Chad Duval: You’re listening to Start FM, episode number nine.
Kevin Bupp: Anyone could figure out a way to make $300 a month. You can go out and sell bottles of water on the corner of the street, right? You can go buy a case of water from CVS for $4 and go sell it for a dollar a pop, you can make $300. If you can’t, there is no cheaper place to live. You basically become homeless. You’re under a bridge. Seriously, there’s no cheaper place to live. And so, that’s a risk insulator for us. There’s always someone that wants to live in a clean, safe, quiet community for 300 or 350 or $400 a month.
Speaker 3: This is Start FM. Now here’s your host, active real estate investor and entrepreneur, Chad Duval.
Chad Duval: Thanks to Buildium for supporting Start FM. And right now, Start FM listeners can try Buildium for free for 15 days, when you go to chadduval.com/buildium. There’s absolutely no risk, and you can start your free trial without even entering your credit card.
You guys, this is the software that I use for my first few properties and let me tell you, it’s super easy. It’s cheap and there’s plenty of room to grow as your business grows. Again, to sign up go to chadduval.com/buildium. That’s B-U-I-L-D-I-U-M.
All right, Kevin Bupp, how’s it going, man? Welcome to the show.
Kevin Bupp: Yeah, it’s going great, man. Thanks for having me.
Chad Duval: Kevin Bupp, he is a very experienced real estate investor that we have on the show today. A lot of people probably already know who Kevin is, but for all of the listeners that are not familiar with Kevin, Kevin, how about you give a little bit of a background of who you are?
Kevin Bupp: Yeah, no, absolutely. And again, thank you for having me here. Looking forward to it. You know, I’ll try to give somewhat of a condensed version. I’ve been doing this for basically my entire adult life. I got into real estate when I was 19. I’m 40 years old now and it was kind of by accident, I know a lot of people go looking for real estate. It found me, and so I’m very lucky, very grateful for that happening in my life. I don’t know what I’d be doing today if it hadn’t had found me 20 years ago.
But anyway, I started like most people do. I got started in single family and that was a direct relationship with my mentor that got me into real estate. He’s the one who introduced me to it, and that’s what he did. He owned single family and small multifamily properties and that was in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where I was born and raised. And I essentially just… I didn’t know anything else.
And so I literally just followed his cues and followed his exact business model. I didn’t try to reinvent the wheel. I did exactly what seemed to be working really, really well for him. Again, he was pretty much a cash flow investor. That was one thing that he always really ingrained in my mind at a young age is that, you want to buy so these things don’t just make you money today, but they make you money many years into the future. Years, decades into the future that they keep paying you and will support whatever lifestyle you want to develop as you grow older and turn into an adult.
At that point, I was 19 years old. And I didn’t really know what that meant. I didn’t have a lot of obligations or liabilities at that age. However, I knew that as I got older, I was going to want to buy a house to live in. I was going to have a family, this, that and the other. And so, he always built that frame of reference around buy for cash flow.
That was a little easier said than done when I got started. I started single family stuff. I only had a little bit of money. I was tending bar at night, going to school during the day. And so I didn’t have a ton of money to work with, and I bought the first property with the intent that I was going to rent it and just keep it. And within a few months I realized, I need to sell the damn thing because I used all my money to buy the property. I had a private lender that funded it and I had about 10,000 savings. I used about seven of that 10,000 to put into the property and I was broke again.
And the $200 a month cashflow that that property created, that wasn’t going to get me very far, very fast. And so, I learned very quickly about recapitalizing and stockpiling some cash, until you have enough surplus to maybe buy one property, then flipped the next three, by one property, flip the next three. And that’s what I did until I actually had enough to start holding more properties years thereafter.
And anyway, that’s how I got my start, Chad. And I moved on to buying lots of… Hundreds of single family homes had a really big rental portfolios, they’re buying multifamily properties, while I had about 500 apartment doors and then a 2008 happened, and we all know what happened there. And very challenging, had to start over again.
