Podcast Episode #17: Investing In Mobile Home Parks In A Pandemic

The Mobile Home Park Expert Podcast · Episode 17 – MHP Investing In A Pandemic

Jason Sirotin:
Yeah. Me neither, man. It’s crazy.

Glenn Esterson:
Yeah, I know. You had to run at it too for a minute there I’m glad everything worked out and [crosstalk 00:00:35].

Jason Sirotin:
Oh yeah. I was a lucky winner of the COVID prize. It chose me. It chose me and my whole family. But Glenn, I mean, we haven’t done a podcast in a while, obviously, because of extenuating circumstances. But we are in a different world currently. I don’t want to call it the new world. I think it’s giving it too much of a longevity and like, we’ll create a better world than this. This is not the new world.
But we are in a diff difficult place. And especially in real estate, and lending, and the mobile home park space. So I wanted to talk with you and just ask some questions as still somebody who’s been looking at mobile home parks, and wondering now even if now might be a really good time to buy, because maybe there’s going to be really good deals. But where are you at with things?

Glenn Esterson:
Yeah, it’s definitely different. Whether life gets back to normal, and what we decide new normal is, it’s all going to have an impact somewhat. But at the end of the day, right now, right here, every deal anyone is looking at has a lot more challenges in it to get it to the finish line. And if you just close the deal, and you were expecting your April rent collections to be 100%, you might be thinking to yourself, “Jeez, it might not be 100% this month, or next month, or the month after.”
With the amount of unemployment, just skyrocketing like we’ve not seen since, I think I read it was the 1929, 1930 to 1932 period that we’ve not seen levels of this kind of unemployment. It might even be worse than that. We don’t really know how to act either. This is a cycle. I mean, we’ve been through this cycle before albeit it was a hundred years ago. And it was a little bit different than we are now.
That all said, I think we do find a new normal. And I do think we find a new normal in the next three to six months. And it has made every seller and purchaser much more aware of the risks associated with buying income property. Retail and hospitality, they’ve just been hammered. And thankfully, our industry, the mobile home park industry, is fairly well cushioned to handle people not having a strong income or strong employment for periods of time.
We are the safety net there. Doesn’t mean it’s going to be a fun time, but it does mean that we should fare well, or at least better than, some of our counterpart real estate verticals. In 2008, when the bottom fell out, mobile home parks still did fairly well. I personally owned during that period of time. And while I might’ve recycled more tenants than I would’ve preferred, my downtime was still minimal.
And I think that’s a likely effect of what will happen here if the economy doesn’t stabilize in the near short term. But at the same time, I think our industry is well-positioned. But trying to do a deal right now, man oh man it is tough. We had 19 parks under contract when we … I don’t know what the official date was. I think it was the 16th through the 17th or whatever it was that it became where the stock market really just bottomed out. And since then, we had 19 parks going into this that were under contract. We only had three that fell out of contract.

Jason Sirotin:
That’s really good.

Glenn Esterson:
[inaudible 00:04:53]. Yeah. So that was nice. But what happens to a lot of these other ones, a lot of them did get extended. And the number one reason that they got extended beyond just general fear, which isn’t necessarily a reason to extend in this businesses for better or worse. But when the CMBS market was not able to do loans and get loans closed, that makes the seller say, “Uh-oh, how does that affect this buyer? And what happens to me? If the bank can’t give them the loan that they were already qualified for, or that they could have been qualified for, how am I supposed to sell my park?”
And that’s a hard discussion to have with the seller who was thinking, “Hey, I’m at the top of the market. Lending is cheap and easy. And I’ll get a good buyer in here and get out in 60 to 90 days.” Now they’re saying, “Well, either we need to extend the contract for 90 days plus or minus and reevaluate then when the CMBS market comes back.” Or Mr. Seller, you’re going to need the owner finances deal, which right now … Which we did on a lot of our deals, actually. A lot of them got pushed to 12 to 24 months interest-only seller finance deals to help bridge the gap.
And that can be an uncomfortable position for a seller to go into. But if you think it through, it actually is a good position for a seller to be in. And then the third option is obviously taking a little bit of a haircut and seeing if the buyer will close cash. If they’re able to still have confidence that they want this deal, and maybe it’s just a little bit of a price adjustment. We’ve done some of those, but nothing like fire sales. We aren’t seeing any kind of real fires selling anywhere across, not out of my deals, not out of my competition’s deals. I mean, I don’t know everybody’s deals particularly, but-

Jason Sirotin:
It’s almost like everybody pressed pause.

