The MHP Brokers Tips and Tricks Closing Cocktails Interview with Broker Paul Schaaf About Trails West Mobile Home Park

In this episode of The MHP Broker’s  Tips and Tricks Closing Cocktails podcast, Maxwell Baker, president of The Mobile Home Park Broker, chatted withThe MHP Broker’s Paul Schaaf about his recent closing on a mobile home park in Flowery Branch, Georgia.

As with every Tips and Tricks podcast episode, this one 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. Call Max for details.

Here Are the Show Highlights:

• Max asked broker Paul Schaaf to discuss his Trails West Mobile Home Park in Georgia. The park included a little lakefront property on Lake Lanier, a definite feature attraction for prospective buyers. (Max, 00:22)
• Trails West MHP is in Flowery Branch, a very desirable community near Lake Lanier in northern Georgia. It’s got a good school system and home values have skyrocketed. (Paul 1:30)
• The sellers were mostly involved with the development of single-family homes. (Max, 1:44)
• The selling group actually consisted of four investors, which brought added challenges. Paul had to make sure that everyone was on board for every decision and marketing strategy. It was a large and highly ranked park, so selling it was a major endeavor. (Pal, 2:05)
• The property has city water and city sewer, always desirable factors for buyers. The owners had made major investments in infrastructure, including electrical. But there was still ample opportunity for buyers, including the infilling of about 30 lots and rents that were about $200 under market rates. So while a buyer was getting a park in excellent condition, there was still plenty of “meat on the bone” in terms of adding value. (Paul, 2:56)
• The buyers held a short-term loan and made a large down payment to attain seller financing. It was a very smooth transaction and both parties were happy with the outcome. No major hiccups at all.  (Paul, 3:40)
• The buyers were a man and woman who Max had done business with on more than one occasion. In addition to having a good buyer pool, as this sale proves, The MHP Broker takes the competitive edge with great customer service and effective process orientation, the use of relevant data and the ability to put investors and motivated lenders together. (Max, 4:27)
• This deal, with 150 pads, was larger than what Paul usually sees, but he was thrilled to have the opportunity to handle Trails West along with the small and medium-size deals he’s more accustomed to. (Paul, 6:03)
• The brokers at The MHP Broker all have the talent and instincts to form good working relationships with buyers and sellers, which helps them get ahead of any problems that might come up, and move the transaction successfully forward. (Paul, 7:52)

You got a large mobile home park or RV community you’re thinking of putting on the market? Medium? Small? Whatever the size of our manufactured home community, Paul Schaaf and the other brokers at The Mobile Home Broker have the experience and the knack for selling it at your optimal price. Call Paul or Max Baker at (678) 932-0200 or drop us a line at info@themhpbroker.com

Power Quotes in This Episode:

(Regarding this deal) “I think the buyer benefited from all that work, and that was what was appetizing for them. The work was already done and there was still meat on the bone with infilling about 30-some odd lots. The rents were, you know, I want to say $200 below market.” (Paul, 2:56)

”It was just a very smooth transaction…both sides of the table were very satisfied.” (Paul, 3:40)

“Y’all, we have the same buyer pool (as the competitors). It’s really about customer service, and it’s really about knowing the local markets, and it’s really …about the data that we have, that we’ve all dug up personally here at the company, and just the amount of value that we add to the situation. We’ve seen a thing or two. I mean, we’ve got other competitors out there that forget to check whether or not the money’s been deposited in escrow. We’re here at our firm. We’re very, very like clockwork, yeah, systematic, yeah.” (Max, 4:27)

“…we’ve been there and done it and at the end of the day, we’re gonna get the job done.” (Max, 5:21)

“I think that it’s always fun times on these larger deals, and count on us to continue to be in whatever market we’re in. Even with these higher interest rates, we can put deals together that make sense for all parties.” (Paul, 6:39)

“(It’s) our job is to be two, three steps ahead of any catastrophic drama that would affect that deal. That’s why our closing ratio is north of 86 percent. Once we put a deal on our contract, we typically close it because we’ve done impeccable upfront due diligence on your community or communities, and we try and get debt lined up.” (Max, 6:55)

00:00

Hello and welcome to the mobile home park broker’s 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 is 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 with us. Give us a call (678) 932-0200, and today we have Paul Schaaf, who is going to go over another beautiful closing cocktail that we did here in Atlanta, on Lake Lanier. Well, I don’t know if we could qualify it as lakefront, but maybe had like five feet of lakefront on Lake Lanier, but it is lakefront. We’ll call it lakefront. It was a nice sized deal Paul was able to put together. So, Paul, welcome to the show yet again, and congrats on closing the Trails West Mobile Home Park up in Lawrenceville. I know; was it Lawrenceville? What area?

01:21 Paul Schaaf

Flowery Branch

01:23 Maxwell Baker

Flowery Branch. There we go!

01:25 Paul Schaaf

Our good old Atlanta Falcons headquarters.

01:28 Maxwell Baker

That’s right

01:30 Paul Schaaf

Really pretty area. It is growing quite a bit due to everyone wanting to be near Lake. Lanier good schooling system and home values have skyrocketed up there as well so.

01:44 Maxwell Baker

Yeah, the buyer for this definitely had a home run on it. The seller, their background was mostly in development of Single-Family Houses. We actually met him at a dove shoot. Kind of think about it. We had talked about it for a while, and then finally, I don’t know if we got exclusive on this, or was it open, I can’t remember;

02:05 Paul Schaaf

We did, yeah and to your point of, you know, this is a, you know, long time deal development had a lot of commonalities and good network connections and earned the trust of the owners. It was, you know, I think there was four partners, and had to work all throughout those angles and decision-making processes on it, but we made sure that they knew how to market the park properly providing them real time insights on the market, and just tell them where they can add value and make sure that it is going to be presented in the best manner to your top tiered investors because it really was a large size Park rated, you know, what do you think? Three? Three and a half stars, Max?

