MHP Brokers Tips and Tricks Podcast, Ryan Narus Interview

In this episode of The MHP Broker’s Tips and Tricks podcast, Maxwell Baker, president of The Mobile Home Park Broker, interviewed Ryan Narus, a syndicator and the owner of multiple mobile home parks. Ryan discussed the many ways that digital automation has improved the business for himself and his team.

This and every Tips and Tricks podcast episode is brought to you by The MHP Broker’s’  proprietary Community Price Maximizer. Use this four-step system to get the highest price possible for your mobile home park or RV community when you sell it through The MHP Broker. Guaranteed. Ask Max for details.

Here Are the Show Highlights:

• Max interviewed Ryan Narus, the owner of 74 mobile home parks, with some 4,000 total lots, in six southeast U.S. states. (Max, 0:22)
• The interview primarily focused on Ryan’s success with automation, especially with the digital application Rent Manager. (Max, 2:02)
• While some might think of automation as the technology that kills jobs and replaces workers with robots, Ryan sees an entirely different side, one in which today’s digital technology can improve productivity and even create jobs in the long run. (Ryan, 3:27)
• Ryan first got into computer programming and his appreciation for automation in pursuing his bachelors and MBA degrees at Wake Forest University, especially while studying business analytics. Therefore, he’s never had a fear of encroaching technology, and sees the multiple benefits. That’s why he embraced Rent Manager, an application that automates much of the day-to-day duties of mobile home park management, as soon as he explored it. (Ryan, 4:02)
• Ryan even found drawing up lot leases, a particularly labor-intensive park management job, to be fast and easy and more efficient with Rent Manager. (Ryan, 5:09)
• Such menial tasks as lease signings and termination agreements and recording the handover of keys are now automated, so Ryan’s park managers don’t have to knock on doors. By signing certain automated documents, residents leaving voluntarily can be reminded to turn in keys so park managers don’t have to chase them down and the former residents don’t get mistakenly labeled as being evicted. (Ryan, 5:58)
• Ryan estimates that today about 95 percent of the time spent on his company’s books and most of his accounting is automated. And he never has to handle checks or money orders. (Ryan, 6:29)
• Ryan saw the benefits when nearly everyone in his workforce came down with COVID at one time or another, and he no longer had the manpower to do the many small tasks that could be automated. With Rent Manager, his team and investors get daily automated reports that land in their inboxes every day by the time they awake. It was also during this time when Ryan came to appreciate Metron, the digital water management system his company’s mobile home parks use. Metron eliminates the act of physically reading meters, tabulating and turning in data, and billing residents. And residents benefit from the daily data by not receiving surprise water bills at the end of the month, due to the accumulated cost of undiscovered leaks. (Ryan, 7:08)
• Ryan hasn’t laid off a single employee as a result of the automation his company now relies upon. Instead, workers who no longer have to take on the tedious everyday tasks the automation can better handle now have the time to focus on their talents and the work they really want to pursue. (Ryan :40)
• The training on Rent Manager is immersive. Ryan lets his employees learn and improve on the system by doing, even though there is almost always initial frustration on his workers’ part. He mentioned that the app also offers Rent Manager University, an advanced training service if employees need it. (Ryan, 9:42)
• Metron’s WaterScope software is especially valued by Ryan and his company. With it, they get daily data on everything the water meters show, such as water usage per gallon, per minute, per unit. This immediately alerts park operators to unusual water usage, and potential leaks or unwarranted excessive use (such as from filling pools). (Ryan, 13:19)
• Ryan pays about $7 a month per meter for the new meter system, including data reading and alerts. (Ryan, 19:44)
• Ryan related an unwanted memory from the pre-technology days when he had to take a day’s drive from Spartanburg to Charlotte to physically read meters at a park in the pouring rain. He first had to pump mud and rain off of the meters so he could read them and got bit by ants in the process. This contrasts with today’s method of getting daily automated readings as an email or text message. (Ryan, 19:56)
• As for Ryan’s book reading habits, he tends to jump from book to book and read several at a time. Favorites right now include The Referral Engine: Teaching Your Business to Market Itself, by John Jantsch, and Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World, by Cal Newport. And anything by Robert Greene. (Ryan, 22:09)
• Check out Ryan’s own podcast, Mobile Home Parks in Real Life. (Ryan, 25:06)

Want to learn more about automation in manufactured home communities or othere strategies for business improvement? Drop Max a line at info@themhpbroker.com or give him a call at 678-932-0200.

