Unlocking Wealth: 5 Ways Mobile Home Parks Transform Lives

John Harcar (00:01.017)
All right, hey guys, welcome back to our show. I’m your host, John Harcar, and I’m here today with Tim Woodbridge. And what we’re going to talk about besides his real estate journey, which is incredible, we’re to talk about finding really what excites you. What’s your passion, right? So you can get up every day and enjoy yourself. Remember, guys, at Investor Fuel, we help real estate investors, service providers, and really all real estate entrepreneurs, 2 to 5X their business.

We do that by providing the tools and resources to grow and experience that growth, which in turn helps them live the life that they’ve always dreamed of. So Tim, welcome to our show,

Tim Woodbridge (00:38.222)
Thanks, John. Appreciate you having me on here today.

John Harcar (00:42.445)
Yeah, and from our beginning conversation off air, we’ve run from the same grounds, both Southern California boys. And I’m excited to talk about our topic today, right? I think that’s what a lot of people lack is they put maybe more focus on what they can make versus what they really enjoy. But before we talk about all that, tell us about you, your background, kind of what got you into real estate and what got you to today.

Tim Woodbridge (01:09.378)
Yeah, yeah, Californian living in Charleston, South Carolina. Got my degree in nursing from Northern Arizona University in 2012. Was a nurse for a while. Eventually stumbled upon Rich Dad Poor Dad, like everyone seems to. And I was like, shoot, this is how people do it. you know, no one in my family’s rich. Like, hard workers, yeah, but not rich.

And so I was like, okay, well, it just opened my mind to new possibilities. And yeah, so from there, you know, did a deep dive into real estate, listen to Bigger Pockets, Brandon was talking with Frank Rolfe about mobile home parks, and it just, it excited me. It was something, you know, it was, you know, lower expense ratio and sticky tenants and blah, blah, blah, blah. But like, also, it was a little weird and like, okay, so I was kind of a goth kid in high school.

So I was a little weird. That’s just kind of in the heart of me. If everyone’s doing one thing, I’m probably doing something else. And that’s just, that’s just me, you know? And so I, yeah, I just went for it. I saw on mobilehomeparkstore.com, which Frank was talking about, I saw a park that was for sale. That was, you know, an hour, hour 15 from me here in Charleston, South Carolina. And I called the guy up.

John Harcar (02:09.817)
Right?

Tim Woodbridge (02:35.866)
And, you know, he had listed it himself and we just talked. We just had a conversation. I was super nervous. Don’t get me wrong. But it was it was anxiety like beforehand. And then like once we were having the conversation, it was like you and me talking right now. It’s like, we’re just two humans, you know, we’re just trying to to do our best for ourselves and our families. And so, yeah, yeah. You know, long story short.

John Harcar (02:48.941)
Mm-hmm.

Tim Woodbridge (03:03.874)
We came to an agreed upon price. We bought it. It was very difficult to buy as a new investor in a mostly vacant, know, 10 of 36 occupied mobile home park, but we did it. We did it, you know? And since then we have, you know, I’ve built my portfolio and now it’s our portfolio. Cause I’ve got a whole team working with me.

John Harcar (03:19.342)
Mm-hmm.

Tim Woodbridge (03:31.086)
to 16 parks and 589 pads and we love the asset class. Love it, love it. I’m doing my best to buy everything in the southeast and eventually midwest.

John Harcar (03:43.481)
That’s awesome. And you kind of took away the what I was going to ask like, you know, what was that first thing about real estate? And you said, Rich Dad, Poor Dad, you know, it talks about real estate, but were there any other influences, friends, family members, someone that was in real estate that maybe planted that seed before or anything at all?

Tim Woodbridge (04:07.98)
I mean, I had seen like HD, HGTV stuff like flipping and like, I remember a doctor friend of mine, who I worked with his wife was a nurse turned flipper. And so I was like, that’s so cool. But I never pursued it. I never really pursued that at all. But no, no one I know is really into it. My uncle owns some rentals, but like didn’t do anything more than like

buy some rentals. And yeah, was crazy. mean, it was so funny. You know, when I read Rich Dad Poor Dad, that was my whole thing was like, this is how people get rich. This is how I can get rich. It wasn’t anything more sophisticated than that. I’m like, well, you know, okay, like the veil has been lifted, you know, the wizard behind the curtain, like I see, this is what they do. And so my intention was just,

John Harcar (04:39.362)
Okay.

