Timothy Parks Reveals Secrets to Overcoming Affordable Housing Issues

John Harcar (00:00.989)
All right. Hey, guys, welcome back to our show. I’m your host, John Harcar, and we’re here today with Timothy Parks. And what we’re going to talk about with Timothy, you know, besides his journey in business and real estate and what he’s currently doing is we’re to talk about, you know, kind of his thoughts on affordable affordable housing, you know, especially with the way kind of the economy and the market is today. Remember, guys, that investor fuel, we help real estate investors, service providers. I mean, really all real estate entrepreneurs, two to five X their business.

And we do that by providing the tools and the resources to help scale the business they want to get to, which in turn helps them live the life that they want to live. So Tim, man, welcome to our show.

Timothy Parks (00:41.742)
Thanks, John, for having me.

John Harcar (00:43.211)
Man, man, I appreciate you coming on here. Look forward to talking about your thoughts on affordable housing. And I know that’s been a big topic in a lot of different real estate circles. But before we get into all that, why don’t you tell our audience a little bit about you, your background in business and real estate, and what brought you to today?

Timothy Parks (01:01.75)
Great. Well, my name is Timothy Parks. I came to Florida from Iowa about 30 years ago. And so I got started in construction, just being curious kid, whatever. But my mother came home from work at one day and said, we’re going to remodel the house. So I was like, okay. And jumped in and started knocking plaster and laugh off walls and an old Victorian house and redid the floors, walls, insulation.

you name it, helped the guy that came and installed some wiring, helped the guy that did some plumbing, helped the guys put on the roof, you know, so I just picked up notch, but I was a really curious kid, so I asked tons and tons of questions, and I actually got ran off a lot because I didn’t want to answer my questions.

John Harcar (01:52.779)
He

Right?

Timothy Parks (01:55.502)
that brought me to where I’m at today, so I’m thankful for that. But I’ve been in Florida for about 30 years and I currently have a builder’s license, a roofing license, and a home inspector’s license. So we’ve worked a lot with property managers and real estate investors, home flippers, some wholesaling people, got a little experience with that, and then there’s quite a few realtors that’ll call us. They’re having a home that…

they need to sell and there’s a list of items that need to be fixed for the buyer or even we get into some pre-sale inspections but here in Florida and nationwide I would say it’s the same that is the market for affordable housing is gone there’s no way that this younger generation is going to be able to make those types of payments and pay that interest rate.

John Harcar (02:43.675)
Right. Yeah. No, that’s well, yeah, we’ll definitely get into all that. But if you ever watch any of my podcasts, I like to go backwards a little bit. OK, so you you were redoing this Victoria house. How old were you when you’re doing that type of stuff? Like, when did you start?

Timothy Parks (02:56.494)
12 12 years old guy came to

John Harcar (02:58.753)
Okay, so you did that. Oh, no, no, no, no. So you did that for how many years? I mean, did you go into your own construction right out of high school?

Timothy Parks (03:10.554)
I Like I said, I asked a lot of questions so a guy showed up to put some Outlets in the basement old limestone basement walls and so I watched him bend the conduit You know pull the wires do all that stuff and I just asked some questions like with a gold screw was the black or the know wire that had the

to it. The white one went to the silver screw. The Blair one went to the the green screw, the ground wire, green coated wire. So that’s how I sort of learned you know the basics and then I just went and experimented on my own. But it was my mom you know that really brought me into that and then probably about 17 is when I just

stepped away from my stepfather and I said, you know, I’m going to do all the heavy stuff, concrete, roofing, you know, anything, because he was 58 and he had amassed a real estate empire of his own. he didn’t need to work, but he kept himself busy that way.

John Harcar (04:08.769)
All right, so you branched out on your own, you did your own thing. What were some of the struggles that you ran into when you kind of started doing this all on your own?

Timothy Parks (04:17.71)
Young and dumb, ambitious. I made a lot of mistakes, lost a lot of money, but at the end of the day, I wouldn’t want to change it. It was very, very good. I had to talk myself into a lot of situations that I wasn’t necessarily…

John Harcar (04:22.815)
Ha

Timothy Parks (04:41.538)
completely sure of how to complete some of these projects that I started but I asked a lot of questions and I was diligent so it was good.

John Harcar (04:49.697)
Okay, and did you start your business prior to moving down to Florida?