Power Quotes in This Episode:

 “I have Metron to read the meters and automatically upload meter (data) to me and automatically tell me if they think somebody has a leak, which has saved people hundreds of dollars in water bills.” (Ryan, 7:08)

“(With Metron) “…every business day, my employees and my fellow investors and owners, they have reports that hit their inbox at 2am. So, they wake up early at 5am. Guess what? Reports waiting for them, they don’t even have to turn on Rent Manager. It’s sitting there waiting.” (Ryan, 7:08)

“What (the Metron conversion) has done is made my employees happier and more productive because they don’t have to do stuff they don’t want to do like scan 100,000 money orders. So yeah, it’s been fun. I like the robot.” (Ryan, 8:40)

“…just like learning Spanish or French or whatever, like (employee expertise with the automation) ain’t happening in an afternoon.” (Ryan, 12:03)

“You’re removing menial tasks, replacing that with the robot, allowing people to be more productive and more happy.” (Ryan, 17:28)

00:02

Hello and welcome to the mobile home park brokers tips and tricks. This is the podcast where we talk about mobile home park investing, because that’s what we’ve been involved in for the last decade. Let’s dive into today’s episode. Here’s your host, Maxwell Baker.

00:22 Maxwell Baker

Hey y’all welcome to another beautiful episode of the mobile home park brokers tips and tricks, podcast. As always, this episode is brought to you by the community price Maximizer. It is our proprietary system that will guarantee you a higher price. When you exclusively list your community with us for Step Program. Give us a call. Today, y’all I am excited to announce that we have one of the largest park owners here in the southeast. Ryan Narus, who actually owns as of today, I think 4000 Lots. So, congrats on that man, thanks and 74 communities, and is in six different states here in the southeast. So, Ryan, welcome to the show, man. Thanks for joining. We’ve been trying to we’ve been talking about this for a long time, we finally got you on the podcast. So, I’m grateful that you could make some time for me.

01:15 Ryan Narus

Long time coming. True story. So, we’re recording this in 2022. I actually wrote an episode for max to come on my podcast in 2018 and we still haven’t gotten around to it. So what he says is a long time coming. He’s not getting it’s been years.

01:30 Maxwell Baker

Yeah, I mean, I was drowning in operations, and was just trying to just fire things off as best I could and now that the dust is settled, I mean, you know how it is man when you’re in like blitz operation, like, I mean, I barely had enough time to wipe my own butt. So, there you go.

01:47 Ryan Narus

It’s easy for stuff to slip out of control and we’re going to talk a little bit about how to handle that later today. I think you have some great topics for us to hit but, yeah, no, look we’re here now, we’re older and wiser have more wisdom to share. So, I dig it and I’m excited.

02:02 Maxwell Baker

Yeah, man. So today, we are going to go over automation is here for park management. Ryan actually does several cool things, and actually presented at the Rent Manager conference, talked about what he does. So really, what we’re going to do is kind of dissect his tactics on automation and how he’s using Rent Manager. So, Ryan, let’s talk about it. So, first thing is, how’s the setup? How do people pay you? Do you send out emails, it sounds like you did some eblasts. We talked a little bit about before we come in on. So, I mean, take us a journey from A to Z on onboarding payments and eviction notices that kind of jazz and we’ll kind of like start asking questions in between.

02:48 Ryan Narus

Love it! Let’s, start from a real general standpoint. And when you hear the word automation, typically it comes with a negative connotation, because generally the media portrays automation as a bad thing. Like it’s coming for people’s jobs, right? So…

03:07 Maxwell Baker

Yeah

03:08 Ryan Narus

…you know, machines and manufacturing people, swinging hammers are now being replaced with a robot and a computer program and not going down the rabbit hole of arguing well, if you look at the Industrial Revolution, or the agricultural revolution, it left us all economically better off…

03:26 Maxwell Baker

Yeah

03:27 Ryan Narus

…and more productive and actually eventually created more jobs in the long run at the cost of less jobs in the short run. So won’t even go down that rabbit hole.

03:39 Maxwell Baker

(Laughs)

03:40 Ryan Narus

Clearly Max, where I fall on this argument is I am with, if you’re a terminator fan, you better believe I’m rooting for Skynet in the middle of Terminator, like the robots are here. I’m at the front. I’m like, look, if you decided humans aren’t efficient anymore, go ahead and take me, I don’t care

03:57 Maxwell Baker

(Laughs)

03:58 Ryan Narus

Let’s go, the robots are the best man, just wonderful!