John Harcar (05:02.616)
Mm-hmm.

Tim Woodbridge (05:05.78)
I want to get rich, you know? There’s nothing sophisticated about it. This is what I’m gonna do and this is the vehicle I’m gonna do it.

John Harcar (05:16.461)
When you started doing this, mean, you, so you, rich dad, poor dad, you said he went on to bigger pockets, right? And you, learned about mobile home parks. I mean, did you do anything else in real estate or did you just shoot straight to mobile home park?

Tim Woodbridge (05:29.806)
I took a lot of time, a lot of time, I don’t know, less than six months probably, so not that much time, but like trying to figure out what excites me, what my vehicle is. So it’s like, everyone started with wholesaling, so I thought about wholesaling. I didn’t really do much with wholesaling. At this point, I did a little bit later and I crash and burn, we can talk about that. So, you know, I just…

tried to figure out what I liked, what I did, or what I wanted to do. And so like I dabbled, I read up on things, but it didn’t really take action until I found Mobile Home Parks and called the guy who had listed his.

John Harcar (06:14.475)
And what specifically about that?

started it on like what what mind you know what were you thinking like the mobile home parks are you mentioned a little bit earlier but like what are those things that attracted you to mobile home parks?

Tim Woodbridge (06:28.566)
It’s really it’s just weird. It’s different. It’s it and it is it’s lower expense ratio. It’s a very stable. So like my personality, I like to front load a lot of work and then get good systems going on. So I’m not like hustle, hustle, hustle all the time and like stressed all the time. I’m like, no, Uh huh. Uh huh. Uh huh. So like, yeah, that that grabbed me, you know, I don’t want to be always marketing for new tenants and like

John Harcar (06:46.041)
You’re not reactionary, having to be reactionary. Yeah.

Tim Woodbridge (06:57.666)
You know, it just seemed a lot more simple to me than anything else. And I mean, it’s not, it’s not, but I was just drawn to the consistency of the asset versus other things.

John Harcar (07:12.569)
Seems like we had a little bit of a freeze here.

John Harcar (07:17.593)
I’m not sure if it was me or not, but it usually happens at this time.

Tim Woodbridge (07:20.804)
shoot, I can’t hear you and you’re not moving. I wonder if my internet’s super slow or if it’s you.

John Harcar (08:17.101)
Still there?

Tim Woodbridge (08:19.49)
Yeah, yeah, can you hear me?

John Harcar (08:21.471)
Yeah, everything just shut off on my end. that was totally me. But yeah, no, can hear you. Yeah, we’ll be able to splice all this together. So so where were we? Yeah, where did we leave off? We were talking about

Tim Woodbridge (08:30.496)
Edit it, yeah, love it.

Tim Woodbridge (08:37.454)
geez.

John Harcar (08:41.2)
Oh, that was okay. So you were talking about how you went into, so why, why, did you make that jump into, uh, you know, mobile home parks? Yeah. And you said it was because it’s a kind of the ease and the hands off maybe. And it’s weird.

Tim Woodbridge (08:46.54)
or why mobile home parks.

Yeah. Yeah. it’s weird. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, mobile home parks, it’s just, it’s a super stable asset. Like tenants will stay there for years and years and years. You got a low expense ratio. It’s, you know, you can run mobile home parks on a pretty lean team, which

John Harcar (09:16.621)
Mmm.

Tim Woodbridge (09:18.186)
know, we handle everything in house all of our 16 parks, everything’s in house and it’s, it’s relatively relatively right has been easy, like with the systems that we set up to get things so like we don’t need to, we need a full time management company for this 50 units and so on and so forth. It’s like no, it’s it’s easy, easier than other things to remain in house, which is great for control making sure

John Harcar (09:45.069)
Okay.

Tim Woodbridge (09:47.168)
our investors get these great returns that we’re given.

John Harcar (09:50.657)
Yeah, no, and that’s how did you learn all this? Right? mean, I know that you mentioned some of the resources that you said, but like, how did you know what to say to the guy when you called? You said you were nervous as heck. You didn’t know what to say. Then how did you learn all these processes? I mean, how did you dive into, you know, the tactical part of mobile home park investing?

