Latest / Real Estate Investing with RealDealCrew / How To Build Manufactured Homes For Profit w/ Robert Howell

Transcript

How To Build Manufactured Homes For Profit w/ Robert Howell · Real Estate Investing with RealDealCrew

0:00
He's buying raw land for twenty to forty thousand dollars,
0:03
dropping a brand new manufactured home on it,
0:06
and walking away with thirty to fifty thousand dollars in profit per deal,
0:11
all while ninety-five percent of his buyers are first-time homebuyers
0:15
who never thought they'd be able to own a home.
0:18
in this episode, Robert Howell breaks down how he's built a land home package
0:23
business from a ten thousand dollar house in Memphis into fifty deals last year
0:28
and a hundred planned for this year.
0:31
You'll learn how he structured these deals to qualify for HUD financing,
0:36
how he uses mobile home parks and cost segregation to build long-term
0:40
tax advantage income on this side
0:43
And the exact two-step process he tells beginners to follow this week
0:48
to find their first deal. If you want to build systems like this into your
0:54
own investing business, check out RealDealCrew dot com.
0:58
Let's get started.
1:04
We got Robert Howell with me here today.
1:06
You can learn what his team can help you with by heading over
1:09
to Howellandsons dot com. I'm gonna have that as a clickable link in the show notes.
1:14
I really appreciate your time here today as we talk about affordable housing.
1:19
Appreciate you having me, Jack.
1:21
So you kind of got an interesting story here,
1:23
Robert. It looks like you started w in marketing for Coca Cola
1:29
and Tokyo Olympics and then COVID hit and kind of threw yourself into finding
1:35
another path.
1:36
Right, yeah. So actually you can see on the back wall here.
1:39
I have the Olympic torches. I started in Salt Lake on the two thousand
1:43
and two Olympic Games doing event marketing,
1:46
like large scale for Coca Cola,
1:48
Delta Airlines and continue to do that through my whole career.
1:52
And COVID hit. I was like, Well,
1:55
the only thing I know how to do is event marketing.
1:57
I know loosely marketing 'cause it's it's obviously adjacent,
2:00
but
2:01
I gotta do something different.
2:02
There may never be an event again.
2:04
And so that got me into real estate and the rest is history.
2:08
And what made you start in where you did?
2:10
It looked like your first deal was a ten thousand dollar house in Memphis.
2:15
So you're living in another state,
2:17
you jumped into this, like w there had to have been like was there a book,
2:22
a podcast, something to get you started and and decide to make this type of leap?
2:28
You know, had always been interested in real estate and but never really
2:33
I was so busy working. event marketing is very intensive in terms of
2:37
the number of hours required and so never really took the plunge and I
2:41
was a bit risk adverse too and so I did a lot of research on the best markets
2:46
for real estate investors.
2:48
And my mom happens to be from Memphis,
2:50
but that also happened to be in my research,
2:52
one of the more well developed markets for investors that you could get in
2:57
at a low cost. And this was before COVID.
2:59
And so that's where I started.
3:01
I said, Hey, look, I'll buy this ten thousand dollar house.
3:04
I think I put maybe I maybe eight thousand dollars into renovation,
3:08
maybe a little bit more, and then I refinanced it and my loan was three
3:12
or four hundred dollars a month.
3:13
I said, Well, worst case if this doesn't go like I think it's gonna go.
3:16
the house sits vacant and it costs me three,
3:18
four hundred dollars a month. I can afford that.
3:20
And so that's that's how I got started and really just through research and finding,
3:27
you know, what's a good market and the way I defined a good market at
3:30
the time was lenders were readily available,
3:33
property managers were readily readily available and houses were inexpensive.
3:38
So let's break down what you're working on now then.
3:40
It sounds like you mentioned that you bring in pre manufactured homes
3:46
as in in like vacant lots, or how d how does this look?
3:52
Yeah, for sure. So I'll tell you a bit of the the story of how I got here,
3:55
but I started buying and selling houses.