Glenn Esterson:
Yeah. It’s like everybody pressed paused. And we said, “All right, fine. Here’s another 60 to 90 days. And we’ll reevaluate.” But I closed the deal two weeks ago when Arizona was a great buyer out of Los Angeles. He got a little bit of a discount, but his lender fell out and he just said, “To hell with it, I’ll just close in cash.” And that’s what he did. So he got like a 5% discount on the pricing. Good for him.

Jason Sirotin:
So prices are staying the same?

Glenn Esterson:
I think so. And here’s the logic behind it is if we all believe that the market’s going to recover at some reasonable amount of time, 3, 6, 9, 12 months even, okay?

Jason Sirotin:
I think we all believe that, don’t we? I think it’s going to be the Roaring Twenties. I think people are going to spend mad money just to get it.

Glenn Esterson:
Well, that’s what I was going to get into is … That’s what I was going to kind of get into. There’s been a lot of people suggesting that. But let’s look at it a little bit deeper than just a headline. And let’s look at what the Fed has done over the last few weeks, and what they’re planning to do over the next few months. And they have done [inaudible 00:08:11] that destabilizes this issue.
And for better or worse, one day half the country is against socialism. And the next day, the whole country is forced socialism, apparently, with these checks we are about to receive. But the Fed I think was correct in doing this. Sending out trillions of dollars in liquidity to reinforce that the Fed’s going to protect us from something terrible and-

Jason Sirotin:
Another 250 billion?

Glenn Esterson:
Trillion. They put trillions of dollars.

Jason Sirotin:
Oh, another 2.3 trillion? Yes.

Glenn Esterson:
Yeah. Yeah.

Jason Sirotin:
That’s what I read yesterday. Oh yeah, that was crazy.

Glenn Esterson:
And by the end of this year-

Jason Sirotin:
But does that mean they’re just printing money, though?

Glenn Esterson:
That is what it means is that they’re just going to print money until they stabilize the economy. And we’ll deal with the after effects like inflation and stuff like that at a later point in time, because that’s less urgent than getting through this what could be or could have been a-

Jason Sirotin:
How do they get the money in the hands of Americans, though? That’s what I don’t understand.

Glenn Esterson:
Well, that’s what they’re doing. It’s their helicopter and money out to everybody with these $1,200 checks. And while it’s almost a slap in the face if you live in any reasonable city, it is a way to put money in place right now. And everybody who owns parks and things like that and houses and rents, everybody’s asking for full barracks, which is going to create its own set of problems. But again, it buys us more time.
So jumping back to what I was trying to get at here is the Fed’s going to put in up to what might be $6 trillion or more into the economy. And what that has done on interest rates is that has bottomed out interest rates. Okay? And they are just as low as they could go. In fact, by the look of the graces of whatever is out there, we got my personal house refinanced at 3.49%. Okay? Which is phenomenal. Okay?
When you have this kind of cheap debt that’s going to still be there after the economy stabilizes, now you’re going to have the ability for a buyer to get a better loan is going to push harder on pricing moving forward because we as brokers we balance pricing off of debt. And with sellers, a lot of them have retracted. They said, “You know we’re not trying to sell in a bad market. We’ll just wait it out.”
And so that was less sellers than the last, however, before that we’ve been going through this most upper portion of the cycle. And there’s still many, many buyers. Now, a lot of buyers are out for blood right now, but they’re not going to get it.
And what’s going to happen is when the market comes back, the interest rates are going to be low. Sellers are going to be scarce. And buyers are going to be many. And that’s going to push up further heavier sellers market, which is almost exactly like what happened in your reference with the Roaring Twenties back in 1918 after we had a mini crash, and then a pandemic, and then almost lost everything and then had the next 10 years to be with some of the best ever. But we know how that ended as well. And hopefully, we can avoid this year.

