dorkin and absolutely drove him nuts. And now I get to do it to you. Yeah, there was a, so actually this is a funny quick thing.

Then we'll get on with today's show. So like five years ago, I made some joke about like something about Twitter and saying to Josh knock knock on his Twitter. So Josh on Twitter is at J.R. Dorkin. Let's revive that. Let's go back. So go on Twitter. If you're on Twitter, go to at J.R.

Dorkin and tweet to him and just write the words, knock, knock. I don't even remember what the joke was originally. but he gets hit up so often with this knock knock thing. Let's bring that back. He'll get a kick out of that. Right on. All right. All right.

Well, let's get on with today's show. So today's episode is with a buddy of my name Tristan. So Tristan is a real estate investor out of the Bangor main area who invests in both mobile homes and mobile home parks and some other cool stuff. And he is just a rock star. In fact, he's actually here in Maui this week. Staying with me and I guess we thought it would be fun to get him in the scene. shed and recording this episode. So that's what today's episode is. But before we get to that episode,

let's get to today's quick tip. All right. So today's quick tip. We mentioned this like a week ago, but I'm going to say it again now. We need your help. We need you to actually go to biggerpockets.com slash podcast survey and fell out a quick survey. It'll take you just a couple minutes. And let us know a little bit about what you like about the podcast, what you don't like. What do you want us to do in the future? And there's some questions like that. So go there. Again, biggerpockets.com slash podcast survey and let us know. You just realized your business needed to hire someone yesterday. How can you find amazing candidates fast?

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It's just cleaner. Sign up at baselane.com slash BP and get a $100 bonus. Base Lane is a financial technology company and not a bank. Banking services provided by Threadbank, member FDIC. And so without further ado, I think it's time to bring in Tristan for our interview with Tristan Thomas. Tristan, welcome to the Bigger Pock's Podcast, man. Good to have you here. Thanks for having me, especially live in Maui.

It means a lot. Yeah, live and Maui. Yeah. All right. So for those who don't know, Tristan has been helping Ryan Murdoch, Mindy Jensen and Carl, Mindy and Carl, and I on our mobile home park out in Bangor, Romaine, filling those spots because you are a mobile home mad. I don't know what you want to call.

You're like LeBron James of mobile homes. Appreciate it. Yeah, try. Okay. So we're going to talk about that today a little bit on how you've done what you've done with mobile homes because it's really kind of a cool strategy, cool niche that we never, I mean, we haven't talked about mobile homes. I'm not talking parks.

I'm talking about homes since like John Fedro back in like the, I don't even know, like the last. The true guru. Yeah, yeah. He's been around forever. And like that was like early, like the first year of us. of us doing the podcast. So before we get there, though, like the actual specifics, how did you get into real estate? Like, why real estate? How did you get into that? Yeah, no, absolutely.

Yeah, I come from an entrepreneurial family to begin with. I've always had a knack for making money, you know, I had paper routes, stuff like that. But once I got into college and got, you know, a little bit more serious about, you know, financial wealth and stuff like that. I realize as everyone does, they come to a realization that, you know, someday you're probably going to be looking at a nine to five job and I absolutely hated that idea. So I was like, crap, you know, how do I make some money here? So I actually started looking into penny stocks. You I was in college just trying to make any way of making ends meet. And I remember watching CNBC and seeing Grant Cardone on there talking about multifamily real estate.

And my dad had a few rentals and stuff like that. So I kind of understood it and just kind of clicked with me. So I went on to Google and I typed in multifamily real estate, enter, and bigger pockets popped up. And I clicked on bigger pockets and almost the rest is history. I mean, I was religiously faithful to bigger pockets for three years. Yeah, I listened to all your stuff, read all your books. I mean, I played Division I basketball in college to all. the road games we'd go on, I'd be on the bus with the earbuds in and listening to all your

content, absolutely just soaking it in. In fact, I say that I got a degree in exercise science, but I studied real estate, you know, it's just absolutely all over it. So, you know, graduated college, moved back to Maine, started doing taxes with my daddy's a tax account and completely hated it, said, you know, this is not real estate investing at all. So, you know, my back was against the wall. Me and my girlfriend were actually living with my dad at the time. I had to do something, but I didn't have any money. So, you know, I kind of stumbled upon mobile home investing and you know it's a low risk high reward type thing i only needed a few thousand dollars which luckily that's all i had so me and my dad first got the first few and um you know it kind of happened

really organically as i got into it i realized okay this might be a niche that i can really explode in and then you know ryan murdock comes into the picture and that kind of was a cool symbiotic relationship he kind of taught me a lot about multifamily real estate investing which at the time i still really wanted to get into and at that time he wanted to get into mobile home investing so you know we'd go out for food every week and we'd meet and just kind of help each other out through there. Fast forward to maybe a few months after that, I had a huge epiphany. I woke up at 3 a.m. in the morning and I just said my girlfriend, Holy Cap, I've got it. Let's start a mobile home company.

You know, just do mobile home flips, rentals, let's do the whole nine yards. So again, that started another descent of absolute immersion into some content. I completely went away bigger pockets from that point and when, you know, John Frederick, Frank Rolf, the whole nine yards. and I've just been busting my butt on that as hard as I could for the past three years. And fast forward, have 51 units, have my own mobile home park, trying to help you guys out as much as I can. And yeah, through daily massive action, I've just kind of acquired. And here I am in Maui.

So it's worked out well. Wow. All right. Yeah, Tristan staying with me for a few days out here in Maui. It's been fun. Let's go back. I want to like, that was like, I love that you gave the entire view of your business. Because like, we should do that more often.

It's like the whole idea of where we're prepared. You heard a few of these podcasts before. So I want to go back to the beginning. Yep. Like, what attracted you to mobile? Like, let's even go deeper. Like, what is it mobile home? What are we talking about?

When we say mobile home, when we say mobile home, because there's different ways people call mobile home, modular home, like, what are you talking about? Absolutely. Mobile home and what I'm considered mobile home is, you know, a single family dwelling that's not, I guess, permanently attached to the ground. It's, you know, it's up on blocks.

It's skirted. It's still attached to, you know, your water sewer electric. But, you know, that's the kind of asset class. I know people call them trailer parks. It's really not trailer parks anymore. It's actually really interesting if you study the history of these things. At one point in time, mobile home parks were actually some of the wealthiest living in America, which is, you know, rather fascinating if you ask me. But, you know, moving forward, it's, you know, just like I said, it's a single family housing dwelling. It's cheap. It's low risk. You know, it's really what I fell in love with it. You know, I only had a few thousand dollars. So I think the first one my dad and I did together, I think our all investment was $7,000. You know, so it just really worked out well. We owned it free and clear. You know, there wasn't any mortgage on it. So we really didn't have a lot of, you know, risk.

And that's just why I fell in love with it, you know, and it's you can pick them up one at a time. And, you know, I think for anyone starting out, you know, I think the biggest fear for a lot of people is risking their money. You know, when I was talking Ryan a lot about these four units, you know, Bangor, Maine, you know, these things were going for $150,000, and I'm looking at a big mortgage that's over my head for 30 years. And without fully knowing what I'm doing yet, it just scared me, you know.