3:57
One of the guys I bought from,
3:59
he said, Hey, my nephew owns this mobile home park across the street.
4:03
Would you want to buy it? I said,
4:05
I don't know anything about mobile home parts,
4:06
but I know about affordable housing and so I said,
4:09
Sure, I'd buy it and he sold it to me,
4:10
seller financing, for what turns out to be a great price.
4:13
I at the time I didn't know. But
4:16
I owned that for a year and learned kind of the mobile home part business.
4:20
As part of that, you have to get in South Carolina if you're gonna do more than
4:24
two homes, you need to get a dealer's license.
4:26
And so I got my dealer's license,
4:28
mobile home dealer's license, and I saw well shoot,
4:31
I could buy these homes pretty affordable.
4:33
And at that point I started to look and buy land and said,
4:37
Well, let me buy these homes direct from the factory.
4:40
I'll buy land and I'll put these new homes on the land.
4:43
And so that's really what got me into it.
4:45
I was doing some flipping, some wholesaling.
4:47
I said, Man, that land home package is probably be lot easier.
4:50
'cause the house is built in a factory and it ships to you.
4:53
And so we started doing that and it's been a great journey since then.
4:57
So th are these aren't are these trailer houses then?
5:00
And then are you putting a proper foundation on them to make them like accessible
5:04
for like ho traditional home buyers?
5:08
That's right. Yeah. So what we do is they're made in a factory and they deliver
5:13
on a trailer. they have axles and wheels and such when they come in two parts.
5:17
So we then install on site, but we install it in a way that they can qualify
5:22
for HUD financing, which would get you a first time homeowner loan or a
5:26
VA loan or maybe a USDA loan. So we're taking the axles off,
5:30
we're attaching it permanently to the land,
5:32
we're detitling the homes.
5:34
So they qualify for that more conventional financing.
5:37
And in fact, like ninety five percent of the people that we sell to
5:40
are first time homeowners.
5:43
Okay. Is this your primarily focus now or do you still do the trailer park thing?
5:49
This is so the way I look at it is you have the day to day activities
5:53
is the land home packages with the manufactured housing.
5:56
And that's my active income 'cause we're we're buying the land,
6:00
putting the home on, and then we're selling the land and home together.
6:02
Almost think of it as like a spec build.
6:04
and then my long term strategy is the mobile home parks.
6:08
And so I still continue to buy mobile home parts for the long term income,
6:13
but what that does for me today is through cost segregation
6:17
I can accelerate the depreciation and there's some tax strategy in reducing
6:22
my taxes by buying more mobile home parks.
6:25
And so I don't look at the mobile home parts as income for today.
6:29
It's it's tax savings today and income for the future.
6:32
And it's more of a passive investment for me.
6:35
'cause I have a property manager that manages all of And of course
6:39
I'm still involved, but my day to day is is developing the land home packages.
6:43
At the time when you bought that first trailer park,
6:46
you said it ended up being a great deal,
6:49
but at the time you didn't even know.
6:51
Is that something that you you're kinda common to doing?
6:54
You just kinda jump head first and and hope for the best.
6:57
I mean that's kind of some blind faith going on there.
7:01
Well, let me clarify that comment.
7:03
I i I knew it was a good deal.
7:05
I didn't know it was a great deal.
7:06
How about that? So in every every asset asset that I buy,
7:10
it's gonna be a cash flowing asset.
7:12
and that one in particular was cash flowing.
7:15
I just didn't know how great of a deal,
7:17
'cause I didn't know at the time what mobile home parts were trading for.
7:20
It was my very first one. It was a hundred and ten lots.
7:22
so it's a big, big asset. But I just didn't I didn't understand
7:27
I knew it cash flowed on paper and it was a good investment,
7:30
but it ended up being a great investment,
7:32
in terms of the return on it.
7:34
You mentioned you still hold these tr trailer parks as and part of
7:39
the benefit is the depreciation.