04:01 Maxwell Baker

I love it!

04:02 Ryan Narus

So, from a very generalistic standpoint, I have a slight computer programming background. So just briefly about me, I went to Wake Forest University undergrad and for my MBA. My undergrad was in psychology and my master’s degree, obviously in business, but I had concentrations and operations in business analytics statistics. For those of you that are stats nerds out there, you know, you have to do a lot of computer programming, you have to do a lot of you’re going to do Monte Carlo simulations 10,000 times and take it to the moon in terms of how many times you’re iterating something so you can get a proper bell curve or poise on curve or whatever you’re trying to measure. So, in other words, I’ve had to learn Excel and macros and SQL and Tableau and C++ and all this other stuff. So, I could not necessarily go out and write new computer programming, which I have done in limited spaces, but at least when you have something like a rent manager, I’m super comfortable going in and trying to figure out what rent manager can and can’t do and how can make my business easier.

05:09

So, for years, I’ve done things like figure out how you can use rent manager to code out things like lot leases, or if you’re in Florida, like I am, the prospectus because the difficult thing about a prospectus in Florida is you need VINs, years, makes, models, all this stuff, and it’s like 96 pages long, or at least mine is. When you can use a user defined field within rent manager and pull things and stuff automatically and have it e-signable, or at least just pulled the VINs and the years and the lot leases   and have it done by a computer, you are cutting down on time a human spends, you’re cutting down on errors a human will make, and it just makes everything more efficient.

05:58

So, just random things I do you know, obviously, you sign leases, lease termination agreements, have you ever had someone leave your community, not hand you keys and not even tell you, but then you get them on the phone? They’re like, yeah, I moved out, well, what if you could get that person to sign a lease cancellation form. So, they have something in writing that they left, you have something in writing that you left and you’re now welcome to go into the unit. Not that they disappeared off the face of the earth? I don’t know if they’re there or not. Now, sadly, I have to put an eviction on your record permanently, because I don’t know if you’re gone or not.

06:28 Maxwell Baker

Yeah

06:29 Ryan Narus

Right? like to be able to do stuff like that remotely and I used COVID as an excuse to go and program a lot of stuff. It’s been incredible max. I’ll give you probably my favorite automation beyond the books because, I’d say 95% of my books are handled by a robot. Not only just that, you know, my accounting is almost exclusively handled by a robot with the exception of credit cards. The really cool thing is, I don’t have to touch money orders or checks anymore.

06:57 Maxwell Baker

That’s nice!

06:58 Ryan Narus

It is amazing. I’ll tell you why because, I believe every single person in my organization came down with COVID at one point, and had to quarantine…

07:07 Maxwell Baker

Yeah

07:08 Ryan Narus

…for a couple of weeks and when you don’t have to wait for someone to go to the rent box, or go to the office and pick something up and scan stuff and by the way, you have 1000 checks to scan and it’s going to be at least one error for people that go to Walmart and pay or pay online for me to you know, go through rent manager and figure out how to code so it automatically texts and emails everybody their balance. So, I have Metatron to read the meters and automatically upload meters to me and automatically tell me if they think somebody has a leak, which has saved people hundreds of dollars in, in water bills. What this has done for me, Max, and everyone listening again, is I have embraced the robot I have taken the time I’ve wanted to throw my laptop out the window a million times I’m sure everybody at the rent manager support line recognizes my number when it calls, but I fought those battles. Like I say on my podcast, anything you do, anytime that you spend that will allow you to save time in the future is worth your time and learning how a computer program software like Rent Manager works, where it can automate and do things for you in your sleep like KPIs and reporting. I have every business day, my employees and my fellow investors and owners, they have reports that hit their inbox at 2am. So, they wake up early at 5am. Guess what reports waiting for them, they don’t even have to turn on Rent Manager. It’s sitting there waiting.

08:38 Maxwell Baker

Nice! I like that.

08:40 Ryan Narus

Yes, Max in a very, very long-winded way I have embraced the robot and I have not laid anyone off or not hired someone because of it. What it’s allowed me to do is allow people to focus on two things, what they are good at, and what they want to do. What that’s done is made my employees happier and more productive because they don’t have to do stuff they don’t want to do like scan 100,000 money orders. So yeah, it’s been fun. I like the robot.