So I kind of went towards mobile homes because, again, it's just super low risk. I understood it. And it really got my feet wet for real estate in general. So walk us to that very first deal, seven grand into the entire thing. What did you buy? What did you buy this thing for? What did you put into it? Like how I don't even understand entirely like how the mobile home investing works.

Yeah, no, absolutely. So we literally just did a drive for dollars. We were driving through a park and seen it for sale sign. And, you know, walked out, knocked on the door, talked to the person. They were selling it for, I think, like, $3,500, $3,500, $3,500, $1,000 by $70. I think her daughter had lived there. The pipes had bursted the previous winter. It was vacant.

I probably wouldn't touch it now, but, you know, I was young, green, didn't really know what to do. I just wanted to get into the space, had a little bit of cash. So, you know, I think the ceilings needed to be redone. There was mold, you know, all kinds of stuff. So, yeah, I mean, we sunk maybe another $3,500 into it, some lot rent over the time. YouTube taught myself a bunch. I didn't have a lot of money to rent out to contract it out. So it just kind of happened organically. And then we sold it off and made it heavy profit and then pushed that off to the next few. So you basically flipped it. Yeah, basically. I mean, we actually rented, we actually rented it out for 12 to 14 months first, made our money back real quick. And then we ended up selling it off. So, I mean, my criteria here is I don't touch a mobile home unless I can make my money back within 10 months. And that's a John Frederick one. Shout out to him. But yeah, I mean, it's just driving for dollars was how we found the first one.

It just kind of fell onto my lap and it worked out great. I really like that you started off driving for dollars because we talk about that a lot, but you don't hear many people share stories of how they were successful. What are some things you learned while driving for dollars that helped you create a system or become more efficient at finding deals that way? Absolutely. I mean, while you're driving for dollars, it's a great opportunity then to stroll into the park manager's office, shake their hand, introduce yourself, you know, introduce yourself to them

and tell them what you're doing. And really you want to angle it as, hey, look, I'm here to buy your homes. you don't want to angle that at all. They don't, you know, they have people asking them for stuff all day long. They don't want somebody else coming in and asking them for something. So I try to angle it in. How can I help you out? So, you know, I would go into these park managers office and say, hey, look, you know, do you have any homes that are vacant that aren't producing any lot rent for you right now?

You know, this is what I do. You know, I'm a professional background, stuff like this. And that really helped out a lot, building relationships. And then from there, it really grew like wildfires, a lot of word, word of malaction. And, yeah, it's just, it's a massive daily action. I mean, every day we woke up, we were going through parks, making stuff happen. So it took a little bit to dig it off the ground, but eventually we got there. So the biggest objection people have to mobile homes, like trailer homes or manufactured homes,

however you want to call it, is, yeah, but don't they lose money? Like, don't they lose values? Don't they lose value, Tristan? Yeah, it's hilarious that you say that because I remember back in my three years of absolute, you know, religious falling of bigger pockets. You know, you guys would talk about mobile home parks before. And I remember reading articles where they were bad asset classes to buy. They were decreasing in value.

And I just actually went back then. I just, you know, I was like, oh, I guess, you know, I won't go after that. But once, you know, my back was against the wall and I really only had one way to go. You know, I kind of swallowed my ego there. I mean, it's not the sexiest asset class either. You know, there's a lot of stigma that comes with it. It's in this day and age. So I had to swallow a lot of that and just kind of blare through it.

But, you know, at the end of the day, you can't really worry about what other people think about what you're doing. it's all about your own personal happiness. And I stuck with it, luckily. Yeah, yeah. So let's kind of walk through some numbers here a little bit. So, for example, that first deal, you bought that thing. You can typically buy a mobile home for cheap. You're talking, I mean, 35, is that ridiculously cheap?

Or is that? That's around average for what I'm buying. It's completely market dependent. I mean, we're up in the Northeast and Maine. So it's completely different. But, you know, I've gotten mobile homes for free that were great. And I've got mobile homes for free that were complete pits. But I'd say on average, around $3,000 to $6,000 is what I buy them for.

And then obviously you got to equate rehab expenses, holding costs. The same thing within any other asset class. That's what's really unique about it. It's the same kind of rules that I've learned all along. It just I put them into that own asset class and it ended up working out. All right. So that first, like a deal like that, you buy it for, let's say, $3,500, maybe $5,000, maybe $2,000, whatever. The idea is then you fix it up.

Are you moving a home into a new park? Are you moving in across town to their park? Or you stick within a park and you're just trying to move? And then do you rent it or do you sell it off seller financing? So when I first started out, you know, I was scared about moving these homes. They're super expensive to move. I didn't, again, I didn't have all, you know, a bunch of extra money to move these homes. So I was just, I was just looking for homes in parks that needed to be fixed up. So that was really my focus. But as I got more experienced with this, I started to learn that certain parks would actually sell for, you know, higher priced homes depending on the park quality.

So then I could go around and pick homes out of other parks or other areas and bringing them into specific parks and, you know, raise rents to higher values. charge more for, you know, for a flip for a purchase price. So it got really complex there, you know, once you really start getting involved with these things that you can start pulling them out. And that's what's so cool about mobile homes. I think it might be the only asset class that you can actually transport these things and set them up. And that's a great exit strategy is. You can buy them in one park, you know, rent it out. If it's not working out, you can go ahead and pull it, put it in another park, put it on its own piece of land. So there's just all kinds of exit strategies that made me feel confident that, hey, look, even if this doesn't work out now, I know it'll work out somewhere else.

Yeah, that's good. So, I want to even go more simple than this. For people who have just never, because I mean, I kind of understand the mobile home thing because I'm in it, right? Somebody's brand new. There's a popular Reddit thread called

Explain it to me like I'm five. Yep. How does somebody make money with mobile homes? They're five years old. You explain to my daughter, Rosie. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, how would I explain it is there's really,

I think there's a barrier here that people just, they don't understand it so they just think it's some massive complex thing. It's not. There's really no difference than any other asset class. So I look at it as a single family house, you know, rental.

You know, so it's the same type of process that when you go out and you buy, you know, a foreclosure house or an auction house and the same type of thing. You find something that has good value, you know that will rent good and you fix it up over time. It's the exact same model with pretty much all of that just put in a different unsexy asset class. And yeah, I mean, that's really kind of the easiest way I can put this. I think a lot of people just kind of overlook how complex it might be. And it's really not. I mean, the reason why I really, really love it is it's just it's affordable housing. You know, I mean, with the way this world's going, you know, nowadays, in my opinion, it's just going to continue to get to a point where people are looking for cheaper and cheaper housing.