7:41
Do you find that a depre depreciation s c schedule can apply to
7:46
the whole trailer house or is it is it done differently than traditional housing?
7:53
No, it can apply to the whole house.
7:55
So if I own the house and I own the park,
7:58
then we'll depreciate the house,
8:00
and of course the improvements to the land also.
8:04
Okay. So y could you talk a little bit about like the returns
8:08
on these investments and how this is kind of breaking down?
8:11
Like you got your trailer parks versus this active investing with the
8:16
the land home package. are you primarily doing the land home package
8:21
so you have lump sums to acquire the next trailer park or what is what does this
8:26
all look like?
8:28
Yeah, that's right. And, you know,
8:29
the way I look at it is you've got your your active income from
8:32
the land home packages and the returns on those are are good.
8:36
Typically we're getting private lenders,
8:38
people like me and you who have made money and are looking
8:42
to diversify their investments,
8:44
and we'll pay them a return or we'll get hard money loans.
8:47
and so our return, you know, percentage wise is is pretty great 'cause
8:51
I we've got limited money of our own money in it.
8:53
But on average we're making
8:56
thirty to fifty thousand dollars per land home package.
8:59
And I look at that as like that's my active income and then I take that
9:03
and I invest it in the parks, right?
9:05
And so investing in the parks gives me that long term income down the road,
9:10
passive, and it also gives me that that tax write off to against
9:13
the active income of the land home packages.
9:17
Yeah, I was gonna ask you if you could wouldn't mind walking us through a
9:20
a tr a typical deal here, like re especially for the land and home package.
9:25
Like from the time you've you identify the land to the time it's ready for sale.
9:31
Like what does that look like?
9:32
What's the timeline?
9:34
Yeah, so you know, what we do is we'll do marketing for that land
9:39
and we're gonna market all over.
9:40
So we're gonna talk to realtors,
9:42
wholesalers, we're gonna send out direct mail.
9:44
We may do some cold calling, texting,
9:46
we'll we'll go on Facebook marketplace,
9:48
lots of different places that we can find land.
9:51
We'll buy that land and typically when we contract a piece of land,
9:54
we're gonna ask for a thirty to forty five days due diligence period.
9:58
Which allows us to really investigate it and get all of our ducks in a
10:02
row before we close on it. So then we're gonna close on the property
10:07
and after we close on it, it's gonna take us about two months to get
10:12
a house ready to be listed. so from the time we close to the time it's listed
10:16
for sale, it's two months or less is our goal.
10:19
And then once we sell it, list it for sale,
10:22
then it's gonna take
10:23
Typically like in today's market here in twenty twenty six it's gonna take probably
10:28
thirty days or so to get it under contract.
10:31
And then we typically go for a thirty day close.
10:35
Okay. And then do you like are you putting these on rural lands?
10:39
does and what are some of the contingencies th that you have to adhere to
10:45
or f or follow? I suppose it depends on part of the country.
10:48
Like I'm in Minnesota, so we there's there's septic and wells and everything
10:54
to deal with if you're dealing with rural areas.
10:58
Yeah, for sure. So some areas are are rural and we'll do a well
11:03
and make sure there's water there,
11:04
of course, historically in the area.
11:06
We'll do septic, so we're gonna do soil test and make sure that the soil
11:11
is good for hopefully a conventional septic system,
11:14
worst case an engineered septic.
11:15
But then there are areas where we are able to have public water access,
11:20
and so we'll operate off public water and typically septic.
11:25
It's pretty rare that we're gonna have public sewer when we go
11:28
to do these developments.
11:31
Okay. So y you mentioned somewhere that you're buying this land twenty
11:37
to forty thousand dollar range.
11:38
How do you ev you i it and it sounds like you kind of have a process that
11:43
you set up on the
11:46
on the marketing side of things to just kind of test to see if it's a good fit,
11:50
is that your primary measure on whether you're going to close on it,
11:53
or is there is there some other things that you're looking for to make sure that
11:58
that property is is what you're looking for?