Jason Sirotin:
Yeah, that did not come back. Hey, but you know what? Let’s look in the now, bro.

Glenn Esterson:
Yeah. For the now, the biggest fear is hyperinflation if this works. Okay?

Jason Sirotin:
Yeah.

Glenn Esterson:
And hyperinflation the best position to be in … So right now the best position to be in is cash, right? Like if you have cash right now, you might make a lot of money if you’re playing stock markets and doing things like that. But if we go into hyperinflation, cash is the last thing you want to be in. And what you want to be is something solid like real estate or commodity. Something that is a hard good, because that’s where the value is going to end up being preserved.

Jason Sirotin:
Oh, bro. Gold.

Glenn Esterson:
Yeah, gold. Things like that. This is where I think the theory of a better market coming out of this is reinforced. Now, granted if they can’t stabilize it and all hell breaks loose and institutions start to fall down, like they did last time, that might be a different story. But nobody I’m reading from and seeing from is really suggesting that that’s what’s going to be looking like. Most people are saying, “You know what’s crazy is we think we just get back normal.” And that’s the standard feeling that people have for better or worse. I don’t know where I stand.

Jason Sirotin:
Because that’s what we all want. But sometimes what you want-

Glenn Esterson:
I think [inaudible 00:12:44] what we all want.

Jason Sirotin:
… isn’t what you get.

Glenn Esterson:
Yeah.

Jason Sirotin:
So in your head, I know, of course, you want to sell places. Is now a good time, I mean, and you’re an honest dude, is now a good time to buy or should buyers press pause should, or should everybody just continue?

Glenn Esterson:
I think everybody should pause. I think everybody should pause. Unless if you’re in a unique position and you can’t afford to pause, okay? And there’s nothing wrong with taking 90 days out and just sitting on your cash right now. Okay. There’s nothing wrong with that. If you’re a buyer and saying, “Let’s see what happens because maybe better deals come in.”
But with a buyer right now what might be compelling for a buyer right now is that there isn’t a lot of buyers per se chomping at the bit to pay for a good property right now because maybe they think the price is going to get better. And I think that’s not going to be the case. So I think a smart buyer right now is probably looking at that and saying, “Hey, I wouldn’t have been competitive on this deal before because the big guys would have been able to beat me out. But right now, I can be competitive on this deal if I’m willing to pay retail or close to retail on that price.”
And if it’s a good park, it was a good park in February, it’s not going to be a bad park in September. Again, we’re the safety net. The reds aren’t going to get cheaper per se, by anything significant at our level of rent. Now, maybe the class say, apartment stuff starts coming down as they have higher vacancies that they’re going to be dealing with.
But I think this C class and retirement class, mobile home communities, I don’t think we’re going to have much of a pricing change going on with there. So as a buyer, you become more competitive and you’re able to be one of the few guys willing to pony up right now. You might end up with a nice park. There’s a little bit of a ramble there, but I think you understand what I’m saying.

Jason Sirotin:
Yeah, absolutely. It’s okay to press pause. I mean, nobody’s going anywhere unless they’re horribly affected by this illness. And everybody wants to get back. Thankfully, for technology, a lot of the machine can keep running. I think that’s one of the good things that we’re seeing is that people are seeing that it doesn’t matter where you’re at. You have most of the tools you need. The only thing that you don’t get is that human contact and being able to go out, which is super important for proper mental health. But I agree. I’m going to watch things. I’m using my cash. And now I’m worried that I’m spending too much on stocks, because I’m buying a shit ton of stocks.

Glenn Esterson:
I still haven’t bought any and don’t have much intention to. But it is interesting what’s happening out there with all these things. Today the IRS released some positive news for people in what was called a 1031 exchange, what is called a 1031 exchange. And that’s a tax advantage for real estate investors where they can defer the capital gain off of the sale of their park if they reinvested again in a similar real estate type of investments.
And up until today, the guidelines hadn’t changed and been adjusted and with … And you only get 45 days to identify and 180 days to close. And so, you can’t really do your due diligence and identify things right now because you can’t get on site. And you can’t hire certain third party inspectors and things like that.
And so, a lot of these guys were about to have to pay some pretty heavy taxes. And so today the IRS came out with some guidance that they’re going to give an additional 120 days, I think, is what I read on the inspection, or on the identification period now, which should help significantly. There’s all these weird little interesting caveats about doing deals right now that, again, support the whole just sit and wait kind of theory. Because how are you supposed to visit a park right now? How are you supposed to get on a plane? You’re going to get on a plane right now? I’m not getting on a plane right now.

