Frank Rolfe on The Secrets to Success with Mobile Home Park Investing – EP 215

The Fastest Way To Build A Six Or Even… Seven Figure Real Estate EMPIRE! 

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One of the most overlooked real estate investments has to be mobile home parks. But Frank Rolfe has a very different outlook about these properties and has carved out an incredible real estate portfolio to become a legendary mobile home park investor.

His very first purchase was over 20 years ago, and now he’s the 5th largest owner of mobile parks in the US! With his partner Dave Reynolds, they now own properties in 25 states, in 250 communities and have truly made an impact in this sector by improving the quality of life for their residents, despite increasing their rent when necessary.

After running a successful billboard business, he saw an opportunity to buy his first mobile home park and was immediately intrigued by the potential. If you haven’t heard the story of how he purchased his first park for $400,000.00—while only investing $10,000.00 of his own money, you’re in for a real treat.

Frank teaches others how to get started at Mobile Home University. He’s also the host of The Mobile Home Park Mastery Podcast, which is a fantastic resource to learn about this asset class.

If you’ve ever thought about getting involved in real estate investing, but never considered mobile home parks, you don’t want to miss this episode with Frank Rolfe. You’ll hear Frank share the unique advantages of mobile home park investing, the win-win opportunities that they offer and the incredible value that you just don’t find in other properties.

Key Takeaways with Frank Rolfe

  • The importance of transparency in providing quarterly and annual reporting.
  • Why Frank decided to invest in mobile home parks as opposed to other residential or multifamily investing properties.
  • Why the affordable housing aspect was a key factor in Frank’s decision to invest in mobile home parks.
  • The importance of having a “moat”—the security to de-risk your investment deals.
  • The 5 things to look for when considering purchasing a mobile home park.
  • Why increasing the rent is the easiest money-maker since rents are generally so incredibly low.
  • Why Frank’s goal is to focus on the land rental aspects, and not the rent-to-own side of mobile home park investing.
  • The backstory on how Frank pivoted from being in the billboard business to his first mobile home park investment with a $400,000.00 deal!
  • How this is a win-win business, despite raising rents, which adds value to both the residents and local governments.
  • The importance of due diligence and applying science to every deal.
  • How the recession in 2008 turned out to be one of the best times in the industry.
  • Frank’s favorite ways to find partners and funding.

Frank Rolfe Tweetables

“There's no better way to learn from someone that's been there, done that.” - Josh Cantwell

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Josh Cantwell: So, hey there. Welcome back to Accelerated Real Estate Investor. Hey, it’s Josh Cantwell. Thank you so much for joining me today. I’ve got a special treat for you. For those of you that are looking for cash flow for income and to build a really, truly massive business, I have a special interview today. My guest for today is Frank Rolfe. Frank is an investor in mobile home parks for the last two decades but, guys, check this out. He is now the fifth-largest owner of mobile home parks in the entire United States. He owns over 250 communities spread out over 25 states. It all started back in the 1990s with one mobile home park in Glenhaven, Texas. He is partnered with a gentleman named Dave Reynolds, and they are a massive owner of mobile home parks. Frank has always believed in mobile home parks and about their affordable housing. And along the way, he has built an incredible business coupled with his partner, Dave Reynolds. It’s evolved into a course, it’s evolved into a boot camp, and they’ve become the leader in mobile home park investing and mobile home park training. He holds a degree in economics from Stanford University. He is also active in community affairs, including the Lions Club, his school board, and is the chairman of the Landmarks Commission. 