You know, we got all the baby boomers downsizing. And it just made sense to me. It just clicked. So, again, it's nothing. I'm not doing anything special. It's just I took what I had in my means and put it to something that I could actually do and had the money for. And it was the exact same thing as any of these, you know, big time guys that you have on here that have 100, you know, single family homes. it's the exact same thing. You know, it's a single family dwelling. It usually is in a community

with other single family dwellings. Yeah, that makes sense. So do you like renting them out? Because I know we're at our park, right, we're selling them off on seller financing. What's the difference? And why would you choose one over the other? So really, the difference with seller financing, it's, you know, these people, they like home ownership. They want to have their own thing. A lot of the people that we sell their finance too, they've never owned home. They've never actually had something that they can call theirs. Their habitual renters is what I call them. So we get a lot of people that actually have closings with us to end in tears because they've just never owned anything of their own before. You know, so they have pride of home ownership and they take care of their

stuff. And that's something you don't really see in the demographic of when you rent to people. You know, renters, they're their short term. They don't care. They'll leave the windows open in the middle of the winter with the furnace on 80. You know, so that's really the difference. I definitely side towards rent to own owner financing again because you find that better tenant quality base. But, you know, in some instances in some park, it is. is more beneficial to rent. So again, it's really gauging your own market, finding out what's going to work. And really, it's, you know, what you like. Some people love getting called, you know, at midnight with toilet calls. But me, I just wanted to get completely out of it.

I'm seeking, you know, merely financial freedom and trying to just offer the best kind of product I can to want to be homeowners. So. Okay. So how much money like per home are we talking about here? And how do you make, is it a spread, I'm sure? Walk us through those numbers a little bit. Absolutely. So, On average, I'd say my all-in investment with a home is about $10,000. And again, how that works is I normally, I don't want to go over $10,000 because normally when you break it down to the numbers, that takes longer than 10 to 12 months to make my money back.

And for me, personally, that's just my criteria. I don't want to wait longer than that. So I'll usually find a home. I would do my budget on how much the rehab is going to be, how much holding costs is. You have to equate lot rent, all that stuff. And then as long as it comes in below $10,000, I pull the trigger on it. And then as far as scaling goes, I mean, I've really been a huge fan. And again, maybe you coined this, maybe you didn't about OPM.

No, it wasn't mine. Okay, okay, OPM. Other people's money. That's really what puts me a little bit of different scenario than other, you know, like some friends of mine are trying to get into it as well, is it really accelerated me as it does in any asset class. You know, I was able to use some of my own money to start out. And then really, you know, like my girlfriend's dad, my dad, I mean, some people really came

in with influential money to where I could really just, as hard as I wanted to work. You know, it was my full-time job at the time. I could wake up every day and just say, okay, you know, how are you? going to get another home. And for me, it was all about units, more units, some more financial freedom, you know, et cetera. So, you know, anytime you can use leverage of other people's money, just like in any other asset class, it works perfectly with mobile homes. Because again, it's low risk, high reward. You know, you're getting the same kind of cash flow you are, if not more off a four unit. But yet, at the end of the day, you don't have a $200,000 mortgage hanging

over your head to your cash flow in a hell of a lot earlier. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah, so I'm thinking, okay, so $10,000, you're all in on a thing. What does that rent for? Because there's a lot rent too involves here. So how does that break up? What is exactly, does it rent for typically? Typically. Yeah. So again, it's just going to be completely dependent on your market. But like in Bangor, Maine, on average, a three bedroom might go for about 950 bucks for a rent. So it's a, it's about slot rent or is that included? That's just, that's just everything. So like a, I can afford you. And if you were to rent a unit and a four unit, it would be about 950 bucks for three unit. Well, it's to say it correlates the same for a mobile home. So what I do is I just take that 950 minus out the lot

rent. And then that's their rent. So usually we're rent. renting these things, rent to owning these things out for about six, or renting these things out for $600 a month and they pay their own lot rent, which again, it gives them a little bit more pride of homeownership when they're actually going down to the park manager, giving them their own mortgage payment, basically. So yeah, we don't really pay lot rents. We make them pay them. And it just helps us. That way we're not sending out a million checks a month. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, let's say you get something under contract right now. Really good deal. Walk us through what your checklist looks like for your due diligence. And then once you close,

what are the things that you have to do to get that thing ready to rent out? Absolutely. So, I mean, and again, just like with any other asset class, you have to have great due diligence. I mean, you know, if you buy, if you buy, it's really easy to buy an overpriced bad property, just like with anything else. So, you know, when I walk into a mobile home, you know, I always look at, you know, four things. I look at, you know, what's the roof quality?

Sometimes with these older mobile homes where they've redone roofs and it's a heavy roof, sometimes the floors will bow, you know, so you always want to look at the roof. You always want to look at the furnace, you know, obviously, specifically, being in the northeast, that's, you know, it's like the AC down in the south. It's the exact same thing. Yeah. You always want to look at your plumbing. I mean, with mobile homes, I mean, these things have been out since, you know, the 1940s, 1950s and, you know, I've bought plenty of 1950, 1960 homes with old piping. But, you know, these things are also very cheap to rehab. So whenever you see a home that has all, it's really about the updated fixtures. You know, so whenever you see something like that, you know, it's probably a good deal. And then last day, I look for electrical, you know, pre-1976 before HUD came out, they used a lot of aluminum wiring, which is a big firehouse. hazard. So you definitely have to know your stuff just like with anything else on what you're looking at. And then, you know, if all those things are checked and then go through and then just find out the motivational, the motivation of the seller, you know, just like with anything else, if you have a motivational seller, you're going to have a better deal. So, you know, normally that.

And these things, these things are awesome. I mean, they're, at least in Maine, they're considered personal property. So it's not like we have to go through a title search or attorneys for closing or anything like that. You know, 99% of the time, it's just me and the seller are hashing things out right on their living room. And then, you know, once we agree on a price, I normally try to put it under contract right then and there, sign a simple P&S agreement. And then set a closing date. Purchase and sale agreement. Yeah. And then set a closing date. And normally we try to work with them. Again, we want to be advocates of making life easier for them. So we normally try to say, hey, whenever you guys, you know, can get out, let's set closing for that.

And sometimes we've released funds early so that they can afford to, you know, hire a box truck to go and rent and, you know, move their stuff. So again, it's really just trying to find find what's going to work with the seller and functioning it together at what's going to make a deal. You know, and every one of these things is different. Yeah. So yeah. Okay. So I want to get it, this is this is such a cool business model. I remember reading a book like Lonnie deals or something like that back in the day. Right. So it sounds like that's similar to what you're doing. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. For the most part, yeah. All right. So the idea being, I mean, this is just to make it real simple. Like you're finding these homes for dirt cheap, $3,500,

let's just say. You're then putting some money into it. Maybe you're moving it. Maybe you're not, depending on where it's at, right? So now you're in the whole thing for 10 grand. Now, that money might have come out of pocket or you might have used one of the many creative strategies we talk about. So you're in this thing for $10,000. Now you're renting this. Now, let's say there's two parts of, maybe they're paying their own lot rent or maybe you are regardless. Above lot rent, you're making $500 or $600 a month. About, yeah. All right. So let's say you're making $600 a month and extra money every month from renting it. 600 times 10 months would be $6,000. So $7,200 for a year. You