Jason Sirotin:
I’ll get on a plane, but I can’t. But the main problem, and I’ve been having this problem, is lending.

Glenn Esterson:
Yeah, lending. Lending is gone right now. And the lending that is there is awful. Okay? It might sound sexy on paper when you get a soft quote. But when you get down to the final end, buyers are being asked to come up with 12 to 18 months of capital reserves for this deal, which is just massive amounts. They give you typically, typically like three months maximum, okay? Four months maybe. To us, that’s the bank telling us, “No, we really don’t want to do a deal right now.”
That’s what we’re hearing from the banks. And CMBS is gone. You’re not going to get CMBS lending on anything right now with very, very, very few exceptions. Local banks seem to be in the play right now also higher reserves. But there are plenty of bridge lenders out there right now that are very eager to loan money in this market.
And so, we’re seeing more bridge lending happening. But bridge lending is typically much more expensive than traditional lending. If somebody is trying to get something done, there are ways to get the deal done right now. But the advice I’m giving most people is just sit and wait. And the lending will come back. The government has to fix that. [inaudible 00:18:58].

Jason Sirotin:
Well, yeah, they got to get money.

Glenn Esterson:
Yeah. That’s going to change. And when it does change, then again, there’s going to be a built up appetite for investment again. And again, I think probably going to push to a stronger sellers market. But we have to get through this stay at home period right now. And I really hope everybody even if they don’t believe this is a real big deal, at least hope people are staying it all right now, just in case it might be a big deal in their mind. I think it’s a big deal. And it makes it real hard to do a transaction and to survive through all this. But if you’re staying home, you’re going to be safe and you get lots of time to get real smart over the next 90 days about what to do.

Jason Sirotin:
Yeah. I mean, obviously, people should take this time and read The Mobile Home Park Manifesto by Glenn Esterson. But is there anything else that you think that mobile home park investors and people who are interested in the space should be doing right now to stay connected and to come out? In marketing, we keep telling people to load their marketing cannons, right? Write content, invest in your site. What do you think people in the mobile home parks should be doing?

Glenn Esterson:
Well, everybody’s got their own opinion. I see a lot of guys that are thinking that there’s going to be a good bit of blood in the water here in 30 days, and they’re going to try and take advantage of that. You know, I’m not going to participate with helping any of our buyers do that. I mean, I understand capitalism. But the thing that me and my team are doing in that we’re working on, and how we’re trying to put ourselves in a better position.
Because, I mean, in my lifetime, I’ve never had 90 days off where I can just not have to worry too much about too many things other than survival. And I have a lot of time to sit here and focus on how to improve things. So that’s what me and my team are doing. We’re spending a lot of time learning new markets too. We’re spending a lot of time learning about the REO and note markets. Because if it does go that direction, we want to be in a position to be able to help exchange notes and REO sales.
So we’re studying up a lot on that. And we’re looking at using our company as a data company as another potential. So we’re refining some of that stuff that we have because we probably have the best data in the country on mobile home parks right now. And so we’re looking at ways to make our value proposition to our buyers and our sellers more attractive by having better data sources. So we’ve just hired up a new skip tracing company and databasing company to get better information there.
I don’t know how to make a dollar right now. Okay? I mean, I’ll just be blunt about it. I don’t know where a transaction that wasn’t already in the pipeline can be a paid deal in 60 days. I don’t know how to make that happen except through a 10 31 right now. And it’s very unlikely, in my opinion. Although that’s what we’re focusing on are these 1031 buyers right now, but we should now-

Jason Sirotin:
You should know a page on your website called 1031 Buyers, 1031 Properties Available. You should look up the keywords and go after those because people are going to be typing that into Google. And my guess is people haven’t been targeting them the way that they should for years and years.