 

In this interview, Frank and I discuss, first of all, what he’s working on this week, which is his quarterly reporting. He’s got hundreds and hundreds of investors and they produce a massive quarterly report where they try to provide full transparency to all of their investors. We talked about that. Number two, we talk about owning businesses in niches where there’s a moat, a moat around your business that protects the business, protects the industry from outside forces. Number three, we’ll talk about Frank’s first deal he ever did, a mobile home park that he bought for $400,000 with $10,000 down and a seller carry. Number four, we’ll also talk about how the 2008 crash is what actually launched the mobile home park industry into its current status of becoming a much more institutionalized business. And finally, number five, we’ll talk about how you don’t have to own 250 parks like Frank does in order to be successful. You can have one to five parks to create true financial freedom. This is an absolutely fantastic interview with one of the largest real estate investors you’re ever going to meet. His name is Frank Rolfe. He’s on Accelerated Real Estate Investor. Here we go. 

 

[INTERVIEW]

 

Josh Cantwell: Hey, Frank. Listen, I’m so excited to have you on the show today on Accelerated Real Estate Investor. Thanks for carving out some time for us. How are you doing today? 

 

Frank Rolfe: Doing great. Thanks, Josh. 

 

Josh Cantwell: Hey, thanks for jumping on. Hey, listen, Frank, I know mobile homes is your thing, you’re super successful at it, one of the largest owners in the country but I’m always excited to hear what our guests have that’s going on right now, like today. What are you working on that you’re excited about? A new park, a new event. What’s something in your world that you’re really passionate for that you’re working on this afternoon or next week? 

 

Frank Rolfe: Sure, Josh. This week, in fact, this weekend is dedicated to our quarterly reports because we’re a large operator of parks and we do a quarterly report. So, Q1 is due out on Monday so we’re focusing our attention on getting that ready. 

 

Josh Cantwell: Well, tell me a little bit about what’s going to be in the report. Help me understand. You’re probably reporting to investors, you’ve probably got institutional investors, mom-and-pop investors. 

 

Frank Rolfe: Yeah. Sure. We report on our net occupancy. We’ve gone up in net occupancy we have got every quarter since the pandemic hit. We talked a little bit about collections, the struggles with the CDC declaration on evictions but we’re very, very pretty well on that as well. This one, we focus on property condition. We send investors a video of every property every other quarter. This quarter we send them the video quarters. So, we select one of those to show them how that’s going. So, it basically just gives everyone a snapshot of what’s going on right now with the properties. 

 

Josh Cantwell: Oh, I love it. I love it. You probably have a lot of people that, of course, are looking forward to those updates. You guys have 250 communities, 25 different states. As that’s grown because we own about 3,500 units of apartments and multifamily. We put out a quarterly report as well. What have you learned about distributing those reports over the years and what do you think your investors are looking forward to? The word I hear and I believe in most is transparency. But what are some of the things as your reports evolved over time, what do you think the investors look forward to hearing from the most or what do you think they like to read the most? 

 

Frank Rolfe: Well, there’s an old adage in advertising, Josh, the people who are really interested in something will read any number of words, right? That’s why Rolls-Royce started at 1,000-word ads back in the 60s. So, we try to give our investors every bit of data to the extreme, and those who are interested can read through everything they want, watch the videos of the properties. We even include paragraphs by the managers on what they’re working on. Some people just gloss through it, read the overall macro. We give people a macro start on the front. So, it’s a short form. They don’t have to read the whole thing but then we have others who probably peruse every inch of it. I agree with you. I think transparency is key and we try to give people an unlimited amount of transparency. 

 

Josh Cantwell: Got it. Love it. So, let’s back up a little bit now that we know what you’re up to, what you’re kind of working on this week, next week in your team. Your strategy is mobile home parks. You’re one of the largest operators in the country, top five in the entire country with ownership, 250 parks. Tell us a little bit about, I guess, talk to our audience a little bit. Why mobile home parks and how do you invest in mobile home parks? And talk a little bit about your money making strategy, your system for doing that, but let’s start with the first question. Why mobile home parks? Because a guy that can build as big a business as you have probably could have been successful with self-storage or multifamily or apartments. Why mobile homes? 