Tim Woodbridge (10:11.142)
so my, my personality is I do something that I want to do and then I figure it out and I accept that it’s, it’s, it’s not an overnight thing. So sometimes I get people who, who ask like this exact question and it’s like, well, it takes, it’s just a lot of doing it. So I can’t distill anything, but like, I can tell you that a lot of it has been like, okay, what, what do we need to do? Well, we need to

collect rent. Okay, how can we do that? Okay, what are my pain points? Well, my first pain point was I’m doing all the books. I’m putting everything in Excel and I’m not great at it. So what did I do? I hired a VA who’s a bookkeeper and he’s phenomenal at it. He still works with us and you know, okay, that’s like all these little things we like I have and now it’s we have developed over years. So it wasn’t an overnight thing.

But I’m good at, okay, let’s do it. And then where are the pain points and how can we solve these pain points, you know? Like that, that’s how my brain works.

John Harcar (11:16.205)
Done it.

How did you know how to talk to the park owner? How did you know what questions? I mean, I know it’s a conversation, but how did you know what questions to ask that would make it, give you the information you need to make a decision?

Tim Woodbridge (11:33.514)
I think I heard Frank talk on the Bigger Pockets podcast or something. I don’t remember exactly, but it was like, OK, how many units are occupied? How many total units are there? How many vacant pads and what’s lot rent? You know, and how much are you collecting versus so like I know I’m talking a little sophisticated now. It was not sophisticated at all at that time. It was well, I have no idea, but let’s figure this out as we’re going.

John Harcar (11:56.269)
Right.

Tim Woodbridge (12:02.518)
And you know, my text, so I called him and he did not answer and so I texted him and everything I was anxious about everything there was some, you know, anxiety, nervousness. And it was, so the text was something like, hi, I’m not sure if I have the right person. And my name’s Tim. I am interested in buying this mobile home park. Please let me know if you’re interested in selling. And he called me back and I was like,

my God, what do I do? What do I say? instead of like, it’s scary, scary, scary. Like, okay, I’m looking at my phone. I’m scared, I’m scared, I’m scared. Answer, hey, this is Tim. And then it’s just like conversation. All of the things that were in my head that were messing with me just left. It’s just like, tell me about yourself. Why are you getting rid of this park?

John Harcar (12:42.647)
Yeah

Tim Woodbridge (12:55.246)
You’re a retired pharmacist and you don’t want to run the day to day anymore because you want to go up to Chicago to spend time with your daughter and her husband and your new grandbaby. I get that. Let’s see. And he said, you know, we ended that conversation with when you come up here and look at the park and I’ll show you everything. And so I went up there in the small town, South Carolina, which for a California boy was very scary. And I met with the seller and his brother and they’re both very kind people.

John Harcar (13:20.077)
Huh?

Tim Woodbridge (13:24.824)
But like, again, everything was anxiety inducing, but I just kept moving forward despite like with the anxiety. And so I, you know, talked with them and I made the offer that that made sense based on what the asset was doing, you know, 10 lots at 125 bucks a month with a cap rate on it. And again, like I just learned this stuff from real estate basics books, commercial real estate basics.

John Harcar (13:51.679)
Nice. Nice.

Tim Woodbridge (13:53.664)
And then, yeah, made the offer, which was way lower than his asking. And he said, no, I can’t do anything less than this. And so I said, if we if I can do that price, will you sell it to me? And he said, So a lot of it was fly by the by the seat of my pants. I didn’t even have a second contract in there. I only had one contract like with the printed price that I had. That is it. So I could have he said, I’ll sell it to you. Yeah, yeah.

John Harcar (14:16.693)
Yeah, I pre-printed with yours already,

Tim Woodbridge (14:21.708)
He could have, like, I could have left and he could have been like, well, to hell with that guy, I’m not gonna do that. But he didn’t, he’s a nice guy, he’s an honest guy. So, all the mistakes that could have been made, I made. And like, because I made them, I’m better. You know, people talk about not wanting to fail. You should fail, you should fail as much as you can.

John Harcar (14:44.653)
fail is first attempt in learning. But I think you did what most people don’t do. You took the step, you picked up the phone, you went on the appointment. You scared as you know what, you went on it and did it. And I think that is what I think a lot of our guests are gonna take away from this and should take away from this conversation is, look man, get off the sidelines, just do it.