12:00
Yeah, so we're gonna look at like the comps in the area,
12:03
of course, and see what homes are selling for.
12:06
Com hopefully comparable. in some areas there's not a lot
12:09
of spec manufactured housing, and so we'll have to use used homes or maybe even site
12:14
built housing as a comparison tool.
12:16
And then based upon those comps,
12:18
we'll then determine how much we could pay for the land.
12:20
And so that'll give us a range for what we're gonna pay,
12:23
like you mentioned, twenty to forty K.
12:25
You know, twenty K would be, hey,
12:26
it's raw land and we're gonna have to install a well and we're gonna have
12:30
to install a septic system. whereas forty K may be,
12:33
hey, it's closer to the city and there's public water,
12:36
potentially some existing infrastructure like a septic system from a previous house.
12:40
so it really just depends on what the you know,
12:44
price point is, location driven,
12:46
of course, comps driven, and then are there any existing utilities?
12:50
Mm-hmm. So you you mentioned that you're leveraging private money
12:57
for some of this. can you talk a little bit about if you leverage
13:02
any kind of banking financing or even maybe you even carry some of
13:07
the note yourself when you sell it to the end buyer?
13:09
Yeah, so we don't carry the note to the end buyer.
13:12
typically we're just gonna keep recycling our cash.
13:15
But, you know, from a development loan standpoint,
13:18
we're gonna use private money,
13:19
hard money. Now we we'll use banks too,
13:22
and we have used banks in the past,
13:23
but and it's probably something we should do more often.
13:27
But the you know, banks typically require quite a bit of equity to get the loan,
13:31
so they're gonna require maybe thirty percent,
13:33
twenty percent equity.
13:35
And for us we're looking at, hey,
13:37
can we do these with ninety percent loan to value or even a hundred percent,
13:43
which then limits our money out of pocket,
13:46
which allows us to scale faster.
13:49
Is there a particular part of the country you focus on?
13:52
South Carolina, North Car South Carolina primarily,
13:54
North Carolina, Georgia, and Tennessee.
13:57
Okay.
13:57
Eastern Tennessee.
14:00
Just to remind everybody, you can learn more by heading over to Howell
14:03
and Sons dot com. I'm gonna have that as a clickable link in the show notes.
14:07
If you found some value in what we're chatting about so far,
14:10
do us a favor, share this with one of your investor friends.
14:13
And if you're watching us on YouTube,
14:14
give us a like and subscribe. One of the things that stood out to me,
14:18
Robert, is that there was one point where you mentioned that your persp perspective
14:24
shifted at one point.
14:25
Where you went from not wanting to meet your buyer to wanting their experience
14:29
to feel special, what triggered that change?
14:32
Yeah, that's a great question.
14:33
And you know, it's one of those things where it's like you go through the motions,
14:37
right? And of course we all wanna make money and that's the part of the goal,
14:42
right? And then but then as I started to have interactions and it wasn't very often,
14:47
but I was having some interactions with buyers where it was like,
14:50
Hey, I'm a school bus driver. I never thought I could own a home and this this gave
14:55
me an opportunity to own a home.
14:57
It's like, man, this is a really special moment for this person or
15:00
the couple that just got married and it's their first home together.
15:04
And so for us, we've kind of thought about how can we make those moments even more
15:09
special? and we don't have it perfected yet,
15:11
but it really made me think like,
15:14
Hey, we're this is a very big moment in these people's life,
15:17
whether it's their first home or maybe it's a home they thought they could never
15:19
afford. And are there things that we can do for them?
15:23
'Cause we're making a good profit.
15:24
So
15:25
Could we take some of that profit and make it even more special for And you know,
15:29
again, we haven't perfected it,
15:31
but you know, things like gifts or even Bibles or,
15:35
you know, could it be, you know,
15:36
they come home after the closing and we've bought a new grill that's
15:41
on the back porch. So, you know,
15:42
are there things that kind of just surprise and delight and again make that that
15:46
moment a little more special than just a simple financial transaction for
15:51
us and for them?