Timothy Parks (04:54.478)
Yeah, I started my first business was, I think it was Carl Giese and Sons. That’s when I was working with my stepfather. And then when I branched off from him, I started my own Parks Enterprises, Incorporated. And bought a duplex, probably about age 20. Started collecting rent.

John Harcar (05:11.179)
Nice. Okay. Did you like being a landlord?

Timothy Parks (05:15.928)
Nope. I lived upstairs. I got up at 5.30 in the morning and those guys wanted to be up till late at night and it didn’t work. So that was a bit of a struggle.

John Harcar (05:17.025)
Why not?

John Harcar (05:29.417)
OK. All right, so as you move from Iowa down to Florida, mean, obviously we have different weather. Did any of that stuff factor into you had to of pivot in some of your business at all, or maybe just it’s different product, or what kind of challenges for that move did you run into?

Timothy Parks (05:49.708)
I think the biggest challenge of the move was expectations. I went back to college and took a bunch of business classes and had this expectation of making like $1,000 a week 30 years ago in Florida. they wanted to give me 10 to 15 bucks an hour. And I was like,

John Harcar (06:12.993)
You

Timothy Parks (06:13.208)
But, know, it was tough, man. It was really tough. But I sucked it up, you know, started framing houses, got some experience there, called my buddies that had been doing framing for years. I had a bunch of crews. They came to a couple of job sites and showed me some pointers on how to lay out and do this, deal with the trusses. And we’re off to the races, man. It was a great experience. was 2002.

I believe when I got my builder’s license, yep. And then shortly after that, I started studying for the roofing one. I think I got the roofing one at Hurricane Charlie. was like 2004, 2005. So it’s been a journey.

John Harcar (06:59.515)
As you kept going and you started adding other verticals, like you’re getting these other licenses, mean, mindset wise, what were some of the tools or some of the things that you used to kind of help keep you focused on your growth?

Timothy Parks (07:17.976)
Back then, Word and a notepad and when I was on a job site Take a bunch of notes and then come home and spend an hour every night updating him

John Harcar (07:26.686)
Yeah

Timothy Parks (07:33.602)
There really wasn’t much out there. was some some programs like Timberline, I think was one of them early construction software programs, but it was like the Wild West. And so I just it was a word. And then I thought about Microsoft came out with that handheld PDA thing and I was all up in arms thinking that would be great.

None of that really worked. was just handwritten notes, but I got a great memory too, so that was probably the best thing. That’s what I relied on the most, I would say, was my memory.

John Harcar (08:04.417)
Okay. And so what does your business look like now? I mean, you’re in Florida. Is that your main area of business? Do you do business elsewhere?

Timothy Parks (08:13.102)
Yeah, we focus on central Florida at the moment. The last few years since 2020, I would say, it’s probably been the landscape and the marketing scene has really changed massively. there’s everybody and their mother’s an expert and all over Facebook and that market is so crowded. And then it’s hard to find a good lead source.

and then Google’s completely revamped their pay to play system. I think they got four different options at the top of the page. So even if you do rank in the top 10 with them, you’re way at the bottom of the page. So it’s been really tough. So what I’ve done is basically looked at everything and…

using AI and with the employees to build out.

you know, the pages and stuff and try to respond to the market as it unfolds like hurricane season, you know what I mean? If we get a weather alert, we attempt to put stuff out, you know what I mean? Beforehand, not after the disaster. So marketing, I would say is probably, and now with Trump in office and, know, I’m not saying bad, good, I’m not going to discuss politics or whatever, but you know, that has changed the labor pool here in Florida and across the nation.

John Harcar (09:20.427)
Right.

Timothy Parks (09:38.336)
So, you know, it’s a good thing and a bad thing. It’s going to drive the price up for the man that’s, you know, wearing the tool belt and swinging the hammer. But that price increase is actually going to get, you know, pushed to the consumer. It’s unfortunate. And I really don’t see how all these raw materials and natural resources and, you know, just multiplied, you know what I mean, as far as cost to get them out of the ground anymore. It’s tough.

John Harcar (10:07.617)
for sure.

Let’s talk a little bit about what our topic was, the affordable housing piece, right? Give me your take on it. Give me what you think needs to happen, where you think things are going.