And nowadays we’re in mobile home parks, is our niche. And we’ve been doing that for about, guess going on eight years now. And own mobile home communities in 13 different states. And that’s kind of our core focus, and we built the business around it. Owned about 2000 lots in our portfolio, about $75 million value. I don’t know if that’s condensed or not, but I guess in a nutshell, that’s the last 20 years of my life and what I’ve done.
Chad Duval: Yeah. So there’s a lot going on and there’s a lot of things we could dive into but, I want to get into your mobile home parks eventually, later on. But at the beginning when you first started, so that first property, you said you used private money.
So there’s two things. One, how did you find private money? Was it that mentor that you were using or?
Kevin Bupp: Yes. I was lucky. So, what I failed to mentioned is, his name was David and I worked with David for probably about 14, 15 months. It was quite some time that I essentially, I helped him. I went to him and said, “Hey, what can I do to help you with your business, so that I can learn what is you’re doing?”
And I was basically his admin. I did everything he needed to do. He was kind of a one man show, he was a small operation. And that was going out, meeting contractors with him, meeting realtors, meeting some of his tenants, helping with paperwork, running to Office Max. Whatever he needed to get done, that’s what I did.
And so, throughout that time I got to meet some of his relationships. They became mine as well, and the connections, I knew who they were, they knew who I was. There was some trust there that was already established. I lean definitely on his experience. And that’s how I met that first private investor. They were his originally, and they were still his, but they believed in the property that I had found and knew that I had, theoretically, at least the knowledge to do it. And they also knew that I had David there, in case anything went sideways.
Chad Duval: Now, the private money, was that for the whole purchase of it?
Kevin Bupp: It wasn’t. And I forget what the exact breakdown was, but I put about $7,000 in. I think all in, between the cost of the property and then the rehab budget, I think we were all into it for like, $30,000 or so.
So they funded the majority of the repairs and it was a really low end property. It was in the inner city of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. It was an area that I’d never went to buy again. I wouldn’t have bought anywhere near that, the next time around. I wish David, I always give him crap about that, I’m like-
Chad Duval: “Why did you let me do that?”
Kevin Bupp: Yeah. It was rough. It was really rough. It was kind of scary. I had supplies stolen from the… It was a pretty good learning experience. I had pretty much everything go wrong, that could possibly go wrong with that property. Theft, threatened, squatters that tried to move in during the process. And it was fun. I was young, I was 19, 20 years old having fun with it but, it was a definitely an interesting challenge for sure.
Chad Duval: Yeah. Yeah. I’ve had many of those same situations in some of my properties. But, it’s a good way to start, get into the game and then as you are in it longer, the more you realize that you can move into different areas and expand your horizons. So, you had private money. Now when you use this mentor and he did do the… It seemed almost interning or working and doing whatever you could for this guy. Do you suggest that’s a very good strategy to get into real estate for most newbies?
Kevin Bupp: Absolutely. Absolutely. So again, mine was a little different, he invited me. I’ll give the full background, just so everyone knows the context of the story here. I was dating a girl, it just happened that her mom had just gone through divorce and she was dating this guy David. And that’s how I met David.
And we just became friends, he was 25 years older than I was, but we just got along and I’d always see him over at their house. And he invited me to this boot camp down in Philadelphia that he had already paid for and his business partner couldn’t go. And so I attended, it was a $3,000, learn how to fix and flip.
And I went to that and I learned a lot. Was overwhelmed, was excited, was scared, was every emotion you could think of. What I did know is when I left there, was that there was a lot of people in that room that I didn’t feel were much smarter than I. They knew more than I did about real estate, but I didn’t feel like they had a higher IQ than I did. And that I just needed the building blocks. The voids needed to be filled for me, because there was lots of questions I had and I knew David can answer them.
And so my idea was that, “Hey, I don’t want to fumble through this alone. I want to learn what all those voids are and all those missing pieces. So how can I bring value to you, David? How can I help you grow your business so that in turn, I can learn what it is that you’re doing.”
And so, that’s essentially how that relationship really came together. It was an internship you could say. And back to your original question, I would definitely suggest that if you’re looking to get started, go find that person. Go find that individual that you can bring value to their business. And even if it’s on a friend, obviously I had a tie in with David because there was already a little bit of a friendship built there. Simply what you could do, what I tell a lot of people, go to real estate investment clubs, get to know the people there, they’re actually doing deals. Find someone that you feel that your core philosophy and your personality aligned with.