 

Frank Rolfe: Okay. Mobile home parks, if you’re a big fan of Warren Buffett as I am, Warren Buffett always talks about having a moat and mobile home parks have perhaps the biggest moat in American industry because they have not allowed any to be built since the 70s. So, each year in the US there’s roughly 10 built. There’s about 100 torn down. So, we’re actually an endangered species. And so, just that one fact gives them value, the ability to push rents, favorable supply-demand positioning. So, that’s the big one. The other one going back to the moat is your customers could not move their homes because it costs about $5,000 to move a mobile home and you’re not even legally allowed to move them if they’re older than 1976. So, what happens is it’s a customer base that is very, very sticky. The average tendency is roughly 14 years. So, between the fact that parks and the homes really don’t ever move that we feel gives us an edge as far as the stability in making income. 

 

Josh Cantwell: Love it. I’m curious to hear your thoughts. I had a great conversation with one of my old business partners last week. We sat down for breakfast and we started talking about the storage container business and how storage containers, people take an old storage container that you can buy for a couple of thousand dollars, $3,000 to $5,000. Now, there’s this whole new niche springing up storage containers, which have a 50-year lifespan potentially being renovated dropping in electrical/plumbing. How do you see that niche or are you paying attention to that at all? And is that something that might be the future of potential mobile homes? 

 

Frank Rolfe: Well, Josh, the problem is in the United States to put a mobile home in a mobile home park, it has to have a HUD seal on it. And HUD has never made a HUD seal for storage container homes. So, those fall under the definition of the tiny home, which you could put on your own property out somewhere but you’re not allowed to put it in a mobile home park, so it has to have that defined HUD seal. So, if someone took storage containers, built a factory, and ran the engineering through HUD and HUD had someone who supervised the factory, then I could put them in parks but I can’t. Actually, storage containers were studied by Tony Hsieh, Zappos founder who died recently tragically in a fire. His office gave us a tour of his mobile home park that he actually lived in until his death, which is called Airstream Village in Las Vegas. And before he made Airstream Village, which was all about airstreams, mobile homes, and tiny homes, he tried to make it out of storage containers. And he found there are limitations on storage containers geographically because in Las Vegas, the storage container coupled with the heat was too expensive to cool. 

 

Josh Cantwell: Oh, interesting. 

 

Frank Rolfe: I do believe, though. I mean, I know exactly what you’re talking about. I think there’s a big future in housing for radical designs like that but I think they’re cool as can be. I just can’t put them in a park. 

 

Josh Cantwell: Yeah. But what are your thoughts now on we have a massive affordability issue and a lot of people are talking about mobile home parks as a solution for that but a lot of mobile home parks are not being built. They said the ratio of tear ups to tear downs or build-ups to teardowns is 10:1 in the reverse direction. But we have this affordability issue where even your average home value now you’re hearing various ranges is near $300,000. Back when I got started investing 15 years ago, it was more like 160,000 and values just kept going up. Supply is down at an all-time low. How do you see mobile home parks solving some of that issue? And what do you see the issue with affordability on your end? 

 

Frank Rolfe: Well, mobile home parks are hated by the city government, and so you’re not going to see them issuing any more permits going forward. They don’t find them to be an asset to the community. They don’t really like the residents. So, you’re never going to really change that and I know that people have talked about it but the only areas you can build mobile home parks today would be areas no one wants to live, so blighted parts of town, county areas so far away from employment no one would want to drive there. So, there’s a real problem. So, really, mobile home parks won’t be the solution to affordable housing. There’s about 20% roughly of vacancy in the existing subset of parks out there. So, once that’s exhausted then that’s about all the mobile home parks you can contribute. That’s about it. 

 

Josh Cantwell: Got it. Understood. When you have the moat that you’re talking about, which not only a current moat but a future moat of not the ability to build a lot more but a long-desired 14-year occupancy. So, let’s talk about the way we make money with mobile home parks. So, step us through an average deal. Step one, I know we’ve only got about 20, 30 minutes, so we can’t go through the whole system. I know you teach this through your seminars and books and courses but give us the high level. What’s the step-by-step process to acquire a park, stabilize a park, own a park, and some of the returns that we can expect? 