Glenn Esterson:
Yep. Yep, that’s a great idea. So we’re looking at what systems can we improve? And how can we build on what we have? Because we know that most people here, the longer we stay in business, the better off we’re going to be here. And if we have all this time, and we’re not spending the 90 hours a week that we were doing before each of us with transaction and deal flow, well, let’s use that 90 hours and take it down a little bit, I guess. But let’s use that same amount of time and build something that we would never have time to build out during normal operations. And I would think that many people are probably following that same principle right now, at least I would hope so. I hope not everybody’s just sitting around and just pretending like it’s time off.

Jason Sirotin:
A lot of people are, and it’s bad. And I tell people this, don’t be worried. Work, if you’re working every day and pushing.

Glenn Esterson:
Exactly.

Jason Sirotin:
And to think about it like this, the touchdown is this ending. Every 10 yards you get, every first down, every month you make it through is a first down. And the whole goal is just to get to the end and still be alive. So you just got to take these baby steps every single day. Are you doing what’s best for your business and your investments? And if you’re not thinking that way, you are going to get fucked in this. There’s no way around it.

Glenn Esterson:
Or you’re going to be behind. You know what I mean? In my opinion, like I said, I’ve never had this much time off ever in my adult life. So it’s given us a lot of time to work on some other projects that we didn’t have as much priority on because we had too much deal flow happening. We went from 19 deals under contract. By the end of it, like today, we’re at about 50 deals under contract. That’s not too bad.
And I think that’s probably what most broker shops are probably similar if they’re of any quality, I would think. So if I can’t push those deals further forward, what can we do to better our team and better our services for our clients? That’s where we’re putting all of our attention in right now. And thankfully, I got a great team. I mean, I really, really do have a great, great team especially with Charles [The Heart 00:25:00]. He’s a very capable man. He’s very knowledgeable about this industry and about some of the systems that I couldn’t figure it out on my own. [crosstalk 00:25:14].

Jason Sirotin:
And that says a lot too about the importance of great people during turbulent times, you know?

Glenn Esterson:
Nobody in my team has lost their shit yet, which is nice because the people act like their hair’s on fire.

Jason Sirotin:
Yeah, and not looking at the situation as, “Hey, let’s turn this into a positive.”

Glenn Esterson:
Exactly. Exactly.

Jason Sirotin:
Anything else that you think people should be looking out for right now?

Glenn Esterson:
Yeah. Rent collections are scary right now. That’s the big topic that most of us are really concerned with is what happens if the rent collections are as bad as they can get? And you’re trying to sell your park, or you’re trying to buy your park. And the banks are saying, “Well, you’ve missed out on 30% of your revenue for the year because of this. Now your valuation is only worth this.”
That’s something that we don’t know what is going to happen. But obviously in our industry, occupancy determines value. Okay? And every dollar in is another dollar that adds to your price point. Right? So right now, it seems like … And we said about two weeks ago when we were talking, two or three weeks we were talking with everybody that we called hundreds and hundreds of owners just to get their idea of what they’re thinking April rents are going to look like. And overall, they were telling us, we think about 70% in most of our quality non-tertiary rent-controlled markets. They were saying about 70% is pretty good if they can get that what they’re thinking.

Jason Sirotin:
They’ll be happy to get 70% of payments?

Glenn Esterson:
Sorry, I should have clarified this a bit more. But 70% by the 5th of the month. Okay? That’s a big day. The 5th of the month, because that’s when most late these kick it and what most tenants try to avoid. And typically for those guys, on average, they’re like, “We usually would have 85% collected by that point.” So to me, that doesn’t seem that alarming. Okay? The end of the month, most of the park owners are just saying that they should be up North of 90% total collections for the month.
But when you jump over into states like California, New York, maybe some of the Oregon places that have rent control, and then you look at the tertiary markets, even as the non-right controlled states, those owners are very worried. They were saying that maybe 50% would be only collected by the 5th. And maybe only 70% by the end of the month. And that’s actually starting to play out.
Because I read a report yesterday that was from some new source, there was Forbes or one of the online things. It was saying that about 70% of collections had occurred so far. They were using the 7th as the collection date for the main markets. But in the states that have the rent control, they’re also having this influence of rent strike happening. And I hope that doesn’t get legs. I mean, if you live somewhere and you have a landlord, you got to pay your rent. I mean, it is what it is.