If you don’t have a real estate club, you can literally go online or go in the county records. And if it’s multifamily that you want to do, find out who the multifamily owners are in public records and reach out to them. Put yourself out there. Write them a personalize letter. Let them know who you are. You love to take them to coffee, blah, blah, blah.
Find out how to add value to them. You got to walk into this thing, none of, “What can I take from them?” Because they’ve got the information, and they’re busy, they’re successful already, they don’t necessarily need you. But I promise you there is something that you have, there is a skill set, there is something of value that you can give them. You got to figure out what that is and then, show them the way of how, whatever that skill set or that unique ability you have, can help them propel their business. Maybe not to the next level, but can bring them value, make them more money, give them more time in day, whatever that is, right? So absolutely. I think that’s a great way to get started. No brainer.
Chad Duval: Yeah, and everybody has different situations and different skill sets. And you had this relationship and that was the one thing that you had. And you had your drive and willingness to learn. And a lot of people have other things. Maybe somebody good at working on websites, so you go up to somebody who wants to own a property and they need website work done. You could always exchange that sort of thing.
So, I guess it’s a good way to think about it, is always be looking for your competitive advantage and how you can bring value to these other people that you’re trying to reach.
So, you are in mobile home parks now. And you have gone from all kinds of different types of property styles and I’m just curious, what ultimately led you to doing full time mobile home parks now?
Kevin Bupp: It’s another thing that, it kind of found me. It really did. It found me. 2008 was a very challenging, so were the three or four years following 2008. I was in more of a reactive mode for up through 2011, 2012. Just lots of challenges with banks and lenders and properties that were down here in Florida, that had lost their entire value or they’re upside down. They had hundreds of them like that.
You’re just working through that mess. I’m trying to shovel my way out. But the last thing I wanted to think about was real estate, other than the fires I was trying to put out. It was really hard to get myself in the right frame of mind of, “I need to go buy now that there’s a lot of blood in the street and there’s opportunity out there.” It’s really hard when it’s your blood that’s out there, right?
I focused a little bit more on myself. My health and fitness, my wellbeing, and I started a few other businesses non-related to real estate. Just to get my mind off things, try to stay healthy, try to stay positive. And only in about 2011, did I make the decision that I wanted to get back in. However, the landscape had changed. It changed a lot in those three years that I had stepped away from it.
Lending was completely different. Capital was a very hard to come by as far as financing is concerned from banks. A lot of banks were still failing miserably or had failed and hadn’t recovered. What I did know and looking back on what worked and what didn’t work in my business, I didn’t find, and I knew leading up to the crash, that there was a lot of inefficiencies with all the single family properties I owned. I had them in multiple different counties, and it was inefficient process to manage them. Maintenance-wise, it was inefficient.
And the apartment complexes I had, just seemed to run much smoother, took a lot less of my time and made me more money than all the effort I put into these single families. And so I was like, “You know, if I’m going to do this again, I think I can grow to a big scale much faster with multifamily.” And so, I was going into this thinking that apartments were going to be the way. That was going to be the vehicle. During this period of time, a good friend of mine introduced me to one of his friends, by the name of Randy.
I always like meeting new people. Randy was a very successful banker for his entire adult career. Had retired and started buying mobile home parks in Florida. And I had never had an interest in mobile home parks, I had never researched it before. However, I do like meeting new people and I had lunch with Randy, and after a two hour lunch with Randy, he told me all the amazing things about mobile home parks and pretty much had me sold on, screw spending my time focusing on multifamily, I need to learn more about this mobile home park business.
And that’s what I did. I left that two hour lunch meeting, committed myself to the next 12 months and learn everything there is to know about mobile home parks and I’m going to buy one. I’m going to buy one and either prove or disprove all the great things that Randy had to say about them. And that’s what I did.
Took me a little more than 12 months, I think it was about 14 months or so. Bought the first property, made a bunch of other offers, had some other ones tied up and ultimately, finally landed on the very first one, which we still own today. And that was in Atlanta, Georgia. And that was back in 2012. There’s many, and if you’d like, we can go into some of the things that compelled me to move this way.