making, and then they probably put down some kind of down payment. Absolutely. So now there's your 10 grand back. Exactly. So you just made a 100% return on an investment. Within 12 months. Within 12 months. I mean, like, there are very few. Now, the cool thing after that is now going forward, it's now, I mean, just pure profit. So let's just say, I mean, again, 10 grand out of pocket and now you're making $600 a month. You're going to have some repairs and maintenance in there or not really. How does that? And again, it's just dependent if you're going to be doing rentals or rent to own. But I mean, if you choose a rent to own path of home

ownership path, which is what I would suggest, you know, there's really no, rent there's really no repair maintenance costs. You know, these people, they're taking pride of home ownership in themselves. When their light bulbs go out, they're doing it themselves. They're not calling the bank that come in and do it for them. So, you know, as you can see, as you're starting to walk through the numbers yourself, I mean, you can see how in love I was with this idea when my back was against the wall and I needed to make something happen. It was like, you know, holy crap, you know, this actually exists. This is a super low risk investment asset class that really no one wanted to dabble in because it is such as, you know, it has such a bad

stigma, which, you know, if you actually took the time to go and read through and study and talk to some of these residents, you would understand that, you know, they are no different than any other, you know, average asset class with apartment buildings. It's just, there's no difference. It's just, for whatever reason, the stigma in America today kind of shoots down this idea. But for me, you know, I didn't really care what other people's thought was. I just, I was trying to, you know, go after financial freedom and to, you know, offer a good quality to a wanted homebuyer. So, yeah, that's really cool. What's, what's so cool about this, Tristan, is that like, a person who doesn't have a lot of money, maybe they've got 10 grand saved up from their job.

Maybe they can borrow that from a friend of a partner. They can take 10 grand potentially, find a home, you know, that for cheap, remodel it, be making actual cash flow now, four, five, $600 a month potentially in cash flow. And because you're seller financing them or rent to owning them, the tenant is paying their own maintenance and repairs. So now you've got cash flow coming in that's fairly stable because they're also paying their own water and sewer and garbage, right? Usually so like, you're just getting cash flow.

So if you do that once, you're going to make some mistakes, you're going to learn some stuff like I'm sure you did. And you can do it again. I mean, how many of these would a person need to own? I'm not asking you. It's kind of hypothetical. But I mean, how many do you need to be able to pay your bills and have financial freedom starting with almost nothing? Yeah. I mean, I think that's a completely per person case by case basis.

You know, I mean, for me, we were living pretty frugally to start out. And I didn't need much. You know, like I said, we were just living with my dad and probably needed maybe two or three grand to pay everything. And, you know, so eventually got to the point where we were able to scale to a point where, okay, we've had our basis pay. So I guess maybe we officially hit financial freedom. Well, what's next? You know, so we absolutely love to travel.

You know, it was awesome coming out here to Maui. So, I mean, we really just said, okay, well, what's next? Well, let's travel more. So it just became kind of a game for instance that, you know, I already knew. I already had a proven track record to go out, get these done. And then we've just been spending the majority of the money on traveling. I mean, we've gone to nine countries so far this year. and they've all been mobile home money.

So if you were to take me back in three years ago, almost crying in my dad's tax office of how miserable I was to now sitting here in Maui all over this bad stigma, you know, mobile home asset class, it's magical for an instance. Yeah. So it's been awesome. They're really good.

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that's helping you be more successful than the average person. Yeah, absolutely. So at least with the Northeast or in Maine, mobile homes are considered personal property. You know, so a lot of these things, they're not in parks at least. They're not on the MLS. So it's not like your traditional, you know, somebody just goes on an MLS trying to find properties. Really what's worked out best for me and it's probably the same for any other single house family dwelling investor who just does normal single family house investing is, you know, I have bandit signs. I have like five things I absolutely use that are just like the power, the biggest lead generators I've had.

Okay. Five things. Five things. You know, so number one would absolutely be bandit signs. So bandit signs are we buy, sell mobile homes for cash, you know, with our Google voice number. Park managers absolutely hate it. If you go and put them right in their park or right at the entrance. So what we've done is we just put them out all the major intersections around all the parks in the area. And in my experience, we put up maybe three or four. And it just flooded with calls for people want to buy and sell. So that's an instant free lead generation tool that I use. Additionally, Facebook marketplace has been huge. It's kind of like the MLS for the. these mobile homes. And it's the same type of thing. There's going to be overpriced crap on there, but eventually there will be some really great deals that people either don't understand the value of their home or they're motivated sellers. They need to move. They lost their job. They just need cash quick. So what I found works out best on those is the second we see it, we just jump on it immediately. I mean, I've had things where they've been on it for 30 minutes and I'm at their house the next minute. You know, it's right there in town and cash in hand ready to make it happen because I understand how much it's worth. I understand all that stuff. So again,

I mean, it really goes to understanding your market. Number three would absolutely be word of mouth. Like I said earlier in the podcast to you, David, I mean, I'd go around and introduce myself to, you know, park managers, mobile home movers, all kinds of people in this industry and just, you know, say, hey, look, you know, young guy trying to get into it and offer finders fees, you know, so once people get a taste of a little bit of money for free just by referring you to something, again, it's no different than any other asset class is, you know, that's word of mouth reaches very fast. So we get people who call us all the time. Hey, I heard you from so and so. Driving for dollars again, that was how I started out. We do that almost on a weekly basis.

You know, it's awesome to get out in the car anyways. It's good to keep in touch with mobile home park owners, which is something I'm trying to get on to now. But, you know, you can always see, and a lot of these people, especially older generation, they don't want to upload pictures to Facebook marketplace or something. So they just stick it for sale by owner sign right in the front window and hope it sells. So that's really where a lot of good deals come from. And then lastly, I already kind of touched on a little bit. The mobile home movers, they're seeing these guys every day.

They're moving homes. They're talking to people. So, I mean, those are really my five biggest lead generators I use that, you know, and they're all free. I don't spend any money on any of that stuff. I mean, Craigslist ads is another one that you can definitely throw something on. But you just got to go out and do it. So here's what's so cool about that or about park owners too. I mean, as an owner, as a park owner, so we have all these empty lots.

I mean, like, I purposely will buy mobile home parks now with vacancy. I want that because I know that if every home I bring in there, I mean, this might get a little bit deep for people. So if you're not quite following this, everybody, like, you know, listens, click carefully here. But basically, here's the idea. If I have a lot rent, let's call it $300 for one of my park spaces. $300 is what it brings in just in lot rent. Now, I'm not paying water sewer garbage. There's no additional expense to me having a new home in there, really,

maybe a little bit of management. Let's just call it $300 in lot rent that I'm getting. Over the course of a year, that's $3,600 in extra revenue in my pocket as an owner of a mobile home park. Now, on a 10 cap, which is a way of valuing real estate, like commercial real estate, It basically means that my property is going to be worth an extra $36,000 more just by having somebody else's home in my park. Per pad. Per pad.