Jason Sirotin:
Well, only if you have [crosstalk 00:28:43].

Glenn Esterson:
You know me, I’m a guy for the tenants. And I’m a guy for little man.

Jason Sirotin:
I know. But if some people don’t have any money, what are you going to do?

Glenn Esterson:
When don’t have money, we need to be able to … If you have money, we need to be able to pay the money that we have. So the landlords can help the guys that don’t have any money in this situation. And hopefully, nobody in America is taking advantage of the situation. But I can promise you there probably are some people that are maybe looking at it as to how can I benefit from this and not pay whatever?
We’ll see where it goes. I got to play a little bit of a devil’s advocate here on this one, despite the fact that it just turns my gut to think about poor people struggling right now. And landlords maybe not being very willing to work with them. But the landlords that wouldn’t be willing to work with people are typically the landlords that have a different philosophy about their park.
And unfortunately, the landlords that are willing to work with people, I think some of their tenants are going to take advantage of that. And it’s going to put some jeopardy into the system. And now, almost every landlord we’ve talked to, we’ve already told them to go to their lender and ask for some forbearance for a few months, and see what we can get moving here.
But if the government can’t get the money to these tenants fast enough to be able to pay their rents, it will have a massive slippery slope for all industries, not just our industry. Landlording is a big deal. Banks rely on landlords. Special servicers are about to be just inundated with forbearance and all these things that are going on. And that’s going to put a lot of negative pressure on the internal system of America, essentially. So if you have money, please pay your rent or your mortgage or whatever. Work out what you could work out with them so you can still be okay. But not at a time take advantage of the system, I think.

Jason Sirotin:
Oh, man. I put a hold on all my shit the day that the country shut down. I called every banker, every car note, everything and said three months, because I’ve earned that. I’ve paid on time. I’ve been really good. I want to know that I know how important holding cash is right now.

Glenn Esterson:
And you’re not a tenant. And you’re not a tenant. And you have a business with lots of employees, and you need to make sure that you can stay in business. Okay?

Jason Sirotin:
Yep.

Glenn Esterson:
And that’s not what I’m referring to. I’m referring to the guys that if you live in an apartment building, or in a mobile home community, and you’re renting and you still are very likely still at a lot of those places. Their essential workers, doc, nurses, and grocery employees and things like that, they’re still getting paid. And I think the government’s going to come out with some special hazard pay too, which will be phenomenal.
And I think those types of situations where we need to collectively just all say, “Okay, we’re in this together.” And if we are in this together, how do we work this out together? Because those rents are important to those landlords. Not because the landlord’s greedy. It’s because the landlord doesn’t want to have to give them the park back or the apartment back to the banks. And the banks don’t want these things back because they’re going to be overloaded with them. And it could be worse off in the long run for those tenants than just saying, “Hey, this is the landlord. I can only pay 70% of my rent this month. And I’ll work out something with you over the next six months and pay you back.”

Jason Sirotin:
It’s about communication and not being a dick. Like know that everybody is in this situation together. And we need to work with each other to figure out ways to make it work for everyone. A landlord does not want to throw somebody out on the street most of the time with nowhere to go. It’s much easier on them to keep you there and work with you on a way to get somebody who’s always paid on time or close to on time the benefit of the doubt.
Glenn, we have run out of time for today. And I think we’ve covered a ton. And I want to let people digest. Let’s do this, let’s continue the conversation. And as new things come up regarding the pandemic or stimulus stuff, Glenn and I are going to get on and we’re going to give everybody updates as we learn new information. So thank you for joining us on The Mobile Home Park Expert podcast.

Glenn Esterson:
There you go.

Jason Sirotin:
I’m Jason Sirotin. This is Glenn Esterson and we’ll see you next time.

Glenn Esterson:
Thank you.