 

Frank Rolfe: Sure. All right. Let’s start with what you have to watch out for when you’re buying them. We break down any purchase into five segments, the infrastructure, which means the water, the sewer, the roads, the electricity, the very makings of what makes it a mobile home park. And there are certain things you want and certain things you don’t want. For example, you can’t get a loan on a dirt road park. You can’t get a loan on a park that’s got a lagoon. So, there are certain things the lenders will not stand behind so that kind of excludes those things. Then we look at density. That’s how many units you have per acre because of a certain density, the lots are so small you can’t put new homes on them and the fire marshal may shut you down. Then you got the economics of the deal. Obviously, that’s the big one. The age of the homes, we try to stay away from parks where the homes are predominantly 1960s and 70s because those are becoming obsolete because of their floored plan. And then the location, obviously. If you put it all together, it spells ideal is what it is. But those are the five things you look at buying. I’ll give you an example of a park we recently sold, which is a good case study. I can tell you the price on both directions.. 

 

Josh Cantwell: Yeah, please. That’s great.

 

Frank Rolfe: Because it was in the newspaper. We bought a mobile home park in Austin called North Lamar. We paid about $2 million for it, 68 lots, about 66 occupied. The lot rent was $390 a month, including the water sewer. Fast forward about six, seven years, we raised the rent to $585. We’ve made them pay their own water sewer and we sold it to the residents for about $5.2 million. So, how do we make the money in the deal? Well, if you broke it down into pieces, obviously, the bulk of the money was made in raising the rent and that’s what is attractive about the industry is our rents are so crazy, stupid, low. The average US lot rent for a mobile home park is running about $280 a month, which is about a thousand less than apartments. So, we feel we model the industry as being in the future, rents being in the 500s and 600s, which to us is far more reasonable so not even pushing the envelope but pushing rents is by far the biggest moneymaker. If you could buy any park that you could finance, just buy the park, as long as it’ll cover the mortgage, that you can push the rents up let’s say $30 once a year, let’s say some 80-space park in three years you’ve made $1 million. It’s that simple. It’s all about raising rents. 

 

Josh Cantwell: Got it. And is your strategy, Frank, you got all these different communities, I’m sure they’re not all exactly the same. I’ve looked at mobile home parks. Full transparency, I don’t own one yet. Our focus has been on multifamily apartments but we are looking and learning more about mobile home parks. The cash flow is amazing. The financing is obviously not as high loan-to-value as some of the other asset classes but is your strategy primarily to just buy the park, lease out the lot, or are you also doing things or just renting some of the units or doing rent-to-own on some of the units? You see some parks that are a mix of maybe three different types of income from lot rent to full rent-to-own on a unit or full leasing of a unit. And I understand the financing is different depending on the percentage of those three components but what is in your mind, because you’re the expert, what’s the ideal structure? Is it all just lot rents or is there a mix of those three? 

 

Frank Rolfe: Yeah. Like any other real estate sector, we’re governed by lenders and what lenders like to see. Lenders don’t want you to own any homes. So, we try and be strictly in the land renting business. We view our business as a parking industry. Like parking a car, you park the trailer on our parking lot and you pay us the parking lot rent. Now, to fill our vacant lots, we have to bring in the homes because there’s no mechanism out there for mobile home park residents to be able to get a loan on a mobile home unless we’re in the loop. So, we have to do that but then the goal is for them to buy the home, then we’re no longer in the loop and just rent the land. But, yeah, definitely the goal is not to be in the home rental business, just the land rental business. 

 

Josh Cantwell: And, Frank, do you structure your business in such a way that you buy the park with one entity and then buy your homes whether it’s vacant lots, and then you have to work out a deal with the resident, buy those in a separate entity? So, you’re truly just doing lot rents with the financeable piece of it with the lender. 