At a five cap, it's $72,000. My value of my park has gone up by bringing in one home. Now, if you, if I get, and this is why Tristan, like, how many of you filled in our park now? Eight. Eight. So, like, Tristan in the last year has filled eight homes in my park in Bangor, or Maine. Every one of those now is generating, like, what are we?

lot rent now, $3.320? Like, that's like, what, $80,000 or $90,000 in value, potentially, on every one of those by bringing them in. And guess how much work I had to do? Not much. Like, you did all the work. You did all of it. And you make money by doing so. Right. Now, so if you were to come in and, like, do that with other parks or other people listen to the show right now, like, how can I get started in real estate? If you find a mobile home park operator in your area and you're like, hey, can I fill homes in your spot? Like, why would they not want to take you up on that? Right. Because it's just like, hey, free. We should like, some free extra money.

Right. You want to add like tens of thousands of dollars, hundreds of thousand dollars in value to your life? It's really just like with anything else in real estate, the best way to make money in real estate is finding somewhere an avenue where you can add value. Yeah. And that's what makes it so easy for you to get into the game here is because there's a lot of mobile home park owners like Brandon and others, others and other states that it's,

you know, it's real capital intensive and labor intensive to bring in these homes. You know, so if you have somebody who's trying to get into the industry, you don't mind doing some legwork and orchestrating the deal, you know, you can really make some noise and really make some good business connections, which again, like Brandon just said, I mean, it's at that point, once you have the connection set up, it's easy money to an extent. You know, so it's, it's really easy to go and add value to these mobile home park owners to say, hey, look, I've noticed you have two or three lots available in your park. Would you mind if I brought in some homes and maybe at that point you can ask for a concession on lot rent? You know, like, hey, give me three months free lot rent and I'll bring in my

home. And they understand the value of these things. They know, they're businessmen. So, you know, that's really what it's been huge for me is, you know, finding these business connections, adding value to these people. And again, it's a symbiotic relationship of money, which is cool. Yeah, that's, that's really awesome. Tristan, I know that investing in mobile home parks, like you've mentioned, can be really good. It can also be just like all kinds of real estate, really scary. You buy in the wrong market. You buy in the wrong area. It doesn't matter if you do everything right. You're going to lose money.

What are some criteria that you look for when choosing a market that you want to start, you know, putting out your bandit sides and putting up signs and signs and, putting out the word that you want to buy in that area. No, that's a great question, David. I mean, I really use four, you know, criteria markers whenever I'm considering, you know, buying a home in a different area or just in general. And this is something I would suggest to anybody kind of wanting to get into this space. It's number one, I mean, you just don't go, just like with any asset class, again, you know,

you just don't want to go out and buy some overpriced something just because you can. You really got to understand the market value of these things. So, you know, I spent, you know, the better half of eight months researching in my area, you know, what these things are going for, or, you know, what's a motivated seller look like, you know, exactly what's a good deal. You know, so that was a big one for me is understanding market value of these things. And, you know, number two would definitely be finding out the motivation of these sellers. I mean, that's a screaming deal for any asset class, but especially these mobile homes,

I mean, these things turn over so easily, I mean, with a loss of a job, with a, you know, move to somewhere else. I mean, you can really add value, again, to, you know, somebody who is an impinch and needs to get out quick, you know, because one thing a lot of people don't understand, especially with this asset class is you're always, was paying lot rent every month. So if someone loses a job and they need to go and move in with a family member or a friend, they're still in charge of paying $300, $400, $400 month lot rent. And as you can imagine, with someone who's already paying, you know, mostly paycheck to paycheck,

that gets really stressful. You know, so when you can come in and add value, you have cash in hand, you can alleviate their pain right off the bat. They're in love with it. They're all over it. So that works out really well. One thing I also look at is you have to understand how much time this is going to take, you know, so it's completely market dependent again. In Maine, you know, things in the winter are always slower. You know, so you have to understand how much time you have allotted to this. And then last thing, you got to look at, you know, what's your money situation looking like? You know, how much money can you allot per deal, especially if you're trying to scale.

So again, I mean, I know I say this a lot during this episode, but there's really no difference between what I do in every other asset class in real estate investing. It's the same concepts that I learned from three years of diving deep in the Bigger Pockets podcast that I've just applied to this odd, unsexy niche that's just completely blown up in my life. So as I think Jefferson Lilly once said, it's an unsexy niche, but it has sexy profits. So I kind of go by that. Yeah, that's great. That's great. So what are some of the things that people should be aware of in terms? Because you were telling me this yesterday about understanding the legalities and how, like, how title works and how like, what are some of those things that you can warn people like before they just jump in?

What should they figure out? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there's two big things. And that's the thing. You just don't want to jump in on this thing. I mean, I took months to educate myself. I was calling, you know, business directors of Maine or whatever, mobile home associations. And you really have to understand what you're doing.

Because, I mean, as is with anything else, there's a legality to this thing. You have to be professional. So there's really two things. Is either personal property or considered real estate. You know, so luckily at Maine and there's a slew of other states that they can say, if they're in parks, not attached to land, they're considered just personal property, which you can sell these things easily on a, you know, on a back side of a napkin, literally would be a legal way of selling these things.

You know, so you definitely want to go through. I mean, I've spent all. kinds of money with attorneys, drafting documents, the bill of sales. I mean, you just definitely want to make sure. I mean, it's no different. You're still in real estate. You're still dealing with money. Other people's money. You want to make sure that you're covered. So I'd highly suggest if you wanted to get into this, you go to your mobile home park association. Every state has one. Give them a call. They usually don't do any, you know, not a whole lot on a day-to-day basis. So they'll be thrilled if you call them. They'll talk your ear off for hours. Yes. Somebody called us. Exactly. Free, free information. You know,

Bigger Pockets Meetups is another great one. I mean, whether people really understand it or not, you know, these mobile homes are simple beasts and people will always have great, great advice because it correlates so well with all other types of real estate investing. Yeah. So again, yeah, absolutely, you know, go to an attorney, spend some money, make sure you're doing it right, have a slew documents. And again, if you go to your mobile home park association in every state, they usually have free legal documents that are 100% legal because they've dealt with them. And, you know, that's a great way not to go to attorneys and make the mistake I didn't spend several thousands of dollars. But there's always information out there. It's just really you've got to put yourself out there, ask,

questions. With me, it's nice because I'm young. I'm motivated. So I, you know, I work out really well with older guys in the game. I can really just kind of attach, be a sponge, learn as much as I can. And then again, I always try to add value back wherever I can. And it always is nice when that correlates with financial freedom. So it works out well. Well, I know you recently bought your first park. So you're getting into that world as well. But where do you see yourself long term headed? More parks, more homes? Like, what's the next five, 10 years look like for you. Besides helping me fill on my home. Yeah, that's right. That's that's that's priority number one. Yeah. No, the long term goal for me, honestly, is, is I don't really like dealing with tenants.