15:51
Yeah, that kind of reminds me you know,
15:53
when we were having our first child,
15:55
it was we were dealing with the doctor and I and I
16:00
She felt I felt like the the doctor was just kinda going through
16:02
the motions and getting a little annoyed with some of the questions and I
16:07
f I don't know what caused it,
16:09
but I felt embol emboldened to like even s mention to her to the doctor that
16:15
it might be an everyday thing for her,
16:16
but this was our first kid and it was it was really important and special
16:20
to us and and we appreciated her time,
16:23
but it was it wasn't being treated as such,
16:26
you know. It's
16:27
Mm-hmm.
16:28
It just didn't want to be another cog in the wheel here.
16:32
Right.
16:33
So it mm
16:34
Yeah, that makes sense. And I mean I think
16:36
there's a lot of you know, like that doctor,
16:38
right? They go to work every day and it's just a regular thing for them
16:41
to see a baby born. But to you,
16:44
that was a huge moment, whether it's your first baby or your tenth baby,
16:48
right?
16:49
Right.
16:49
but yeah, it's important to remember what we do,
16:52
even though it might just be the daily grind for us,
16:56
it has a very special meaning to a lot of people,
16:59
right? And that could be the buyer.
17:00
We also think of it as like our contractors,
17:02
right? Are there things that
17:04
We interact with our contractors and we've had long relationships with them.
17:07
but we interact with them on a daily basis and are there there's moments when,
17:12
you know, you think, the way I just interacted with him was just like kind
17:15
of dismissive but again, you know,
17:18
he's trying to do a job, I'm trying to do a job,
17:21
let's work together as a team and let's,
17:22
you know, create this create this opportunity for a home buyer in the future.
17:27
Yeah, it's it's kind of interesting.
17:29
I before we hit record I mess mention that I'm I'm dealing with contractors here
17:34
right now. And it it's it's kind of interesting and I'd like to see hear what your
17:39
experience is, is that we have a tendency,
17:41
we try to
17:43
As soon as we get an invoice, we pay it.
17:45
Like right away. We're not one of those places that you have to wait weeks
17:50
on end in order to get paid. And we th we thought that might be
17:53
an enough to I know,
17:57
maybe prioritize us or a little bit regarding regarding some of these contractors,
18:02
but that doesn't seem to move the needle at all.
18:05
Right. Right. You know, I think it's a good point and yeah,
18:09
it's like any any job in sales,
18:11
right, is the the person you're trying to sell to maybe not motivated by money,
18:16
right? And but there's some kind of other motivation.
18:19
And you know, what we find is to one contractor maybe money is the motivator
18:23
a and paying fast is because maybe they don't manage their money like they need to.
18:28
Whereas the
18:30
to another contractor, d you know,
18:31
simply having a lunch together or having a dinner together,
18:35
may go longer in towards a of building that relationship and to your point
18:40
of like h how can you, you know,
18:42
have people that prioritize you as the client,
18:45
right? And that's not why we do it.
18:47
I mean, that's part of it of course.
18:49
I mean for us we we try to really care for people and you know the the
18:54
speed and time and hopefully cost savings is is part of it,
18:57
but it's not a priority.
18:58
You know, in the email that was sent over pitching you to be on the show,
19:02
I I one of the things that stood out is where y it's mentioned where profit meets
19:08
purpose. How do you respond to investors who say mission and margins typically can't
19:13
coexist?
19:14
You know, I don't think that's the case.
19:15
I mean, I think if they can't coexist then I would say i it might
19:19
be the wrong business, right? because I I think,
19:23
you know, if you can take your your God given talent and and and really
19:28
do a great job and and create a profitable business,
19:31
there should be enough money left over to be able to make an impact in this world,
19:37
right? And
19:39
Again, I don't have it all figured out.