09:08 Maxwell Baker

Yeah, man. There’s a lot of similarities on the brokerage side that we do. But yeah, I hear what you’re saying. So well, one of the things that I was going to ask you about, if somebody wanted to learn all these tips and tricks, how would they go about it? Do they just go to rent manager? Or are they you know, because I’m sure you don’t need to be handling calls from a lot of our listeners here (laughs) asking you how to automate everything that’s not your specialty, or your specialty is making money for a lot of these people that didn’t mess with you.

09:37 Ryan Narus

Right.

09:37 Maxwell Baker

So, like what’s that journey look like on how to learn all these tactics.

09:42 Ryan Narus

So, if you’re a fan of Stranger Things, I believe it was Season Two, I believe is when the quote I’m about to pull, but they’re in Hawkins the creepy little building or whatever and hoppers about to go and you know, fight through the demi Gorgons and what’s his face is like, Oh, you have to recode the computer when you get there, and hoppers like, alright, teach me coding. He’s like, do you want me to teach a French at the same time? (laughs) I guess that’s how this works, right? The thing of it is, you know, just like Rosetta Stone, or Duolingo, or courses or immersion by, you know, you move to Paris, it just takes time. I can show you where to click, you can go to Rent Manager University, which is outstanding, you can go to things like the rent manager conference, which we just alluded to earlier. The truth of the matter is, there’s nothing more educational than just being so angry that you want to throw your laptop out the window, because guess what a lot of computer programming is, it’s a lot of logic, but it’s a lot like putting the semicolon in the right place, or accidentally hitting the space in between the semicolon in the end of the code. Then the whole thing doesn’t work and you’re like going through lines of code, and you’re like, Oh, my God, everything makes logical sense. Where’s the frickin error? then after an hour, you’re like, oh, my gosh, I have an extra space between the semicolon in the end where I press Enter, and then the whole thing doesn’t work. You will never make that mistake again.

11:16 Maxwell Baker

Yeah

11:18 Ryan Narus

You spend an hour being incredibly angry at your computer. So, there’s nothing that will educate you more than like, doing it yourself and having patience. I know that’s not the answer anybody wants to hear but, putting in the time is worth it. I’ll let you all know how I train my employees. Right. So that’s the next logical question. Well, what do you do about your employees? I have lots of manuals with lots of photos with lots of here, there, or the other place for my employees and I have a Archimedes Group Policy, which is you move in somebody you move out somebody you screen somebody, you anything you do within rent manager, you do it not me, I’m not doing it for you, you do it, but then you email me what you did.

12:02 Maxwell Baker

Yeah

12:03 Ryan Narus

Then I will double check in my spare time to make sure things are correct. Things have been done, right. I gotta tell you, having someone have to get really, really, really, really angry, but then they have my little manual sitting next to them, and then figuring it out in time and then doing it 50 times they become naturals in time. So, you can do that, too. There is nothing better than having a live example fighting through it yourself. But just like learning Spanish, or French or whatever, like it ain’t happening in an afternoon.

12:33 Maxwell Baker

Yeah, man, that was a quote that I tell a lot of my team members, it’s fail fast fail often fail forward. I mean, that’s just what you got to do when you don’t know how to do shit. You know, failure is the best educator. I think being resourceful runs parallel with that and does exactly what you described.

12:50 Ryan Narus

Yeah

12:50 Maxwell Baker

I think just spending the time figuring it out, makes you appreciate it. Then whenever you’re done, you can look back and be like, damn, we’ve come a long way. We did some really cool stuff here. Now the whole thing is automated. So like, that’s amazing, man,

13:08 Ryan Narus

Thanks!

13:09 Maxwell Baker

I’m clapping, clapping for you here because that’s pretty, that’s pretty cool that you figured that out. You said something about the Metronic automated stuff. So can you kind of dissect that a little bit?

13:19 Ryan Narus

Metro, and I’ve barely even scratched the surface with them but, I’m a big fan of their stuff. They actually even have a lot of municipalities that work with them, too. So, it’s not just the manufactured housing space. I mean, it’s real simple. They have the meters, they work on data, so they’re not reliant on Wi Fi. It’s like effectively a text message a day that they will send out to their system WaterScope. The cool thing about water scope is it’ll give you all sorts of great data. One of my favorite bits of data that they shoot out daily is what the minimum and maximum usage per gallon per minute per unit. So, for example, if you had someone who had 1000 gallons be used in a 24-hour period, which to put this in perspective, I have seen the average range for a normal mobile home park to be between 2000-7000 gallons a month, call it the average is 3000 to 4000 depending on x, y and z. So, if you figured 90% of your people fall between 2000-7000 gallons a month, and someone uses 1000 gallons in 24 hours in a day filled up a pool, which by the way, my manager is going to be there to make sure you’re not filling up pool because we do not allow those or you gotta leak.