Timothy Parks (10:25.221)
Well, they’ve said it out loud. I they want everybody to be a nation of renters and I think that’s a It’s quite the opposite of what needs to be proliferated proliferated out there, so I’ll be honest with you. I mentioned the duplex that I bought when I was age 20. I was $12,000 man to you know, and you can’t even you know, you can’t even touch a

Trailer, know what I mean, and I’m talking about a total trail like to go camping in for 12 grand So it’s just insane. You can’t even get a you know an acre of land anywhere in Florida I would say for $12,000. It’s tillable. So The affordable housing thing I think is a crisis that people aren’t really putting out there, you know boxable has been at the front line I think of that and there’s a couple other competitors that have joined the mix

John Harcar (10:57.845)
Yeah, it’s true.

Timothy Parks (11:21.78)
So I’m more than certain that there’s going to be a huge demand for something affordable. And my calculations, at $15 an hour, that $175,000 to $200,000 is still pushing someone’s budget to even qualify for something like that without going through some FHA or some other government-backed program.

But the good thing is, you know what I mean, with Boxables answering, I’m not plugging Boxable by any means, but I’m just using their model as a reference. Those units, I believe, are under 100 grand, three bedrooms. So if you can get, yeah, let’s say $30,000 for an acre in the area I’m in, impact fees, so on, so forth, you might be,

John Harcar (12:08.779)
Yeah, think I saw that.

Timothy Parks (12:20.718)
well, sewer, water, power, depends on how that has to get there. I mean, you might have 60 to $80,000 in the infrastructure to set it on a pad, which comes to, like I said, $180,000, but they do sell a cheaper model. It’s like 400 square feet, and I think those are 50 to 60 grand. So I think that’s gonna be a very viable option for people, but.

you know the flip side to that is the municipalities and the counties have restrictions on the size of the units. So you know their first offering was like 400 square feet the casita. So that didn’t make it for what the municipalities here in Florida some of them upgraded to and so now some of them brought it down to 750 square feet. that’s and so because I believe that they have a model now that meets that minimum.

So I think it’s going to be a really great thing, you know, and I was thinking that it’d be even better if to set up a, you know, a tiny home community with maybe like a garden, you know, community garden so people could actually get back to what’s best, you know what I mean? And eating something that comes from the garden rather than a bunch of processed food.

John Harcar (13:21.877)
Awesome.

John Harcar (13:44.917)
Yeah, that’s awesome.

Yeah, I think that would be probably the biggest hurdle with something, stuff like that is just the municipalities and the legislation and whatnot. So do you have a plan to build some of these? mean, is this kind of like your goal where you’re looking for land, you’re looking to do all this?

Timothy Parks (14:07.212)
Yeah, and if anybody watches this and has some land that they’re to develop or put forth for something like this, I have a plan. again, funds, money, we’ve looked into USDA for infrastructure, different other options that the government for affordable housing programs they have. So yeah, but definitely looking for the land now.

John Harcar (14:35.585)
Well, if there’s anybody listening to this that they want to get a hold of you, they want to reach out and talk or something resonated with you or they like your idea, how do they get in touch with you?

Timothy Parks (14:45.262)
They can to the website tproco.com or they can call 689-600-1183. Again that’s 689-600-1183. And the website again is tproco.com.

John Harcar (15:00.513)
Perfect.

John Harcar (15:04.501)
And then just remind our audience what are all the services that you provide.

Timothy Parks (15:08.494)
Power.

I wouldn’t call general contractor, but roofing, building and home inspection. We’re not into electrical or HVAC or plumbing. We do some maintenance stuff with the property managers, but we don’t pull new lines or circuits or put in fuse boxes. We don’t dig up the floor and bust up pipes for plumbing and HVAC, we have to have a license for that, unfortunately. And HVAC, we have gauges we can check.

John Harcar (15:34.997)
Yeah, right, right.

Timothy Parks (15:39.574)
things but we don’t you know we don’t really mess with that portion not yet

John Harcar (15:46.497)
Cool. And we’ll put all your contact information in the show notes. Tim, I appreciate you coming out and sharing this information, guys. If you’re in Tim’s area or maybe you have some land, reach out. Connect with him and see what kind of business you do. Tim, thanks again for your time here. And guys, I hope you enjoyed the show. We’ll see you on the next one. Cheers.

Timothy Parks (16:07.982)
Thank you, John.