19:41
We don't have it all figured out.
19:42
and I don't think anybody does necessarily perfectly.
19:45
But you know, I would say if you don't believe that that profit
19:51
and missions can can live together,
19:54
maybe you're not charged enough.
19:55
Maybe you're not maybe you're you're you're in the wrong business,
19:58
whatever it might be, but I I think there should be a way that they exist together.
20:03
And it doesn't have to be
20:04
Hey, I just gave away a million dollars,
20:06
right? It could be, you know, how did you your interaction with this person change
20:12
the way they went about their day or their week or maybe even their life,
20:15
right? I told you the story about,
20:17
you know, the bus driver who never thought they could own a home.
20:20
Is that necessarily like, you know,
20:23
a non profit mission? Probably not,
20:25
right? But it has a huge impact on her life and you know,
20:29
that's what what we're trying to achieve.
20:31
You know, you brought that up a a couple of times right now,
20:33
and I think that's kind of a recurring thought right now.
20:37
Maybe it's even the younger generation is the is the thought that maybe they simply
20:42
can't own a home like their parents did.
20:46
You know, it it just seems to be something that I've I've seen recurring
20:50
in the social geist as of late.
20:53
Yeah. I mean I I'd say it probably depends on where you live,
20:56
right? You live in New York City for sure.
20:59
come move to South Carolina, we could probably show you a pathway to home ownership.
21:03
and would it be the, you know,
21:06
two thousand square foot house with a two car garage that maybe
21:10
you always dreamed of? I don't know.
21:12
But can we get you in a nice, solidly built home that's sitting on an acre
21:17
or a half acre?
21:18
Yeah, a hundred percent. I think there's a path to that.
21:21
I've seen it too seen it a lot of different cases and first time homeowners.
21:25
Well, y you've then founded the Land Home League to teach others how to do this.
21:30
Like what made you decide to make some sort of impact through education instead
21:35
of doubling down and scaling your own portfolio?
21:37
Yeah, that's a good question and people ask us that all the time,
21:40
like, hey hey, if you're really making all this money,
21:42
why do you why like why do you need to teach people?
21:44
and what I would tell you is, you know,
21:47
is I have a really b big heart I think for affordable housing and I don't think
21:52
I can do it all on my own. And so my goal is can I do can I develop
21:57
a hundred thousand homes over the next ten years?
22:00
And there's no way and maybe that's the mindset thing,
22:03
but I don't think there's a way for me to do that personally as a solo individual.
22:07
But if I can come and have these conversations with you or I can teach
22:11
one of our students to go and do land home packages together,
22:14
then I can maybe achieve that hundred thousand.
22:18
And if we can then develop a hundred thousand affordable houses,
22:22
then that's a hundred thousand families that maybe otherwise couldn't have afforded
22:26
a house. so
22:28
The education really is a is a platform and a pathway to just spreading more
22:34
affordable housing in the US.
22:36
Well, let's let's give somebody some actionable advice here.
22:40
Let's somebody's listening right now who wants to get into mobile home
22:44
or land investing. What's the first concrete step they should be taking this week?
22:49
Yeah, that's great. I love that question.
22:50
so the first thing I would do is I would find a market.
22:54
and it's really simple to find a market.
22:56
Go to Zillow, look at the sold comps for manufactured housing,
23:00
and you're gonna wanna look two hundred and twenty five thousand dollars plus
23:04
so that you can be profitable in terms of a sales price.
23:07
And you're gonna find a market that there's a lot of sales of manufactured housing.
23:12
That's gonna be the first step.
23:13
And then the next step
23:14
if you don't have any money or you don't want to spend money just yet,
23:17
is go to Facebook Marketplace and look on Facebook Marketplace and find
23:22
a piece of land that would be suitable for a mobile home or manufactured house.
23:27
And that that would be the first step I would take.
23:29
We've got guys that we work with that the only thing they do is find lots
23:33
on Facebook Marketplace and they're gonna make a ton of money this year
23:36
and provide a lot of affordable housing.