 

Frank Rolfe: Yes. You’ll find even the largest operators like Sam Zell’s ELS or Sun Communities, the largest REITs, they also have a home division because we try and keep our land business pure simply as land rental. And in the home business, of course, it ultimately goes away. So, once your park is full, the home business dwindles to nothing. 

 

Josh Cantwell: Got it. Love it. Now, Frank, what did you comment on? You’ve been in the business for a long time. You’ve seen the evolution. Help our audience understand what was the mobile home business like years ago? Very mom-and-pop, very fractured, not a lot of institutional financing, a lot of seller carryback type of stuff. Buffett gets involved. You know, lots of other guys kind of institutionalized the sector, if you will, and really scale the sector, find that there’s lots of capital to be made in the sector. It becomes not so much of a mom-and-pop business anymore, although it’s still lots of mom-and-pop but there are guys like you that really institutionalize the business. A lot of new financing. A lot of new tools and resources have come along. Just give us some picture of the evolution of the business over the last 20 to 30 to 40 years since you’ve been involved. And why is now, as you’ve worked with your members and students, why is now a great time to get involved? 

 

Frank Rolfe: Okay. Well, I got in the business in the mid-90s as did my partner Dave, as did Sam Zell. We all started about the same time. My partner and I, we have focused on the affordable housing side. That is the lower-income portion of it. There’s another part of it called Lifestyle Choice, which are typically seniors what looked like Del Webb communities. Zell was the pioneer of that Del Webb community style of mobile home park, raised a lot of capital, convinced lenders it was safe to make loans, and so he pushed the industry hugely forward starting in the 90s but he never focused on the meat and potatoes, which is the affordable side. He only did the upper end. So, what you have now is you have huge consolidation of the upper end. You’ve got ELS, Sun, RHP, and then a whole lot of private REITs buying up those glamper parks in California and Florida but there’s no one who’s really consolidating the main portion. So, if you take the top 100 owners in the US and you add up how many parks those top 100 owned, they only own about 4,000 and there’s 44,000 in the US. So, we are the least consolidated form of real estate but obviously, that will change. 

 

There’s a large operator, one notch ahead of us called YES! Communities, which is owned by the country of Singapore, GIC. And you know, there’s been rumors for years now that they’re going to go public and they’ll be the first public REIT on the affordable housing side. And I think that will be the trigger for more investment banks and more banks to become intrigued by the industry but that’s what it needs. That’s the problem right now. It’s kind of like it’s like classic cars. You know, it’s just Ferraris were collectible but that’s not the bulk of all the classic cars. It’s the same issue. So, yeah, we don’t have the consolidation yet. 

 

Josh Cantwell: Understood. So, Frank, let’s back up for a minute and talk about how you got started. You mentioned you got started in the 90s. You started with basically zero, bought your first park. Now, you’ve got 250. It’s a tremendous amount of growth over the last 20 or 30 years. What was the attraction for you to get into mobile home parks? And what was it like in the early years, the first deal, the first couple of deals? What were some challenges that you faced getting going? 

 

Frank Rolfe: Sure. Well, let me go back to the steps. So, I started off in the billboard business. I did that for 14 years. 

 

Josh Cantwell: Billboards. Nice. 

 

Frank Rolfe: Billboards, yeah. So, I was the largest private owner of billboards in Dallas Fort Worth. I sold that to a public company in 1996 and then I needed something new to do. So, I had built two billboards on a skanky mobile home park in the wrong side of town in Dallas. 

 

Josh Cantwell: Skanky, I haven’t heard that word in a while. 