14:44

The fascinating thing about WaterScope again, I am scratching the surface with this because there’s a whole lot more. It’ll tell you a minimum and a maximum because typically when you then send a text message, email or phone call to someone and say, Hey, we’ve detected a pretty aggressive leak. It’s usually met, if you can, believe it, not well, people get mad.

15:05 Maxwell Baker

Yeah

15:06 Ryan Narus

It’s like, dude, I’m calling you to help you, you knucklehead! What do you mean you’re mad, you’re angry, there’s no leak, I walked around the home, I checked under the home, there’s no leak. The intermittent leaks are death by 1000 cuts.

15:17 Maxwell Baker

Yeah

15:18 Ryan Narus

The cool thing that WaterScope does, it’ll say min and max. So, in other words, a great example of an intermittent leak is your maximum leakage is three gallons a minute, which might not sound like a lot, but your minimum will be zero gallons a minute and you go well, that’s interesting. What does that mean? What that probably means is once every five minutes or so, your toilet just fills itself back up. and what does that mean? Well, that means if you go to work or you’re asleep, or you’re on vacation, it’s going to add up. It turns out, if you just go and replace the flap, all of a sudden your 1000 gallon a day leak goes down to effectively zero.

15:58 Maxwell Baker

Yeah

15:59 Ryan Narus

What WaterScope will do if you code it to do and it’s not difficult, like it’s literally clicking a button on waterscope.com You can have it email you certain thresholds. I’m proud to report my entire portfolio is down to four people right now who have, I set it at 500 gallons a day, I have four people who have what I believe to be leaks out of 1000s of residents, all because of Metron.

16:27

It’s not only that Max, you can also have it pushed to rent manager whatever software you have. So if you are in the place that allows you to bill back well water or water water and or sewer or septic, you can program your rent manager or whatever you’re using to calculate gallon usage. All you have to do is it make the click of a button. It’ll do it all for you. Now I force it by the way, I force it to push the numbers there and wait for me to go in and click it. What that allows me to do is make sure there’s no errors or you know, someone doesn’t have a $20,000 bill or something crazy but, again, like to be able to do that, you know, without having to wait on a human being to go and read those meters and then write them down. Then maybe they wrote that guy’s meter down and not this person’s or is that a six or a nine or an eight or a one, you know, to have the robot handle it, it saves you time, and it allows it doesn’t replace a human being. It allows that human being to go from a menial task to a more meaningful task.

17:27 Maxwell Baker

Yeah

17:28 Ryan Narus

That allows a human to extract more meaning and purpose from what they do because they’re doing a higher value activity more skilled necessary to achieve X, Y or Z activity. So, you’re removing menial tasks, replacing that with the robot allowing people to be more productive and more happy.

17:46 Maxwell Baker

Yes. So, couple of things on the metro and stuff. How what’s the lifespan on those because I’ve been I’ve been reading; I’m actually going through it on my park right now. One of the parks we have and I was like five to seven years, they start to read a little slower, something like how does that work with Metron?

18:03 Ryan Narus

That’s a question for Metron. So, what I will say is everything has an expiration date. Yeah, right humans, the earth for crying out loud in like three or four billion years, the Earth is gonna get engulfed by the sun, like everything has an expiration date. So, eventually, they will fail. Now in terms of when or how frequently or the setting the other thing, like I’ve had tons and tons and tons of properties with with tons and tons of different types of meters, and different arrangements, and I have found they fail, Metron and meters fail a lot less frequently and they’re a lot easier to fix. That being said, they will fail, everything’s going to fail. In terms of when it comes time to go and replace all of them is you run into the same thing with septic tanks. I mean, you talk to one DHEC guy says septic tanks need to be replaced every 20 years he talked to another he says 50. I have properties where I have septic tanks that are older than that.

18:59 Maxwell Baker

Yeah

19:00 Ryan Narus

They’re champions. So, you know, you never really know, you just got to weigh your options. I’ve got to say, you know, I’ve tried about everything out there. For me and my company, Metron has been the best.

