Ep #109: Mastering the Due Diligence Process

03/26/19 • 59 min

The Mobile Home Park Investing Podcast - Real Estate Investing Niche

Today's episode of The Mobile Home Park Investing Podcast delves into the all-important topic of due diligence. Host Kevin Bupp is joined by Jethro van Aardt, the Director of Operations at Sunrise Capital Investors, and they break down the many moving parts and processes of due diligence--from kick off to title transfer.

Due diligence is one of the most critical aspects to master when diving into the niche of mobile home park investing. It has its own unique set of nuances and to be aware of, as well as opportunities and usual skeletons in the closet to watch out for.

Quotes:

"Due diligence process, it's a pretty thorough process and a lot of sellers often get intimidated by it. They're worried that you're going to uncover something and it's going to completely throw the deal out so they get kind of secretive, which is pretty strange. It's counter-intuitive."

"The offsite phase is critical. We need to know that we have the exact information. For example, simple things like the exact address of the property, the exact pad count, how many homes are abandoned, how many homes are resident-owned, how many homes are rented by tenants, etc etc. So it's verifying a lot of information."

"DD is really just a long checklist and it's following that checklist and obviously you start off with the most critical things and, if you can get through those critical things from the top to the bottom, then you reassess and understand do you move forward or not."

"Sometimes these places look really nice from the outside. When you get inside, they're in really bad shape. You need to understand the quality of the resident base. If anybody is prepared to live on the floors, you know that person's not paying the rent and they're probably going to skip the town in the middle of the night."

"Unfortunately that's one of the painful things sometimes is that you can do all that prep work and offsite, think that you've covered everything but there's still going to be skeletons and that's why the onsite is so crucial."

Discussed in this Episode:

09:25 Kickoff call process and offsite due diligence
19:55 Onsite due diligence and prelim investment committee phase
38:13 Closing and pre-take on
43:32 Software used by Sunrise Capital Investors
46:54 Usual skeletons in the closet

RESOURCES:

View Career Opportunities at Sunrise Capital by visiting Careers.SunriseCapitalInvestors.com
Check out our company and our partnership opportunities by visiting SunriseCapitalInvestors.com
Would you like to partner with us on future MHP deals, call 844-CASH-FLW to learn more or click here to schedule a time on our calendar.
Grab a free copy of our book “The 21 Biggest Mistakes Investors Make When Purchasing their First Mobile Home Park...and how to avoid them Click Here to Grab a copy
Get our Free MHP Due Diligence training Video DD.SunriseCapitalInvestors.com

Quotes:

Discussed in this Episode:

09:25 Kickoff call process and offsite due diligence
19:55 Onsite due diligence and prelim investment committee phase
38:13 Closing and pre-take on
43:32 Software used by Sunrise Capital Investors
46:54 Usual skeletons in the closet

RESOURCES:

View Career Opportunities at Sunrise Capital by visiting Careers.SunriseCapitalInvestors.com
Check out our company and our partnership opportunities by visiting SunriseCapitalInvestors.com
Would you like to partner with us on future MHP deals, call 844-CASH-FLW to learn more or click here to schedule a time on our calendar.
Grab a free copy of our book “The 21 Biggest Mistakes Investors Make When Purchasing their First Mobile Home Park...and how to avoid them Click Here to Grab a copy
Get our Free MHP Due Diligence training Video DD.SunriseCapitalInvestors.com

Previous Episode

Ep #108: The Everchanging MHP Landscape From a Industry Veterans Perspective - with Eric Hanson

This episode of Mobile Home Park Investing features MAI Appraiser and manufactured housing expert Erik Hanson. He is Executive Vice President of Midwest Appraisal Group, a real estate appraisal and consulting firm with offices in La Crosse and Madison, Wisconsin. Erik specializes in mobile home parks, franchise hotels, and convenience stores. He also earned his MAI Designation from the Appraisal Institute in 2014, where he serves on the board of directors as vice president and educational chair for the Wisconsin Chapter.

Kevin and Erik dive into industry and rental trends, cap rates, sales activities going on now, and predictions for the industry in the coming years. Erik also shares a couple of stories from his experiences in the mobile home park industry.