Chad Duval: Well, I’m curious, what’s the number one thing? Because I know there’s a lot of similarities in multifamily and mobile homes. And in my head I know… I don’t know who told me this, because I’ve been dabbling in it a little bit, or at least looking at deals. My broker’s been sending me some stuff because there’s a lot of off market, mobile home parks in my area.
And the main thing that I liked about or what I’ve been told is that, they’re not really building that many of them anymore. So, you’re almost limiting the supply, so as time goes on, of course the value goes up and up and up. And then also, it’s almost like the lowest amount of rent in the country. So if we hit another recession in a couple of years, it might be a really good asset.
Kevin Bupp: Yeah, no, you hit two big ones right there. The barriers to entry is huge because, I guess fortunately, unfortunately, however you want to look at it, municipalities don’t like mobile home parks. They’ve got a negative stigma attached to them. And it’s unfortunate, because there’s some really nice parks and we own some really nice communities. Communities that are nicer than the single family homes you could live in right outside the community.
And unfortunately, there’s a few bad actors in our space, just like there is in every space that are slum lords and they don’t run a tight ship and they got drugs, sex, and rock and roll, all that bad stuff going on, and it painted a bad picture for the entirety of our industry.
That’s one of the big reasons municipalities don’t like them. you don’t see new ones getting built. In addition to that, the tax basis isn’t all that great. When a municipality has the right to either get a new 400 unit apartment complex built or a hundred lot mobile home park built, because it’s probably going to take about the same amount of land area to do either or. The tax benefits are going to be much greater with that of a 400 unit apartment complex.
It’s going to be a higher in clientele in their mind. And so, there’s a big barrier there in order to get these things approved to be built. That’s one of the big selling features. One of the other ones is the turnover. Most of our communities, the residents own their own home, and when they go to sell that home just like in a stick built community, they put it up for sale, someone else comes and buys it. All the while, the lot rents being paid and that new person moves into that home. They continue paying the lot rent.
And so, you don’t typically have that turnover like you do in an apartment unit, where the person moves out, you got maybe, six weeks of make ready and releasing to get that thing reoccupied, if you do a good job. And you lose revenue there, it’s a significant amount of revenue, especially when you talk about larger complexes and such.
You typically don’t have that mobile home park space. I’m not going to say it never happens where you don’t get a unit, where someone just flies out in the middle of the night and leaves. But, a lot of times that’s just not the case.
Some of the other big things that were compelling to me, this is slightly changing over time, but the returns. Back when we were… We’re still buying heavy. Last year we bought nine communities, this year’s been a little bit slower. I think the word’s kind of gotten out that the mobile home parks are the best thing since sliced bread. But, in any event, the returns typically… If you compare apples to apples from a mobile home community in the same market as, let’s say a C plus class or B minus class apartment complex, typically you could expect a higher yield or higher return in the mobile home park.
I still think that’s the case today. However, there’s limited supply in mobile home parks, so there’s not as much of an option to buy them as there might’ve been a couple of years back. Especially with a lot of big players diving into our space.
And then lastly, you’d mentioned about the lot rents being low. There’s more other reasons as well, but that’s a big one. A lot of these parks are owned by first-generation, sometimes second-generation owners, not that they haven’t treated them like a business, they just haven’t treated it like a business like you or I might. And so, they’ve failed to keep up with lot rent trends. I’ve seen people skip 10, 15 years without raising lot rents. They haven’t kept up with inflation. They own them free and clear. So it’s not a big deal for them. It’s all cash in their pocket anyway. They become friends with the residents that live there. And they’re happy with how things are going.
And so, a lot of the parks we buy have significantly under market rents, when we take them over. And that’s pretty much a norm across the board. And lastly, I know you’ve only asked me a couple things, but this is the big one. This is the big one because, you hit on it regarding the lot rents being so low and what happens when a recession comes. Something of that nature, where we have an economic downturn.