23:38
But if you do that, go to Zillow,
23:41
find your market.
23:42
And then go to Facebook Marketplace and find your first piece of land.
23:46
And then you can go to my website or call me and I'd be happy to look over
23:50
it with you and you'll be well on your way to making a huge impact on your town
23:55
or the town that you're looking at and on your finances.
23:58
Yeah, I gotta admit I haven't looked into manufactured homes in quite some time,
24:02
like but there's these c you probably have some misconceptions that you've
24:08
had to tackle regarding this asset class.
24:11
What what do you want to squash regarding misconceptions today?
24:15
Yeah, that's a good good question.
24:17
So, you know, misconception is like especially in mobile home parks,
24:21
is like, man, they're not safe.
24:23
Like, who would want to live there?
24:25
I would never drive through one.
24:27
and I'll tell you, when I bought my first one in twenty twenty one,
24:31
I I'll be honest, I had those misconceptions and I was shaking in my boots when
24:36
I went to meet the tenants and
24:38
the guy actually that was with me,
24:39
he was a maintenance guy that was kind of walking me around all the houses,
24:42
he's like, Why are you shaking?
24:43
Why are you scared? And I was literally shaking.
24:45
I was like, I've never done this before.
24:47
I grew up, you know, middle America and never even thought about driving
24:52
to remobile home park. But, you know,
24:54
what I found out and you talk about misconception.
24:57
Misconception is hey, it's dangerous.
24:58
Like, why would you ever want to live there?
24:59
What I found out when I went and talked to these residents and you know,
25:03
as we've done more and more land home deals
25:06
is all of these people that live in these homes are just like me and you.
25:10
They want a good roof over their head,
25:12
they want their family to be taken care of.
25:14
They're they want to live the American dream and home ownership.
25:17
And this is their pathway to that,
25:19
right? And so, you know, they're no different than us.
25:22
They're just a lot of people just different,
25:24
maybe different economic class,
25:26
right? Or they're just starting.
25:27
and so I I I would say take that misconception that
25:31
Hey, this is like I would never do this,
25:33
this is not safe, it's not good quality.
25:36
and throw that out and think, Hey,
25:38
these are these is a really solid opportunity.
25:42
The people that live here are good people that just wanna want a good life like
25:46
we do.
25:46
Y you're saying that if we pull into a trailer park for assessment,
25:49
we shouldn't expect the trailer park boys?
25:53
You should not expect them. Not in my experience.
25:55
Ha ha ha.
25:55
Now,
25:56
are there bad apples? Yes, there's bad apples,
25:58
but there's bad apples everywhere,
25:59
right? But I'd
26:00
You're right.
26:01
say nine out of ten, you're you're gonna be all right.
26:03
I you also mentioned the the it talked about the importance of showing up.
26:08
What do you mean by showing up in when it comes to day to day business?
26:12
Yeah, showing up day in and day out.
26:14
That's just being consistent, doing what you say you're gonna do and just show
26:18
up day one, day two, day a hundred,
26:20
day a thousand and you'll see success.
26:23
I've seen it and I've seen, you know,
26:25
people around me who say they wanna be involved in real estate and maybe they show
26:29
up once a month or maybe they show up once every six months.
26:32
And if you look at me, two thousand twenty six today,
26:37
I started in two thousand twenty one.
26:39
And I didn't know anything about real estate.
26:41
I was a corporate marketer and but I showed up every day.
26:45
I learned every day and I was consistent and I've been able to grow a
26:48
a good size portfolio. We did fifty land home deals last year,
26:52
we'll do a hundred this year. and that's with no one providing me any money.
26:56
It's just showing up every day,
26:59
learning, networking, talking to people and doing doing what I said I was gonna do.
27:03
I think I saw it somewhere too that you're planning a pretty big project.
27:07
Can you tell a little bit about that?