You know, I got into real estate investing, not to be a landlord. I got in to be financially free. You know, I want to do what I want when I want with whom I want. Those are kind of the three markers I wake up every morning and say, if I can do these things, three things, I'm happy. You know, so my long term goal actually is to get out of this space at some point. You know, I think it's really smart for me to dive in hard now while I'm young and motivated and eventually sell things off and I would fall in love with lending money, you know, banks. They make the most money, the easiest money, you know, they'll never get called. It doesn't matter. You got to pay your mortgage every month. So, A Van Horn, you know, the notes, real estate investing, lending. I mean,

that's really where I see myself here in five to 10 years is getting out of this daily grind of finding mobile homes, you know, crawling underneath mobile homes and stuff like that and getting more into the lending aspect of things to just a lot hands off stuff. And I can come back out here to Maui and go surfing with you guys and not have to worry about any of my real estate stuff. Sounds all right to me. Sounds good to me. All right. Well, before we move on to the next time, I'm just curious, why did you buy a mobile

home park? Yeah. Absolutely. So it was really evident to me when I, you know, I think I had maybe 10 mobile homes at the point where it really just kind of hit me. I said, okay, well, each month, all my residents, they're all paying lot rent to the park owners. So I did the numbers and it was something crazy.

Like all my residents at the time were paying like $7,000 a month to the, you mobile home park owners. I was like, it just makes, you know, it's just like, okay, so if I get a park, then I'll be getting that $700,000 a month plus the rent or the rent to own payments. So it just really clicked. It was just the next natural avenue for me to take that next step into commercial real estate. And again, it was the same thing. When I first started, it was a big daunting task that I took little by little, chunk by chunk. I went to Frank Rolfe's mobile home park boot camp twice once it was Ryan Murdoch. And just, you know, again, it was the same thing what I did with bigger pockets. I just submerged myself in mobile home park knowledge,

you know, books, podcasts, everything I could do. So there was really no difference. But that was just the next natural step for me was mobile home park. And it's been great. It's really a lot cooler with that because it's on a lot more magnitude scale than just at one individual home. You can walk into a park, as you know, or really, you know, any big multifamily, you know, apartment complex. And you can, if you have any kind of Asian, you can start seeing things. You can see value add opportunities. And at least in my area. I saw a few parks that had a lot of value at opportunities. And that's where you make your most money is if you're not afraid to get down and dirty and really just add value to something. So like in my park, to be specific, you know, it was kind of more of a rundown park. So I knew if I could just come in there, paint up some of the homes, do some landscaping, pave it, stuff. It would increase the park's value for one. And it would also increase the atmosphere of the tenants, the quality of tenants and all kinds of stuff. So it's been really cool for me to go through the process of actually owning a community and seeing my my dream kind of come to fruition. We've put in water sewer lines from scratch, electrical poles, lights, pads. You know, it's literally like you're owning kind of a mini city.

And you're dealing with city officials and all kinds of stuff. And it's just, it's like playing monopoly in a way. You know, it's just kind of cool to piece it together. And, you know, at the end of the day, I kind of pride myself, especially with my community, is having a, you know, a nice, safe, quality community for these residents. And we've just, well, we've been blown away by the feedback we've gotten, you know, one gentleman said to me, you know, I've been living here seven years. And you guys have done more in two months than the previous owner did in seven years.

They're blown away. So it's just been a really fun, cool process just to go through it all. And I wouldn't have it any other way. That's awesome. All right, well, let's head to the next segment of the show. It is our deal deep dive. What's going on, everyone? It's Brandon.

I want to take a quick break from this podcast to invite you to this week's webinar, how a newbie, meaning a new real estate investor, can start building wealth through real estate. Because look, when you're beginning to invest in real estate, it can feel overwhelming, right? Where do you go? What should you do? What should you buy? I don't want to make any mistakes, right? that's why this is a must attend event.

Look, if you have fewer than five properties, do not miss this. You're going to learn the different strategies and niches you can take, some of the common mistakes that investors make, some of the best and worst strategies for new investors, and a whole lot more. We're even going to be looking for a real-life deal on the market together. We're going to run the numbers and find out how much we should pay for it and how much we'll make if we buy it.

It's going to be a ton of fun, super helpful. Again, if you have less than five properties, you better be there. BiggerPockets.com slash newbie webinar. Again, biggerpockets.com slash newbie, N-E-W-B-I-E webinar. I'll see you there. All right, this is the part of the show where we dive deep into one particular deal that you've done. And I'd love to know a little bit. We're going to fire a bunch of questions that's you about one of your mobile homes.

So you got something in mind? Yeah, absolutely. So first question, what, let's see, what type of property is this? Yeah, a mobile home. All right. And where is it located? In Maine. Okay.

Number two, David Green. How did you find this property? Yeah. So this one was a unique one. I had actually originally spotted this one out. This is actually a really unique story. So I just bought a house on the water on a lake. And we had a septic inspector come out and he did a septic design or an inspection on our property.

Long story short, two or three weeks later, I get this call out of nowhere from the same gentleman. And I answer the phone, hello. And he says, hello. And I'm like, you called me. And he's like, yeah, I'm sorry. I just picked up the phone. And I was calling you. I was like, oh.

And I didn't know who he was at the time. time. And I said, well, I buy and sell mobile homes. Is it something about a mobile home? He's like, mobile home, no. Although I have a mobile home for sale in my driveway. No way. So it just got going. And sure enough, I took a trip down to him. He had a beautiful 14 by 80 mobile home in his driveway that he had just come across at some point. And we hashed out a deal because I was going to move it up to my park. I bought it for $7,000. And it was great. You know, I was like, sweet. I just filled a spot in my park. Long story short, fast forward a couple more weeks. I get a call from a guy, because we're getting leads in all the time.

And he says, hey, my dad just died. He left me 25,000 cash. I'm looking for a home. Do you have anything? And I put two and two together. Like, yeah, absolutely. I got one for 23 grand. And he's like, great, let me come take a look at it.

So we drove down to the guy's driveway. You know, asked him if we could come beforehand. He said, absolutely. He took a look at it, not even three seconds into the home. He's like, I'll take it. I mean, he didn't have cash. A bankers check with him right there. And there it is.

So you basically wholesale. It was a wholesale deal. That happened extremely quick. I went down twice, one to buy it, one to sell it. We netted about 16 grand on it. And it all happened by a guy who just accidentally called me. He literally butt dialed me and I made 16 grand off it. That's funny.

That might be my best deal. All right. Well, that covered a lot of our questions here. So last question, what lessons did you learn from that deal? Good lesson I learned from that one is just what I should have done to him beforehand is this always hold business cards with you always tell people what you do. You know, that's one thing. I mean, especially in this asset class, a lot of people try to just stick to their own. But one thing I've learned, especially one thing, you know, Ryan Murdox really shouted me out with is, hey, look, go and talk to people. Go out to these BP meetups. Go and go and go and call people around. Find a mentor and just tell them what you're doing. You'll never, ever know like the septic guy, but dial me who has something that might be a value to you. And in my case, it was a huge value. So that's so funny. Very cool. Very cool. All right. Well, next, let's get over to the world famous fire round. Fire round. It's time for the fire round.