02:55 Maxwell Baker

Solid Three and a half stars!

02:56 Paul Schaaf

City water, city sewer but they had invested a lot in infrastructure, new roads, electrical, I mean water and sewer, you name it, and a lot of tree work, but that was their background. They were very good at it, and I think the buyer benefited from all that work and that was what was appetizing for them, the work was already done and there was still meat on the bone with infilling about 30 some odd lots. The rents were, you know, I want to say 200 below market.

03:32 Maxwell Baker

Yeah, they were pretty low

03:34 Paul Schaaf

Yeah, but, uh, yeah, win-win for all parties!

03:39 Maxwell Baker

How’d they get financed?

03:40 Paul Schaaf

They held some paper short term and very helpful interest rate. Their main requirement was a heavy down payment to make sure they were paid back on all their resources invested into the deal and were in good positions, you know, financially, to move forward with seller financing. So really good connection and trust between each party. We orchestrated it, and it was just a really smooth transaction. I think, having those relationships in place on both sides of the table and then allowing us to, you know, really captain and run the deal, both sides of the table were very satisfied.

04:27 Maxwell Baker

Yeah man and the buyer, um, it was somebody we had done. I’ve personally done, I don’t know how many deals, a handful, maybe a little more than a handful of deals over my career and he and she are very reputable buyers. So, if you all have a big size deal, like we’ve got buyers for everything, I mean, the brokers out there that tell you, Oh, we’re this, oh, we’re that, we got this buyer pool. Y’all, we have the same buyer pool. It’s really about customer service, and it’s really about knowing the local markets, and it’s really knowing about the data that we have, that we’ve all dug up personally here at the company, and just the amount of value that we add to the to the situation we’ve we’ve seen a thing or two. I mean, we’ve got other competitors out there that forget to check whether or not the money’s been deposited in escrow. We’re here at our firm. We’re very, like clockwork, yeah, systematic.

05:21 Paul Schaaf

For sure, yeah and to that point back, the relationships are constantly, you know, worked on, and if we feel uncomfortable with it, with a relationship, we’re gonna be straightforward with the sellers on Parks and make sure they’re aware of all their surroundings and you know, our goal is just make it as seamless as possible, because these are tricky deals. You know, you can count on us, because we’ve been there and done it, and at the end of the day, you know, we’re going to get the job done.

05:58 Maxwell Baker

So yeah, case in point, we got to close, didn’t we? (laughs)

06:03 Paul Schaaf

For sure, yeah. It’s, you know, we have more repeat business and referrals. People know what we were capable of, and we always enjoy, you know, these, these larger deals and medium and small deals. Everything’s, you know, as its perks to it, this one, I’d say, you know, 150 spaces that those are, those are really nice deals, and we’re looking forward to servicing more of them.

06:34 Maxwell Baker

Yeah, man, any closing comments on this before we wrap it up?

06:39 Paul Schaaf

No, I think that it’s always fun times on these larger deals, and count on us to continue to be in whatever market we’re in, even with these higher interest rates, we can make put deals together. That makes sense for all parties.

06:55 Maxwell Baker

Yeah, definitely. Well, Paul, congrats again on this one, and on to the next one. We’ll get it done man, grateful to work with you and all the work that you did on this one. Every deal’s a little tricky from time to time, just like you said. So, it just, it’s just about being two steps ahead and that’s kind of the thing that we do here at our firm, y’all, all the sellers out there, community owners, is our job is to be two, three steps ahead of any catastrophic drama that would affect that deal. That’s why our closing ratio is north of 86% once we put a deal on our contract, we typically close it because we’ve done impeccable upfront due diligence on your community or communities, and we try and get debt lined up. If it qualifies, make sure the lender is comfortable with it, so we’ve just; what is that all state saying or what we see a thing or two, because we’ve been through a thing or two (laughs) I don’t know what it is (laughs) something along those lines.

07:52 Paul Schaaf

Yeah, I catch your flow, and you know what we we learn from our mistakes, and what we’ve been through it all, so we can prevent a lot of it, and even if they do come up Max like because every deal is different, right? There’s always some unknown. We’re going to be at the forefront and go to battle and figure out a way to resolve it, find a compromise and move forward to the next step, whereas, you know, I think that’s part of the service where, you know, a lot of other brokers can’t really meet that expectation, or they say they can, and they don’t do it. So that’s kind of one of my other parts of this deal was with the permitting they had expired, we just walked, walked it through with the owners. On, hey, this is paramount. We understand that you can go up there and get them renewed easily. However, please work with us and go get these new permits pulled, because that’s really going to get the confidence for the for the buyer to close on this deal and they did, tipped their hats off to them. They were great to work with. Did everything very quickly. I think it really speaks measures to our ability to form these relationships that, hey, they trust us, and there’s really good reasoning behind it, and it’s gonna mutually benefit the buyer and the seller when it comes down to it.

09:25 Maxwell Baker

Yeah, definitely. Well, Paul, congrats again. Thanks for listening, y’all and as always, this episode is brought to you by the Community Price Maximizer y’all, give us a call. Happy to walk you through. You can call Paul. He can walk you through kind of the process and get you to the highest price guaranteed when you exclusively list with us, (678) 932-0200 or email us at info@themhpbroker.com and ask for Paul and he will guide you to the promised land. So, thanks for listening, and let’s keep moving forward!