I know what you did. You ever tell them that you were new or this is like your first deal. Did you ever mention any of that to them?

Tim Woodbridge (15:19.896)
think I did. I think I did. Yeah, I’m probably I don’t remember but I probably did. I know sometimes like there are people who are like, just tell them you have all this experience. I don’t like that. I don’t like making things up. It’s like no, be honest and like for new people nowadays I tell them like partner with people with experience. So can be like, you know, me and the team is we own this and whatever but like

The whole BSing to make you seem more credible, that never sat right with me.

John Harcar (15:56.183)
They could see right through it all the time. They could tell when you’re trying to say something. And a lot of people go in there and just be honest. And people like to help people. know what I mean? So tell us what your business looks like now and where your trajectory, what you’re looking to do, et cetera.

Tim Woodbridge (16:01.827)
Yeah.

Tim Woodbridge (16:11.586)
Yeah. Yeah.

Tim Woodbridge (16:20.096)
Yeah, so we own, you know, I’ve built an amazing rock star team around me now. So we own 16 parks, 589 units, looking to buy so much, so much. It’s such a great asset class. And, you know, just really looking for to bring some really great investors along with us who want to double their money and save a ton on taxes in year one. It really is. It’s such a cool

win-win for everyone and what I really like I mean, you know, everyone’s pitching invest in my deal invest in whatever what I really like is we’re building something bigger than us So, you know, I said that when I got into real estate it was because I wanted to get rich And now it’s like, Well that yes to that still but also I can have this amazing impact and I can ensure that my my partners and team members get rich and and I can make sure that

the communities we have, can improve these affordable housing communities and we can make a ton of money for investors. so like everyone is winning. And that’s the only way that I’m excited about this anymore. It’s like we can build this and create this really like big lasting change in so many people’s lives. And yeah, it’s exciting, man. It’s very exciting.

John Harcar (17:45.303)
Are there any opportunities out in mobile home parks or anything that you feel that you might be missing that would help grow your business that much faster?

Tim Woodbridge (17:59.416)
That’s a good question, man. I like that. Anything. I mean, and I don’t know how to tackle this, but that’s okay. I don’t know a lot of things, but at least we can get it out there. So everyone still thinks, yeah, yeah, yeah, let’s talk about it. And, you know, to start talking about what we got to do. So people look at mobile home parks and people who live in mobile home parks is like a lower class and it’s very, very, very unfortunate. It’s, you know,

John Harcar (18:11.295)
to go anyways

Tim Woodbridge (18:28.664)
There’s a lot of amazing people in mobile home parks. A lot of not amazing people, but it’s the same as we’re anywhere, you know? There’s people that are amazing. There’s people that aren’t. Everyone has value, regardless of how much money you have, what you can afford. And so, you know, there’s still a stigma of these like, these are just crappy trailer parks. And so it’s like, okay, how do we make that, you know, that better in all of society? How do we make it so?

You know, people aren’t looking down at someone who wants to pay a little bit less per month. I mean, really, the whole like keeping up with the Joneses thing and living in nicer, nicer places. It’s like not realistic, bro.

John Harcar (19:12.105)
Nope. Not anymore. Not in this economy.

Tim Woodbridge (19:17.034)
Mm-mm, mm-mm. And to be honest, would… No, you go. I want to hear you first.

John Harcar (19:17.709)
Yeah, and I think, you know, I think you.

John Harcar (19:23.693)
Oh no, I was just saying, think even just since COVID, I think a lot of that changed the whole outlook and mindset of a lot of people that, like you said, it’s not about keeping up with the children anymore. It’s not about who’s got the biggest and the best. A lot of people felt more centric about family and life and growth and personal and development and those type of things.