All right. These questions come direct from the Bigger Pockets forums and we're going to fire them at you. They might not be specifically related to mobile home parks, but they should all apply to you. Hopefully. Number one, Josh Miller from Kingwood, Texas posted this. So my tenant has been great pain on time. I received a complaint from a neighbor unit that the tenant is smoking weed inside the unit. I do have a no smoking policy in my lease. I also have recently been told by a tenant smoking that she will be leaving when her lease is up at the end of April. So that's like six months from now. what are you going to do in that what would you do in the situation absolutely so especially when it comes to cannabis it's a lot it gets a lot more intense now that states are trying to you know starting to legalize these main is a recreational legalized state so what at least with my rule is uh i just ask him to do it outside and on or at least open up the window i guess i've been really good with being personable with my tenants i try not to come in with you know i'm the landlord i'm the hammer down and just tell them what to do i usually explain to them that you know it's sensitive to other people and that if you could just be uh you know a accommodating to everyone else who's living around you.

But yeah, it's kind of, he might be in a hard situation if he lives in one of those states because you kind of maybe have to let him do it. But yeah, even if you have to let him do it, I would still suggest trying to work with him to, with other tenants involved, say, hey, look, you know, let's have some common sense here. Yeah. And definitely you can still, I mean, even if it's legal, doesn't mean that they are allowed to leave inside. Exactly.

So then it's hard there because it's like they're going to be leaving in six months anyway. So how, I mean, how much can you? I wouldn't push it too hard. You know, this is, again, you know, Ryan Murdoch is. He's given me some great advice throughout the years. And I've actually had similar instances. And he's always said, you know, look, as long as everyone's still paying their rent, and as long as people are semi-happy, you're providing what you should be paying.

I mean, you should be providing. Yeah. You know, so again, I would just look at it on a case-to-case basis. As long as people aren't withholding rent from you, you're probably safe. Again, just pretty much let the tenants try to deal it out. We're all adults here. And really landlords, I try to stay out of it as much as I can. And then I'll always document everything.

Whenever I talk to a tenant, I always document it just in case anything comes back. All right. Yeah, good. Awesome. Next question from Sean Rhodes in Portland, Oregon. Hello, I am currently self-managing my seven-bedroom house hack and renting by the room. I'm wondering if anyone knows of the best software for me to use. I would like to have it include the ability to have a digital lease, rental applications, and possibly electronic rent collection. I think that's going to depend widely on how many units you have.

And again, something I learned off bigger pockets. When I first got it started out, I think it's like up to 10 units. I worked really well with just Excel spreadsheets. you know, just simple tracking devices. But, you know, the more and more you scale and the bigger, bigger you get, it's so much more complex. And, you know, so finally, I've gotten to the point where I've just hired a property management company. And they use rent manager software. And there's tons of tons of softwares out there. But it just makes it so much easier, especially as a landlord point of view, you can just go into a portal and then I'll see what you have access to. But,

yeah, I wouldn't get too bogged down with the books of all that. I would, it's well worth it to just ship that off to somebody else to take care for you. But yeah, the smaller you are, trying to do it yourself. They save a lot of money. Excel spreadsheets, the bigger you get, shoot that off to somebody else. All right. Good answer. Number three, ironically from another person named Tristan in Commerce City, Colorado. I'm just curious of how long everyone typically waits for a contractor's bid to come back. I know a lot of contractors have tons of work available, so there's a lot of delay in getting it back, and some of them just don't care. How long would you wait before moving on to find another contractor? So I tend to be super aggressive when it comes to, you know, getting a property.

I mean, I am sure it's with everybody. You have holding costs. You know, you have an investment invested. You want to get your money back as fast as possible. So if I don't have a contractor that's super excited to work to work with me and sees my values moving forward, he normally never even gets a call back. And so I, you know, I've been really fortunate. I've been in this, you know, long enough to I have two really solid crews that take care of basically everything for me. We've developed a system just like with everyone else that whenever I have something, they can basically go right into it, knock it out exactly how I want it to. So again, I think starting out, the contractors that don't call you back, they're probably. going to be late on their work. I wouldn't give them any time a day. I would just continue trying to call until you find that one. You're always going to lose out on contractors. They're a dime a dozen. You're never going to have one for your whole life. I would just move on you. It's a respecting at that point. So, yeah. All right. Awesome. Okay. This next question is a good one from Wade Penner. My tenant won't be home during some upcoming maintenance in which a heater replacement is going to take place. This could take a few hours. It's a trustworthy company doing the installation. I need to let the installer in, but do I have to wait around until they finish since the tenant isn't home?

It seems unrealistic for me to be present during every type of maintenance, but I just want to double check. Yeah, no, that's a great question. I'm a big fan. I'm not getting pulled out of my house whenever we have somebody coming in installation, something. I also love being involved, though. So I would definitely show up, get them started on something.

And then normally, normally, I end up leaving as long as, you know, you do understand their quality of work and you trust them and all that. Normally, if I'm not around, I try to have at least another tenant. keep an eye on things or I'll tell him, hey, if you need anything, you know, Unit 1 is there, their home. So absolutely. I mean, as long, and again, it comes back to the trust thing. As long as you trust them to do work correctly, absolutely. I think you're fine, leaving and not having to be there every time. But if it's the first guy you use, I usually stick around all the time, just to make sure he's doing stuff correctly. Because these guys, you never really know.

Yeah, you never know. I like to offset that to the tenant. And so I'm like, let me hook you up the tenant. And then if the tenant gives permission, yeah, come to my house, then I'm really, I know I'm fine. And if a tenant doesn't, I'm curious, Ryan Murdoch's hanging out here, uh, recording us today with the videos. What would you do in that case, Ryan? So like if a tenant, if you had a repair, like on a furnace, let's say, and your tenant wasn't going to be home all day, would you allow a contractor to go in and deal with like, would you allow a contractor to go in and deal? Yeah, because chances are I would have, have a relationship with that contractor. If they were brand new, let's say, you never worked with them before. How do you? That's tough, isn't it? Yeah, I probably

still wouldn't meet them there. Yeah. Yeah. If they're licensed in bonded, they're probably fine. Yeah, come get the keys for me, schedule it with the tenant, and then go in and do what you've got to do. Yeah, makes sense. If either side puts up a real fight, then maybe you would get me there, but generally I try to avoid that. Yeah, what would you do, David? I would do the same as you, because if you make the call, the guy's going to be here, I'm not going to be waiting, and the tenant doesn't like that. They could just claim the person took something and want you to pay for it.

And now the contractor is saying, I didn't steal anything. The tenant's saying they did, you're sucked into a bad battle. If you stay there for three hours waiting, the tenant could still. do that. They could say you stole something. I just wouldn't want to be in that unit without a tenant there. Just because I have the right to be there doesn't mean it's like the right move. So I would do what you said, Brandon. You take yourself out of it. You tell the tenant, hey, I got someone to replace your water heater. This is the handyman. This is the contractor. Here's the number. Call them and tell them when you want to come. And if the water guy or the heater, you know, installation guy tells the person it's going to be

three hours and they say, well, I can't be here. It's their call not to be there, not your call. And if they want to wait the three hours, then let them schedule it for when it does work for you. You don't have to play the middleman and do that. So I think, Brandon, your advice was really good and it reduces the liability on the landlord the most. Nice. Well, thank you. All right. Good, good segment there.