 

Frank Rolfe: I mean, it was an absolute dump and I went to the guy just talking to people to learn about their businesses. I might have become a McDonald’s franchisee. I might have been this, who knows what, but I called the guy up and asked him how that mobile home park makes money or how does it work? And the guy said, “Why don’t you find out for yourself? I’ll sell it to you right now for $400,000. Give me $10,000 down and I’ll carry $390,000 for 30 years.” That’s how I got in the business. It was that completely random. I only knew one thing when I made that call to the guy and that was the zoning. It was very rare because in the billboard business you can only build on certain zoning. I knew I rarely see MH zoning. So, I bought it just because I knew it was rare. I thought the worst I could do was lose $10,000. It was a nonrecourse loan. And that’s what got me in the saddle on it. And I learned from the adventure on that park today, I would never buy a park like that again. So, that park lifted my eyes to what you need to buy and not buy but that got me into the business and I’ve been in it ever since. 

 

Josh Cantwell: I love it. I love the fact that you just jumped into it not knowing because that’s a lot of what’s happened with me over time is getting into real estate, do my first couple of deals, not knowing. Got into the fund management business, stood up my own fund, not knowing. There’s no playbook for that. I got into the multifamily business. There’s lots of gurus and playbooks for multifamily apartments but I never went through one. I just jumped in, bought a park with a friend on a joint venture opportunity. Now, we’ve raised $80 million and owned 3,500 units. Never been through like a guru type of course. The action and the education is important but action’s so much more important. So, now you work with hundreds of students. You’ve coached lots of different people. You have your own university. What are some of the things that you work with your members and students to get them going? When you’re educating and talking with new people, what are some of the things? Because fear just getting going, starting, these are all things that people face no matter what business they’re starting but what are some of the things that you’re working on with them mentally to get in the game? 

 

Frank Rolfe: Well, I mean, the key is it’s the old quote, think like a man of action that acts like a man of thought. You know, you’ve got to have both action and thought. And when I got into the business, it was all action, no thought. I bought this park. I did no due diligence. I didn’t even do a survey. It’s amazing I didn’t get destroyed.

 

Josh Cantwell: You didn’t get clobbered. 

 

Frank Rolfe: No environmental assessment. Yeah. So, action without thought, no value. And then thought without action, equally no value. I see people all the time who get so into the fear factor of the unknown that they overthink deals rather than realizing that there’s baby steps they can do to get in there and analyze them. One of the big things we’ve tried to do with the industry and, again, we only teach as a hobby. I mean, our day job is running the largest operation. But there is a science to our industry and it’s evolved over the decades but there’s not a thing that goes on in a mobile home park that there’s not a scientifically correct either this is smart or this is stupid. And so, we try and teach the science. And then we also really focus heavily on due diligence. That’s a reason for our success is along the way, we could have had some terrible deal that derailed us, caused investors to lose confidence, caused us to lose confidence in ourselves but we avoided that because we learned the importance of diligence. I mean, Benjamin Franklin said that diligence is a mother of good luck. And so, that’s a correct way to look at it. So, we’re very, very much about applying science to everything which mitigates your risk, and then that gives you the comfort level to proceed. 

 

Josh Cantwell: Yeah. Love it. 

 

Frank Rolfe: So, when you feel like you understand the risks and you’re comfortable with them then you can pull the trigger and buy the thing. 

 

Josh Cantwell: By the way, guys, I know this. You guys are probably loving this interview. Frank’s website is MobileHomeUniversity.com. Go check it out. There, you can learn a lot more about his information. Just getting started, their portfolio, their trainings, and all these kind of things that they do. Frank, I’m curious to hear now that you’ve had all this success, you’ve coached thousands of people, you’ve raised lots of money, you’re a massive operator, what are some things that you would tell your younger former self? You obviously got started by selling this other business, had some things to work with. You’ve got other students, members that start with nothing but have had success. What kind of advice would you pass along to yourself and to them, things you’ve learned along the way that you think are important? 