19:11 Maxwell Baker

What does it cost per lot to do the Metron stuff because I’ve seen a couple of like, there’s one company up in Tennessee we’re talking to and they’re like, Oh, well, we’ll pay for the meters, you have to pay for the install. I mean, it’s one of the smaller parks, and it’s like 31 Lots and they were like for the whole thing. It was like $6500-$7,000 sounds like that’s kind of low, maybe a little crazy. So, I’m just curious what your opinion is about those pay later free meter, kind of metering things that I’ve been seeing from the couple of companies out there?

19:44 Ryan Narus

You technically rent the meters or the situation that I have is I’m technically leasing the meters and I get charged like I don’t know, whatever X number of bucks a month. I think I budget seven bucks a month or a meter.

19:55 Maxwell Baker

Mm-hmm

19:56 Ryan Narus

It’s just more administrative costs. But again, you Here’s a question because I used to have paid folks to run around and read water meters and me myself with our countryside mobile home park way back in the day, I used to read the meters, believe it or not, when you and I first met years ago, Ian and I would trade every other month going and reading the water meters ourselves. I remember one time it was pouring down rain, the meter boxes were full, and I had to carry with me an Umbrella like this, a hand pump, I didn’t even have like an electronic pump, I had to actually pump 60 plus meters out manually, and then wipe them off with because they’re all covered with mud and then write it down and hope it didn’t Well, I think didn’t get rained on and I got bit by ants while I was doing that, you know, and that’s a day to drive down to Spartanburg from Charlotte, and then another hour to kind of go back and read my chicken scratch and you know, then, oh, some of them you’re like, dude, this person has a $10,000 water bill, I obviously read something wrong, you know, at the end of the day, like is it more expensive to do Metron or one of those that you’re talking about, you know, pay later kind of thing, dude it all comes back to the time. I’m gonna say, you know, spending time having coffee with a mobile home park owner who might sell you his or her mobile home park one day is always going to be a better use of your time. If you want to grow, than, you know, going and fighting through reading meters. So you know, I haven’t spent much time to answer you directly, Max, a bunch of new companies are doing some really cool things. By the way. I’m pretty married to Metatron at this point but, you know, Matt, no matter what you do, I think the overarching point is, you know, the cost at the end of the day almost becomes negligible. If you’re winning back your time.

21:43 Maxwell Baker 

Yeah, the time value of money. I mean, your time is worth, I mean, your hourly wage is much higher than it would be, you know, reading meters in the rain…

21:50 Ryan Narus

Right

21:51 Maxwell Baker

…with your inference. So, I can totally see that. One of the things I ask everybody that comes on the show is what are you reading right now?

21:59 Ryan Narus

Oh, I never am reading one thing at a time. Let me let me pose a problem.

22:03 Maxwell Baker

Yeah, I have the same problem!

22:04 Ryan Narus

I just finished Deep Work, which was really good…

22:08 Maxwell Baker

Heard of that one

22:09 Ryan Narus

…been on my list for a long, long time. I’m reading a couple different things I just finished Robert Greene’s not his most recent one, which of course, I’m gonna blank on the moment, but it was just absolutely outstanding. I’m Robert Greene’s probably my favorite author. I just finished Deep Work, which definitely opened up my eyes because, I’ve been using his concepts for a long, long time but, actually taking the time to read the book was huge. Then I think what I have on Deck is the Referral Engine. I’ve had that being a former salesperson. I’ve had that on my list forever but, I got a bug ADD, man.

22:47 Maxwell Baker

Yeah, I have the same problem.

22:49 Ryan Narus

I can’t just read one book at a time. I’ve got to have multiple things going.

22:53 Maxwell Baker

Yeah, cuz you get bored. One of the books I’m reading right now. They said, look, if you don’t like reading the book that you it’s in front of you, like you don’t have to finish it.

23:01 Ryan Narus

Yeah

23:02 Maxwell Baker

You can just put it down and move on to the next one. Because if it sucks, like, sometimes I used to have this problem where I’m like, I had to grind through it or like now I’m gonna finish it. I want to finish everything I start kind of mentality. If the book sucks, man, you ain’t got to do that. So, (laughs) it’s been the evolution over here the last few years.

23:19 Ryan Narus

That’s some of the hardest advice to take, though, because I’m the same way. I’m like, No, I have to say I finished it.

23:24 Maxwell Baker 

Yeah but, if it’s sucks dude, move on.