I can tell you that we own parks in 13 different states. I think probably 20 different markets. You could pick any one of those given markets and our communities, again, we have some very nice communities. I’d say anywhere from C class to A minus, that’s kind of our range. Any one of those is the cheapest option in that given market to live. Meaning that a family that has a nice community to live in. They can’t go to an apartment, there’s nowhere else they can go in that community to live, even remotely as cheaply as they can in our mobile home community. So there’s, in a downturn, what you’ll find is that if their lot rents $300 a month, they’re going to…
Anyone could figure out a way to make $300 a month. You can go out and sell bottles of water on the corner of the street, right? You can go buy a case of water from CVS for $4 and go sell them for a dollar a pop. You can make $300. If you can’t, there is no cheaper place to live. You basically become homeless. You’re under a bridge. Seriously, there’s no cheaper place to live. And so that’s a risk insulator for us. There’s always someone that wants to live in a clean, safe, quiet community for 300 or 350 or $400 a month, right?
So anyway, I’m going to let you take the mic back because I feel like I just rambled for 10 minutes.
Chad Duval: But even low lot rents, and I don’t know if your A class properties are like that too, but I’ve driven through some of these, especially in Florida, where they are almost like resorts. I mean they’re not like your stereotypical, that you see in old movies and stuff like that. At least from what I’ve seen.
Kevin Bupp: We should probably talk about that, because there’s a couple of different types of communities. The ones you talk about in Florida or you can just say the Sunbelt. Florida, you’ve got Arizona, you’ve got Texas, a few other areas as well. You’ll find more resort type communities and that’s not affordable housing. Most of them are not affordable. They’re more catered to snowbirds. People that live up north, they want a second home. However, they’re seasonal. But when they come down, they want to have activities. These places have activities directors, they have swimming pools, they have palm trees, they have a bus that takes them to the mall two times a day to go shopping, things like that. So it’s more of a lifestyle experience then it is affordable housing.
Our business is more catered towards affordable housing. Really high quality, but affordable living. Whereas the ones you’re talking about in Florida, I have one right by my house, the lot rent is $900 a month and…
Chad Duval: But that’s a lot more business oriented. You’d have to have a lot of operations to manage that. I feel like it’s a lot more like business.
Kevin Bupp: It’s a big operation. Yeah, it’s a big operation. Yeah, and it’s pristine too. It’s a A class community. It’s multiple swimming pools, tennis courts, all that kind of stuff.
Chad Duval: I had never even known that those even existed until I went. It was a couple years ago, I drove through one and I’m like, “Wow, this is actually pretty nice.” It was on a little lake and everything. I was like, “Wow, this is neat.”
Kevin Bupp: We’ve got some waterfront ones near us, literally that are on the Gulf of Mexico that are really nice. Being that the lot rents still really high in the mobile homes trade for… It might be a 40 year old mobile home that’s probably, if you put it anywhere else in the country, it’d be worth maybe $10,000. But it trades for like 70 or 80 or 90 or $100,000, because it’s on this Primo lot, canal or waterfront. Deep slope access for the boat.
Chad Duval: Very interesting. So you started small and now you’re in large communities. Somebody who hasn’t done a deal yet, do you advise or what would you suggest them doing? Do you suggest them starting small with a single family home? Or just go in guns blazing and try and go large community?
Because I know there’s two schools of thought out there. I typically think that you should start small, get your feet wet, understand a little bit and work up. But I’d be curious to what your thoughts are.
Hey guys, just interrupting this episode real quick to say a big thank you for listening along to this interview with Kevin Bupp. If you are enjoying it, could you please subscribe to the podcast? I know you’re listening along, I hope you’re enjoying it, but if you could subscribe it’ll help out a lot. And enjoy the rest of episode.
Kevin Bupp: I don’t think there’s a right or wrong answer there. I think it’s all about you and your personality and what your long term goals are. If you’re someone that loves your day job, you don’t intend on leaving it, you’re just looking to create some supplementary income that in 30 years turns into something much greater. But, you don’t need to buy 500 units over the next two years.
And you could simply go out and buy one turnkey home. Maybe that’s your model. You’ve got money and you just want to buy one turnkey home every year for the next 30 years and that will help you reach your goals. That you might not ever have to go big, just keep doing that model, whatever works for you. Or if it’s like, “Hey, I want to quit my job in the next three years, and I need to replace $100,000 a year of income.” You might have a challenge doing that, if you’re just going to buy a couple of single family properties.