 

Frank Rolfe: Yeah. Well, Josh, first off, I got in the business really at the wrong time. I mean, a lot of people think that the 90s was the time to be in it. It really wasn’t. If you got it in the 90s, you faced a couple of terrible hurdles. One was the financing situation. Banks hated making mobile home park loans in the 90s. If it wasn’t seller carry, you had to hit 100 banks to even have a prayer of getting a loan. And many times, we go all the way down to closing. They yank the rug out from under us the day before closing. So, finance was tough back then. The other problem was the industry faced a horrible crisis in 1999 called The Great Chattel Collapse, where all of the debt and all of these mobile homes collapsed because they started doing mobile homes, zero down, no income doc loans. You probably heard of those in 2007 single-family. Well, the mobile home industry I had in 1998 and it was a catastrophe. It came out of a mortgage company that just thought that was a smart thing to do, giving credit to people who aren’t creditworthy with zero down doesn’t work. So, I might have told myself back in ’96, “Hold off four years,” to be honest with you. Trying to get the business started, the really best time for the industry began with the 2008 Great Recession. That’s when it really worked well because suddenly mobile home parks had demand. We had access to debt. We started to gain respectability. Apartment rents went way up. Of course, we are in competition with apartments so we could raise our rents in line with the apartments. So, first message to myself, 1996, “Don’t buy anything for four years. Learn about the business. Do something else for four years.” 

 

Another one which I did understand then and I still tell people today is all about your quality of life. So, if someone’s watching this saying, “Oh, I aspire to own 250,” I wouldn’t suggest that for anybody. I mean, it’s been okay for me because I’m a workaholic person but for many people, owning one park or two parks or five parks is just dandy because it all comes down to how is your life going. And some people, there are other things they want to do in life other than own mobile home parks. The average owner spends four hours a week on them. So, if you want to basically replace your day job and spend four hours or so a week on something, then this is a good alternative but it’s not like a bag of Lay’s potato chips. It’s okay to just eat one. And it worked out for me but I work seven days a week, probably ten hours a day, and I’m not going to recommend. I felt kind of like the golfer in the Bill Murray Christmas movie that comes back a dad. I mean, it’s not really essential that you grow to be gigantic. Though, it’s fun at a cocktail party. It’s really not that important. The big thing about park ownership that I really enjoy is it’s a win-win business. You buy these old properties and you bring them back to life. Mom and pop is happy that you bought it. The tenants are happy that you fixed it. Even though you raised the rent, they’re happy because now they have good quality of life. 

 

And then meanwhile, in owning them, you’re master of your own universe, you’re master of your own time. My greatest accomplishment was I went to my daughter’s one of her sporting games and school events. That’s a big deal to me. I could not have done that in a corporate job. So, again, I like the win-win nature of the business in all aspects, even in the giant macro of quality of life. And so, I would definitely tell myself to get back into it. I just might have waited a few years. 

 

Josh Cantwell: Oh, great stuff. Frank, that’s great advice, especially the part, man, you pulling on my heartstrings with being at your daughter’s events. As a matter of fact, as soon as we’re done with this, I’m getting in the car. We’re driving five-and-a-half hours to Indianapolis because I coach club volleyball. My audience knows how much I love club volleyball. 

 

Frank Rolfe: Sure. My daughter was in club volleyball also in college. 

 

Josh Cantwell: Oh, what a great sport. 

 

Frank Rolfe: Every weekend in the stands. 

 

Josh Cantwell: Oh, heck, yeah. I coach but this is probably the last year that I’ll coach because they’re getting a little too old and too good for dad to be the coach. You know, the high school coaches, the college coaches, but I’ll never miss them because in your case, mobile homes, in my case, multifamily apartments. Regardless of what the niche is, that quality of life, that freedom of time is the most important thing. So, Frank, let’s finish with the final five quick questions, super-fast answers. And, of course, guys, go check out MobileHomeUniversity.com and we’ll have Frank. He’s got plenty of stuff. He’s got his own podcast. He’ll tell us about that at the end. Final five, Frank. Question number one, what’s your favorite way to find deals on mobile home parks?

 

Frank Rolfe: Mobile home park brokers. 

 

Josh Cantwell: Love it. Number two, what’s your favorite way to find capital, cash, joint venture partners to get them funded? 

 

Frank Rolfe: Reg D 506 under the JOBS Act. 