Quotes:

"Definitely the new buyers are far more aggressive. I don't know if that's a good thing or not but it seems like they're really willing to pay all those cap rates and maybe buy in an area that doesn't make a whole lot of sense." "I think a lot of it is the supply side is so small right now for anything that's out on the market that people just tend to gobble up whatever they can find." "It seems like it's a little more accepted now on the park-owned homes side, especially on the newer homes--the older homes is still kinda hit or miss--but the newer homes it seems like if they can't get them sold, they're willing to rent now." "We also look at it from a rental side. If the rents are exactly the same but one tenant's got to pay 150, one tenant's got to pay 40 in addition to rent, you have to consider that especially if there's vacant sites in those parks."

"You got to buy a couple of parks on your own first before the brokers are going to even consider you. Get your track record kind of in order before you start reaching out there."

Discussed in this Episode:

New people in the industry: Trends and experiences
Appraising homes and risk assessment
Case study on utilities
Trends with market rents
Noteworthy stories on the field

RESOURCES:

View Career Opportunities at Sunrise Capital by visiting Careers.SunriseCapitalInvestors.com
Check out our company and our partnership opportunities by visiting SunriseCapitalInvestors.com
Would you like to partner with us on future MHP deals, call 844-CASH-FLW to learn more or click here to schedule a time on our calendar.
Grab a free copy of our book “The 21 Biggest Mistakes Investors Make When Purchasing their First Mobile Home Park...and how to avoid them Click Here to Grab a copy
Get our Free MHP Due Diligence training Video DD.SunriseCapitalInvestors.com

Next Episode

Ep #110: Leveraging Technology to Communicate with Residents When Impactful Weather is a Risk - Hazard Call

In this episode of the Mobile Home Park Investing Podcast, Kevin welcomes Gene Norman. Gene is a senior meteorologist and the VP of marketing at HazardCall. HazardCall is a system developed for manufactured homes wherein any community can give their residents alerts and notifications that help them make decisions about approaching impactful weather events such as tornadoes, hurricanes, thunderstorms, and ice storms among others.

Gene explains how and why HazardCall came into fruition and discusses the value in their messaging system that comes from procuring their services. Gene also provides a step by step illustration of HazardCall’s system and how it works. Kevin and Gene also talk about pricing, extra features, and other details about HazardCall.

Quotes:

“One of the biggest challenges of course, is telling people what to do when there’s an emergency and where they should go and that they should even have a plan.”

“When your phone rings at 2 in the morning, you’re likely going to pay attention to that and we got urgent messaging that tells them there’s a storm threat but it also gives them instructions on what they should do.”

“If the community manager finds out from the local emergency officials or from the power company that the power will be back on at such a time, we can type out that message on their phone and all the residents who were displaced would get that.”

“It doesn’t happen everyday so we’re not calling everyday but when those things are happening in your neighborhood, when the phone rings then we’ll get your attention and hopefully that will incite and send you to take the safety action that you need. Each unit, so to speak, can have up to two numbers assigned to it.”

“The biggest challenge a home community owner will have will be collecting resident information. But once you do that and put it into the system, you know maintaining this is fairly easy to do and we help you every step of the way..”

Discussed in this Episode:

5:40 What is Hazard Call?
13:06 The messaging system and weather alerts
18:57 Gene explains how their system works [see link to presentation slides]
23:21 Pricing
26:36 Gene talks about “PR insurance” and other system features

RESOURCES:

View Career Opportunities at Sunrise Capital by visiting Careers.SunriseCapitalInvestors.com
Check out our company and our partnership opportunities by visiting SunriseCapitalInvestors.com
Would you like to partner with us on future MHP deals, call 844-CASH-FLW to learn more or click here to schedule a time on our calendar.
Grab a free copy of our book “The 21 Biggest Mistakes Investors Make When Purchasing their First Mobile Home Park...and how to avoid them Click Here to Grab a copy
Get our Free MHP Due Diligence training Video DD.SunriseCapitalInvestors.com
Download Your 1-Page Hazard Plan & Get Your Free Trial at HazardCall
Visit HazardCall's Website