23:27 Ryan Narus

Yeah

23:27 Maxwell Baker

There’s some really good books out there that everybody tells me I should read and I read. There’s kind of don’t have my phone on me or I’ll tell you, but that book was really boring. It’s just about how New York became New York with the politics. It’s called The Power Broker. That’s what it’s called. But it’s a very interesting book about how, dude, I mean, I’m a broker. So, I anything that talks about putting deals together and putting people together, I kind of perk up but…

23:53 Ryan Narus

Yeah

23:54 Maxwell Baker

…it’s such a hard read but, yeah so, that’s cool man. I have to checkout Deep Work. I’ve heard of that. Are you a Ryan Holiday fan?

23:59 Ryan Narus

I am, I just finished about six months ago, one of his I think it was his first one. But yeah, no, he’s the man.

24:07 Maxwell Baker

Yeah, I try to read before our sales team, we read the Daily stoic before we talk about…

24:13 Ryan Narus

Yep

24:14 Maxwell Baker

…deal flow stuff. We always redo a passage from there. It helps man because Ego is a hell of a drug, right? (laughs)

24:20 Ryan Narus

You and I had that conversation. I remember you and I talked about that at length in New Orleans a bunch of years ago.

24:25 Maxwell Baker

Yeah

24:26 Ryan Narus

You’re right. You have to find a way to best yourself and yeah, like ‘The obstacle is the way’, Marcus Aurelius, right? Gosh, that’s just such a wonderful quote as a fellow entrepreneur and other entrepreneurs listening in that’s, that’s entrepreneurship, in a nutshell

24:41 Maxwell Baker

It is!

24:42 Ryan Narus

I don’t know how to do this. I’m just gonna go figure it out.

24:45 Maxwell Baker

Exactly. So, we can wrap it up here. Tell us a little bit about if somebody wants to invest in what you’re doing. Y’all may or may not know, but Ryan is a syndicator. I’m not too sure if you’re syndicating deals these day or have a fund but if you want to give a little description of what you got going on happy to see if we can get some more people to give you a shout.

25:06 Ryan Narus

I appreciate that. Look, I’m always looking to meet new folks, I ain’t hard to find, just like Tupac, like one of my favorite rappers of all time used to say ‘I ain’t hard to find’. My name is Ryan Narus. You google me, my LinkedIn shows up first or my website one of the two you can reach out to me either way, I have a podcast myself Mobile Home Parks in Real Life, which Max is going to come on here pretty soon finally,

25:30 Maxwell Baker

Yeah baby!

25:30 Ryan Narus

Been a long time coming and look, whether you partner with me on something or I just give you advice, or we just chit chat, I don’t care if like I am mobile home park junkie, I am obsessed with it. I love helping my residents and the charity stuff I do on the side and growing a portfolio and helping others grow their portfolios. Like if I get paid, I don’t get paid, I don’t care, I’m an abundance mindset person, I’ve made enough money in my life where I say money isn’t motivating, it’s always going to be motivating, no matter how much of it you have but, it’s not nearly as fascinating as helping others is to me.

26:07 Maxwell Baker

Love it!

26:08 Ryan Narus

Don’t expect anything from you just happy to help period and what I’ll say is like, although I’m not in this moment, raising money, I guarantee another deal ahead at some point in time, and whether that, you know, you jump on with me as an LP or, you know, a JV or I jump on with you as an LP, which I’ve done before, by the way, and it doesn’t even matter if there’s nothing in the next six months, maybe the next six years we’ll be relevant to each other. Look, I ain’t had hard to find and that’s on purpose, because I want to help people and I want to do business with others and I want to watch our asset class succeed and continue to succeed and get better and if that means I don’t get paid, I don’t care. So, come find me. I’m a Southeastern kind of guy. So, if you’re in the southeast, in Charlotte, specifically come hang out. I do a monthly mobile home park meet up here in Charlotte too. So, lots of ways you can partner with me or hang out with me or talk to me or anything and just you don’t owe me a penny. I’m happy to help!

27:04 Maxwell Baker

Nice Ryan, appreciate it. As always, we’ll wrap this up. This episode is brought to you by the community price Maximizer. It is our proprietary system that will guarantee you a higher price. When you exclusively list your community with us, four step process. Give us a call (678) 932-0200 or email us at info@themhpbroker.com. Ryan, appreciate your time! Everybody, thanks for listening and let’s keep moving forward!