 

Josh Cantwell: Love it. Same thing that we use. Frank, what do you think has been the most impactful book or piece of advice or training that you’ve ever been through? 

 

Frank Rolfe: The Man Who Bought the Waldorf, the story of Conrad Hilton by an author named Dabney. Greatest book I’ve ever read.

 

Josh Cantwell: Great. Oh, my gosh. Never heard of that one. I have to check that out. Thanks for that. Frank, what’s your favorite place to decompress and think? I know you just told us you work seven hours, sometimes 10 hours a day. But a guy that’s done as much as you, you’ve got to have time to think through the next step. What’s coming around the corner? What are the blind spots? What’s your favorite place and way to think? 

 

Frank Rolfe: Well, what I do every night, typically around midnight, I take out a pad of paper. I write today with the date of the next day, I make a list of things I need to do and calls I need to make and I think through kind of like a ballet what I’m going to be doing tomorrow. And that gives me the serenity of knowing what I’m doing the next day. And if I don’t do that, if I don’t fill that sheet out, I feel completely at a loss. I just think through what happened today, what’s going to happen tomorrow. 

 

Josh Cantwell: For me, I do the same exact thing. I sleep pretty well at night knowing what my next day priorities are. 

 

Frank Rolfe: Correct. 

 

Josh Cantwell: Love it. Last question, Frank. Who’s been maybe the best and biggest leader in your life, the mentor that you’ve had, or person that’s had the biggest impact on your life? And why do you think they’ve had such an impact? 

 

Frank Rolfe: That’s just my partner, Dave Reynolds, to be honest with you. I thought I was pretty good at the business until I met Dave. Dave is by far the best I’ve ever seen. So, I’ve just been fortunate to be kind of the Dwyane Wade to his LeBron James. 

 

Josh Cantwell: I love it. 

 

Frank Rolfe: From back in the Miami Heat days. You know, Dave is more of a workaholic than I am. If I work an extra two to three hours more than I do each day, which I don’t even know how it’s physically possible except he’s younger than I am so maybe he can live on less sleep. 

 

Josh Cantwell: Yeah. I love it. Fantastic stuff. Frank, listen, this has been a fantastic interview. I’ve had an absolute blast having you on. Thanks for joining me. I know you’ve got other information to share, podcast information, your trainings, your portfolio, your website. Where can people go to learn more about you? 

 

Frank Rolfe: Well, obviously, they can go to the Mobile Home University site, which is also MHU.com. My podcast is called The Mobile Home Park Mastery Podcast. So, those are probably the two best repositories of anything that I write or speak. 

 

Josh Cantwell: Fantastic stuff. Frank, listen, thank you so much for joining us today on Accelerated Real Estate Investor. I had a blast to have you on the show. 

 

[CLOSING]

 

Josh Cantwell: Well, there you have it, guys. Listen, one of the largest real estate investors you’re ever going to see, ever going to meet, Frank Rolfe. Frank is an absolute dynamite. You heard today how he works, seven days a week, 10 hours a day. Absolutely dedicated his life to the mobile home park business. And again, take Frank’s advice, not something that you have to do to work that much. One to five parks can really set you free. If you loved this interview, which I hope you did, please go subscribe. Right now, go subscribe to Accelerated Real Estate Investor. Wherever you get your podcasts, iTunes, SoundCloud, YouTube, go subscribe right now so you never miss another episode. Don’t forget to check out Frank’s website, MobileHomeUniversity.com. And also, if you enjoyed the episode, please, it would be my pleasure, I’d be so grateful, I’d be so thankful if you would leave us a rating and a review. Let us know how we did. Also, if you could share this on your Facebook page, share this on your Instagram, share this all over social media. And finally, don’t forget to jump into our free Facebook group. Go to Facebook, search Accelerated Real Estate Investor, and join our Facebook group for free. Thank you so much for being here today and we’ll talk to you next time. Take care.


[END]

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