You can start with that one single family property, but you better have a plan to do something bigger or at least at scale, much sooner than later, you know? So, I think it really depends, I don’t think there’s a right or wrong there.
I do think that you have a lot less to risk with a small property, than you do with a large property. Again, this is assuming that you’re just getting started, you don’t know, what you don’t know yet. And even if you have a great mentor, you’re still going to make mistakes. We all make mistakes, but you definitely make more in the beginning, then you do as you get seasoned. So again, I’m not giving you a straight forward answer, because I really don’t think there’s a right or wrong.
Looking back. I don’t think I would’ve changed the trajectory of what I did at all, because I wouldn’t be where I’m at now if it wasn’t for where I started. I think the more important thing is, you just got to get started somewhere.
Chad Duval: I agree.
Kevin Bupp: Right? You know what I mean? You just got to do something. It doesn’t really matter what you do. There’s a ton of noise out there. It’s coming from all different directions. And there’s a million and one different ways to make money in real estate. Just pick one that you think is best aligned with you and your personality, and think you’re going to enjoy it. Because no matter what, if you don’t enjoy it, then you’re not going to probably do all that great. You know what I mean? You have to actually have some enthusiasm for this.
And what I tell people is, “You know, maybe real estate’s not for you. Maybe it’s not real estate, maybe it’s an eCommerce business.” Or something else like, if it’s cashflow, which is your ultimate goal, there’s other benefits of real estate as well. But at the end of the day, if it’s not real estate, could be something else. But you just got to do something. That’s really, at the end of the day, that’s what is. Do something, take some action.
Chad Duval: Yeah. No, it’s so funny. That’s the second episode in a row that that’s come up, where the guest is basically said, “It might not be the right thing for you.” You got to be passionate about it. Especially with the amount of stuff, the stress, the learning curve and everything that comes with it. You’ve got to really, really enjoy it. I’d like to dive in a little bit to the market a little bit in that area.
Is it getting feedback from… Because everybody I talked to, they’re in different parts of the country. It be interesting to see roughly, what you’re seeing there. I know a lot of the cap rates are compressing and that sort of thing but, any kind of info that you can provide.
Kevin Bupp: Yeah. Tampa Bay areas is growing like gang busters. It’s phenomenal. I can’t give you any statistics off top of my head, as far as the migration patterns that are happening, and what our population’s increasing by on an annual basis. I can tell you that we don’t own a lot of, which is kind of ironic, we don’t own a lot of real estate here, and it’s because prices are so high.
There’s a lot of institutional investors, on our product, what is what we buy, there’s a certain quality that we like with our asset, and there’s a certain return we’d like to hit. And in order for us to buy the quality that meets our criteria, we can’t get the return that we want here in Florida, at least in the markets in Florida that we’d want to own. In Tampa Bay, Jacksonville, Orlando, South Florida, Miami, that area. Even up in the panhandle, it’s very challenging for us to buy the product that will give us the returns that we’re seeking. So we only own one property here in Florida, as far as the mobile home parks, in central Florida, Orlando area.
And then we’re all over the northeast and out even in the Midwest. And I think the trend is kind of across the board. Even in the Midwest markets where people say it’s a little bit more of a linear nature. You don’t get the high ups and the high downs. Even there, at least in our space, cap rates have been compressing and continue to compress at levels that are just astounding to me.
We’re actually selling some of our properties right now, some more smaller things that are good markets, but just some smaller assets that don’t necessarily, they’re not fitting our longterm goals for our portfolio. And I’m just been blown away at the actual offers that we’ve been getting, the prices. The numbers aren’t working, at least in my mind, the numbers don’t work. If I were the buyer, I surely wouldn’t be paying that much more, but I’m not them.
Chad Duval: No, we’re seeing the same thing too.