27:08
Which project is that? Is that like a
27:09
Well, I saw something about
27:10
a larger twenty lot neighborhood development.
27:13
Is that true?
27:14
Yeah, so we're
27:15
working on so we're working on some land home developments where we subdivide.
27:20
So when we started we're doing and it's a great way to start,
27:23
we're doing a lot of scattered lots and we still are doing scattered lots,
27:26
but we've gotten more and more into subdivides where we'll take a piece
27:31
of land and maybe it's ten acres and we'll subdivide that into ten lots
27:36
or maybe fifteen lots. And so we've got a lot of those on tap that we're working on.
27:40
They take a little bit longer,
27:41
so that's not a
27:42
a great way to start if you're day one.
27:45
but as you get more and more experience it's nice to to be able to work
27:48
in one location.
27:50
Yeah. It's probably can different to contingencies and everything then too,
27:54
right? Like you is there like do they share like do you do you make a big
27:59
w well to to handle it all? Do you like how does all that come together?
28:05
Yeah, so you gotta go through engineering,
28:07
stormwater engineering, county approvals for the wells,
28:11
we do individual wells, but in some areas of the country you'll do a shared well.
28:14
you gotta do roads and infrastructure.
28:16
So yeah, it's it's quite a bit different.
28:18
Typically, you know, whereas we can close on a single lot pretty quick within thirty
28:23
days or faster on a subdividing parcel,
28:28
it's typically gonna be four to seven months of work to
28:31
get to the finish line so that you can close on it and then start developing it.
28:35
Well, Robert, this has been a fantastic conversation.
28:38
before we dive into the rapid fire and start closing out this episode,
28:41
is there anything else we should have tried to hit on?
28:43
No, I think you've done a great job.
28:45
I'd love the questions. I think you know,
28:47
I'd I I would leave you we'll we'll leave you with it before we get
28:50
in the rapid fires. I I'd love that show up,
28:52
right? And just be consistent.
28:54
And if you're consistent you're gonna win.
28:55
Well, if you're ready we'll dive into the rapid fire and start closing
28:58
out this episode.
29:00
Let's do it.
29:02
What lie do real estate investors often tell themselves?
29:05
that it's gonna be financially successful.
29:07
I I would say, you know, talking yourself talking yourself into a deal that
29:11
you shouldn't do.
29:12
If you could go back in time and give your younger self a piece of advice,
29:15
what would it be?
29:16
Start early.
29:16
Do you have a book recommendation or what are you reading right now?
29:20
I really have enjoyed Dan Martell's Buyback Your Time.
29:22
It's a great book. and in process of of reading it again.
29:26
I've read it twice and wanna read it again.
29:29
And finally, what single process or tool have you implemented that
29:33
has had the biggest time saving impact?
29:35
Time saving for us. We use project management software and that's really saved
29:39
a ton of time. just getting us out of spreadsheets.
29:42
and that's really helped a lot.
29:43
The other thing is and I'm sure everybody mentions it on your on your show here
29:47
is AI is using and not using AI just to ask questions,
29:51
but using AI to actually complete work.
29:54
I use Claude and Manus most of the time,
29:57
but that's had a huge impact on just efficiency,
30:00
things that
30:01
Developing a pro forma, for example,
30:03
that would take me days or weeks even,
30:05
can be done and I mean it still takes time if you're gonna do it right,
30:09
but you know, could be done in minutes and tweaked in hours.
30:13
Yeah, and just to remind everybody,
30:15
if you need some help implementing some of these solutions,
30:18
you can always hit me up at real dealcrew dot com.
30:21
But with that being said, you can learn more at w about Robert
30:27
and Sons at Howllandandsons.com.
30:30
That's howlandsons dot com.
30:33
I'm going to have that as a clickable link in the show notes.
30:35
Again, I really appreciate your time,
30:38
Robert. This was great to meet you,
30:39
and I hope you'll consider coming back again real soon.
30:43
Love it, Jack. Appreciate it and I'll be back any time you you'll have me.