That was fun. Kind of a landlording edition of the fire round. Let's go to the next second, though, the famous four. All right. This is a part of the show where we ask the same four questions that we ask every week. And we're going to throw them at you right now. Question number one of the famous four. do you have a favorite real estate related book? Absolutely. Yeah, no, this is going to sound a little cliche,

but absolutely. It's a book by you and your wife managing rental properties. Yeah. And I definitely didn't have that prepared in advance, but I'll explain why. When I was in college, I'm not sure exactly what you were advertising at the point. I'm not sure if I didn't have the money for it or what, but I actually downloaded the e-book from it. And illegally? Illegally. No, no. Illegal. It might have been. I'm out of here. I'm not here. Hired in. It might have been free with a purchase of something else. But I downloaded the e-book and I was in college and I actually went to the library and printed off all, you know, whatever, 250 pages. Wow.

And put it in a three ring binder. And I just spent months and months combing over that thing with a highlighter. And it honestly, it paid tenfold into what eventually would have been my business to, you know, the systems I had in place. I mean, the filing cabinets, the inbox, you know, the whole nine yards of exactly how to organize your business and your company. So, you know, from a starter, trying to get into the business. I got my feet wet with real estate. But that by far was probably the best book to get me organized, which, as you know, organization is huge when you're trying to get into real estate investing.

So, yeah, absolutely. Good shout out to you and Heather. Thanks, man. Yeah, that's awesome. I'm totally going to take that whole segment and put that on the sales page for that book because that was great. All right. Next question. David Green.

Next question. How much did Brandon pay you to say what you just said? You pay for my trip in Maui. Yeah, there you go. He gets to stay in my Ohana unit. There you go. Smart man, Tristan. Okay, the real question.

What is your favorite business book? Yeah. No, that would have to be mastery by, I think, Robert Green. I read that early on in the real estate investment career. Yeah, we had him on the show. Yeah, no, I absolutely loved it. He talks a lot about the 10,000 hours that it takes to become a master, and he gives all kinds of examples.

I think people really overlook how much time and dedication it takes to be great at anything. You know, a lot of people get in touch with me, you know, they just want to be an overnight success. I think that's with everything. They just want to do it and get it done with and be, you know, successful. But, you know, as I learned with basketball and as I'm learning with real estate, it just doesn't happen like that. You have to be, you know, like your quote up here, I absolutely love it. You know, you have to be in the arena.

You have to have the scars on your face. You have to work through it to be called a master. And I think that's why there's so few masters in this world. Wow. Great answer. Love that. And little known fact, Robert is my uncle. Awesome.

That's not even true at all. He got me. You got me. Yeah. I taught him everything you know. All right. Next up, what are some of your hobbies? I absolutely love to travel.

Like I said, I've been fortunate enough to make it to nine different countries this year. I love the thing about financial freedom. I absolutely love doing what I want, when I want, with whom I want. We just bought a lake house, love my dogs, love hanging out in the water, spent a lot of time with my girlfriend. But, yeah, I pretty much don't do a whole lot besides real estate investing and trying to travel. Very cool. All right.

last question for me. What do you think sets apart successful real estate investors from those who give up, fail, or never get started? Yeah, that's a good question. And I know I've heard this on the show before, but absolutely it's fear. And that's why I think my, you know, what we've talked about today is such a unique asset class is this really minimizes your fear to almost zero besides wholesaling and stuff like that. I think people just get so overwhelmed with a big audacious goal. And this is a really easy first step for someone with just a few thousand dollars to get their feet wet into this. So I absolutely think that just people get too scared or that and matched with. They just don't have a big enough why. They don't get out of bed with a huge desire,

to be successful each and every day. So I think that mixed with fear makes a deadly concoction of people that just don't take action. So I think if you have a strong why, you get out of bed with a desire to be successful each and every day and you just live with no fear as easy as that sounds, you know, one way or another, over time through massive daily action, you will succeed. Massadilly action. There you go. I love it, dude. I love it.

Great answer. All right. Well, that's all I got. Last question of, well, I got one more for him. That's all I got. That's all I got, David. I wasn't all about you. It's not all about you, David.

You all the time. Narcissistic Norman, I swear. I try to say three words in this episode and you shut me right out. All right. Tristan, this is about you. So tell me, where can people find out more about you? Absolutely. I try to stay hidden under a rock most of the days.

But no, absolutely, anybody can absolutely reach out to me whenever they want. Instagram. I think you guys will tag some of the handles either. Email, trisendtthamac.com. Absolutely willing to talk to anybody about it. I clearly love this stuff. I eat, breathe, sleep it every single day. So I'll talk anybody's ear off.

You'll probably get more than what you actually want. But, yeah, absolutely, feel free to reach out. All right. Yeah, we will put that in the show nuts, of course, biggerpockets.com. So I show 361. And I know we'll have links to all your social profiles there. In fact, you're on Instagram at. TR Thomas 14.

T.R. Thomas 14. And you can follow. Oh, Tristan, how am I not following you? Now I am. Follow back. All right. Sorry, dude. I wasn't following you.

Now I'm following you. I'd be on a podcast. Exactly. Now you're officially being followed. Now I feel like a moron not following my own guest on Instagram. All right. Well, thank you so much for being here today. This was fantastic.

All right. So with that, I guess we're just going to take off because, you know, it's a, hot day. It's getting warmer out here in Maui. About to go snorkeling. Are you going? Are you going? Somewhere is some secret cove. Ryan has in mind. Cam three. Great spot for snorkeling. You'll go hang out with some turtles today. What's really fun is there's two things you got to do with turtles when you come to Hawaii. Number one, if you see a turtle on the beach, don't mind all the cones and the ribbons around it that say don't touch.

If you're new to Hawaii, you just go over and flip the turtle on its back. Just watch it like flail. It's really good. Yeah, it's really, yeah, just run from the cops. And number two, if you find a turtle under the wall, water, like what they love is when you grab onto their shells and let them take you for a ride. So it's like an underwater. Exactly. So make sure you do those two things and you will be, you'll have a great time and you have to get a tour of the county jail. All in one day.

Huge. Dude. All right. Brandon and David, I very much appreciate you guys having me on board. It's been awesome. Thank you. Thank you. Awesome. Thank you very much, man. This is David Green for Brandon. Don't listen to his terrible advice, Turner. Signing off. simplifying real estate for investors large and small. If you're here looking to learn about real estate investing, without all the hype, you're in the right place. Be sure to join the millions of others who have benefited from biggerpockets.com.

Your home for real estate investing online. Thank you all for listening to the Bigger Pockets Real Estate podcast. Make sure you get all our new episodes by subscribing on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, or any other podcast platform. Our new episodes come out Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I'm the host and executive producer of the show, Dave Meyer. The show is produced by Ian K, copywriting is by Calicoe content, and editing is by Exodus Media. If you'd like to learn more about real estate investing or to sign up for our free newsletter,

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