Tim Woodbridge (19:47.394)
which is amazing, which is, you know, how it should be. And yeah, I was, I was at a mobile home park conference, Seco a couple of years ago and I was talking to this guy and he was saying how you, you take a step back and you look at like, okay, post world war two, there’s, you know, a big push to everyone having their own home and like everyone it before that they used to live with the families and you know, grow out a little bit, but now it’s like,

Everyone has their own home and like it’s kind of was like the first time in history shift in the world where it was happening like that. And now it’s like, okay, this is not sustainable anymore. And it’s, you know, it’s good in that like there’s going to be a ton more of like that community, you know, bringing things back to family, bringing things back to community, living with people.

having better expectations instead of like, I’m struggling to afford this house that I had to buy. It’s like, no, let’s have no, no one needs to struggle. Let’s all make it so we’re all living a little bit better, more connected.

John Harcar (20:51.255)
Yeah.

John Harcar (20:59.617)
Right. No, 100%. And I see that and I feel that as well. So do you plan, have any plans to go into different asset classes, maybe RV parks or anything else like that? Or you just like your land and you’re sticking to it?

Tim Woodbridge (21:17.336)
So I own a 34 unit apartment complex and I own a 26 unit RV park and I don’t like either of them as much. So I’m glad I had the experience, but it made me realize this is not what I want. I know I teased a little earlier about how I went into wholesaling and crashed and burned. So when I quit nursing in a few years ago, what was it?

21 I think, 21, 22, 20, yeah, 21 in September of 21 I quit my last nursing job. I was freaking out because all of a sudden I didn’t have this every two week paycheck like I had for all of my life. And so I was like, well, I love mobile home parks, but I really love the idea of making a ton of capital.

John Harcar (22:02.849)
Right. Yep.

Tim Woodbridge (22:12.43)
in wholesaling and I see all these guys, they’re doing so good. So I’m gonna go and do that and make a ton of money because I’m stressed, right? And so all I saw was a dollar and what I learned, I mean, I lost a lot of money. I lost a lot of my savings and went into some credit card debt, all that good stuff, hiring VAs and marketing and all that stuff. But it was a great experience in that I realized today that

John Harcar (22:21.261)
Mm-hmm. Yep.

Tim Woodbridge (22:42.046)
If I’m only looking at dollars, then I am going to crash and burn. If I’m not in love with the process, then I’m not gonna do well. So now instead of like, okay, what other avenue can I get into that’s gonna make money? My reframe is how do I make money for myself or for my partners? How do we make money in the thing we love to do? What do we need to do to make this more profitable?

And so like that’s creating this win for everyone instead of just like, well, shoot, I need to make more money. That’s, that’s, it’s too short-sighted.

John Harcar (23:20.609)
Yeah. And it really truly should inevitably be about impact. Right. And if you’re able to make that impact, that’s huge. So if our audience is listening on here and they want to talk to you a little bit more about mobile home parks, your experience, how you got into it, know, best practices or whatever it might be, what’s the best way for them to be able to reach out and get in touch?

Tim Woodbridge (23:47.51)
Yeah, so, you know, it’s twofold. If you’re someone who’s an investor and looking just to hear a little bit more about mobile home parks, why mobile home parks, you know, go to WCGinvestments.com, schedule a call with us, get on our email list. You know, we do our best to provide a ton of value. like, regardless of if you’re investing or whatever, like our whole game is provide value to people. If you’re like, hey, I want to do what

Tim has done and I want to get into mobile home parks. want to buy them and I want to run them. You know, find me on Instagram, Instagram.com slash Tim dot Woodbridge. And then I think Tim dot Woodbridge dot 54 on Facebook. And then LinkedIn is just linkedin.com slash Tim Woodbridge. And like just reach out. We can have a conversation. I might be able to guide you a little bit.

My partner, Matthias, who is the rock star extraordinaire underwriter, does a call every two weeks on underwriting mobile home parks. anyone’s free to join there. So reach out to me or Matthias Grunwald. And we can get you looped in there. Again, our game is all about providing value and making this world a little bit better.

John Harcar (25:10.217)
Awesome. Well guys, I hope you took some notes. We will put all your contact information in the show notes. and you know, I learned a lot. I love the asset class. I mean, I haven’t gotten into it yet, but I want to, I’ve heard a lot of, know, I talked to a guy, you know, a little earlier today who, who has a of mobile home parks, out in the Florida area. So it seems like something that’s trending up guys. I hope you enjoyed the show, Tim. Thank you again for coming on and sharing some knowledge.

And guys, I’ll look forward to seeing the next one. Cheers.

Tim Woodbridge (25:44.462)
Thank you, John.