Kevin Bupp: And it goes back to figuring out what’s going to work for you. That’s why I think it’s irrelevant about cap rates compressing. It’s irrelevant about… Really, it’s what is your ultimate goal as far as targeted returns? Why are you buying this asset? What are your targeted returns? What period of time do you need to hit them over? What’s your risk threshold? Figure out all the answers to those questions and you can find something in, probably pretty much any given market that would get you to where you needed to be. Other than California maybe.
I don’t like people getting overly concerned about this compression. You got to be a smart investor. You got to know that it’s going to work today, but also it’s going to work tomorrow, five years down the road, 10 years down the road. And that’s where the performer comes into play. And that’s where I think a lot of people find themselves getting in trouble years down the road.
They’re buying in a very aggressive market and they’ve got incredibly high expectations set on their pro forma, as far as rent increases. They haven’t set aside necessary capital reserves or any downtime or massive CapEx surprises that might pop up, things like that. Anyone that’s a smart investor can make money at any point in the market cycle.
Chad Duval: Yeah, yeah. Totally. Totally. And I think that’s a good point too, you just got to be careful of those projections right now, because everything seems to be so bubbly that five years from now, you never know if those rent amounts are going to actually be decreasing.
Kevin Bupp: It’s happened. We had a lot of stuff in Southwest Florida, where our rent decreased. And everyone says that rent stabilize and even when people were losing their home, the foreclosure that rental in a demand goes up, theoretically, that’s true. But there’s lots of other factors involved that we actually witnessed, for a period of about a year and a half where rents decreased in Southwest Florida. Very desirable place to live. We had hundreds of units down here and whether they decreased or you had to offer significant concessions to compete, that’s a real deal. That happens and it has happened in the past. So anyway, every market’s a little different than the next. That is not a broad brush stroke. It’s more of an oversupply issue than anything else when that typically occurs. So just be very aware of those things and that they can happen.
Chad Duval: Well, we are running out of time, so I guess we can wrap up. And where can people get in touch with you?
Kevin Bupp: So a couple different places. Our company is called Sunrise Capital Investors, so if you have an interest in learning what we have going on in the mobile home park space, you can go to our website, that’s sunrisecapitalinvestors.com.
I actually host two different podcasts, real estate podcasts myself. One is a mobile home park podcast, it’s called the Mobile Home Park Investing podcast. I kept the name pretty simple. You can find that on iTunes. You can find that on my personal website, which is kevinbupp.com. Another podcast I also host, which you can find on all those venues, is at Real Estate Investing For Cashflow, and that’s a commercial real estate investing podcast. So I can be found pretty easily. Just type in my name.
Chad Duval: The old Google machine.
Kevin Bupp: You’ll find me for sure.
Chad Duval: Perfect. Well with that being said, I appreciate you being on the show, Kevin, and I look forward to hearing from you soon.
Kevin Bupp: Yeah, Chad, thanks for having me. It’s been a pleasure and thank you for all you’re doing for all your listeners, man. Greatly appreciate it.
Chad Duval: So guys, what did you think? That was Kevin Bupp. I’m super happy and appreciative that he was able to take some time out today and chat with us. A little fanboy action here. I’ve been following along with him for a couple of years on his podcast and super flattered and appreciative that he was able to share some time with us today.
One quick thing to remember and something I definitely took out of this conversation is, do not assume that your rent is going to either stay flat or go up year over year. It’s a good reminder, like in ’08, like he said, he took a beating on some of his properties because rents actually decreased, or they had to give a lot of concessions to get renters in the door. When you amortize that over the course of one year, your monthly rent definitely decreases. Just keep that in mind when you guys are looking at new properties.
And you guys, I did want to give a little plug to my Instagram, @iamchadduval. I’m going to try and revamp the post 120 concept on my Instagram. Basically what it is, you need to follow me and turn on your notifications so that every time I post, if you can like, comment, and tag one new person in that post within the first 120 seconds, two minutes, you’ll be entered into that week’s drawing. And that drawing, the prize could be anything from the AirPods, like the last couple of weeks we had those. And then anything from AirPods to Amazon gift cards to all sorts of things. So like, comment, tag one person every time I post on Instagram within the first two minutes of that post.
And with that, you guys, let’s get out of here. I appreciate you guys listening along to this week’s episode and remember, you don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great. See You.