Discover the Future of Housing: Insights from Whitney Wiglesworth

Michael Stansbury (01:08.107)
Hello everybody and welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I’m Mike Stansbury and today with me from the Lone Star State, Whitney Wiglesworth. Whitney, how are you?

Whitney Wiglesworth (01:23.022)
Doing good, how about yourself?

Michael Stansbury (01:25.071)
I’m awesome. So Texas, I’m in Tennessee. It’s kind of hot in both places right now. It’s going to get hotter. So I don’t know if I’m looking forward to that. I think I am. I kind of like the summer. How about you, Whitney? Now, want to stay in that AC? Well, yeah. So Whitney, here we go. At Investor Fuel, this is the sponsor of our podcast. We help real estate investors, service providers, and real estate entrepreneurs 2 to 5X their businesses to allow them to build the businesses they’ve always wanted.

Whitney Wiglesworth (01:36.105)
No.

Yeah.

Michael Stansbury (01:53.531)
Allow them to live the lives they’ve always dreamed of now Whitney before we get into what’s working with you now and kind of what your niche is I want to know your origin story. So tell me how did you pivot into real estate? What were you doing beforehand and and what what it made you decide? I want to I want to endeavor in this way of life

Whitney Wiglesworth (02:12.14)
I actually was a licensed veterinary technician in Washington state. Yeah, you get mauled enough times and you rethink, you know, that kind of line of work. Plus, you know, to be honest, it doesn’t pay that well for the amount of damage that the animals do to you.

Michael Stansbury (02:34.537)
So you’ve got to have a story, you know, keyed up for us about like maybe the worst thing, worst experience you had with an animal.

Whitney Wiglesworth (02:45.675)
A lot of people don’t realize this, the worst thing you can be bit by is a diabetic cat.

Michael Stansbury (02:51.985)
diabetic cat.

Whitney Wiglesworth (02:53.097)
Yeah, specifically, because their teeth are like snake things. They’re designed to close up after they bite. And their mouths are full of sugar, which is bacteria food. So people have lost limbs over diabetic cat bites.

Michael Stansbury (03:08.969)
See folks, we’re learning something new every day, because I’ve never.

Whitney Wiglesworth (03:10.824)
Yeah, I had one crawl all the way up my arm and just shred me. So I was on an IV antibiotics. It was nuts.

Michael Stansbury (03:17.151)
Oh, that’s no fun. That sounds like a worst case scenario. All right, so you’re a vet tech and you’re not in Texas, you’re in Washington state. So tell me the story about how you pivoted a real estate from that occupation.

Whitney Wiglesworth (03:31.752)
I took an online quiz that told me to move to Texas and I was tired of Washington. So I just drove here without a plan other than, you know, transferring hospitals. And I started dating a guy whose family had a brokerage and he kept telling me, you’d be so great at real estate. And I’m like, I don’t want to do real estate. And then it turns out like I’m super great at it.

Michael Stansbury (03:55.487)
How about that? saw something in you. That’s awesome. how did, to tell me about, you your beginning in real estate, you get the brokerage, you get the license, right? And now the real work begins. How do we figure this out? Tell me, tell me the struggles, tell me the wins and losses and kind of the trip to where you are now. What did that look like?

Whitney Wiglesworth (03:57.272)
Mm-hmm.

Whitney Wiglesworth (04:17.352)
So, you know, I was kind of pushed into real estate. Originally I was like, I don’t know, this all seems like a lot. I got my license. They’re like, here, go door knocking. Here’s some pamphlets and like, yada, yada. And I was like, this actually sucks. Like walking around in the heat, knocking on doors. Nobody wants to talk to me. They’re like, what are you doing at my house? I was running paid ads with money I’d saved from my other job, getting nowhere. I had a free Craigslist ad.

of all things and I’ve got a lot of crap for that. And then one day Palm Harbor Homes called me and their actual downtown San Antonio location is the number one volume dealership in the country. But they reached out and they’re like, hey, you know, we see your new agent. We’re always trying to find agents to find land for us, but no agents want to talk to us because they’re kind of like cats and dogs. They’re two different licenses.

we’re kind of opposing forces usually, cause you know, mobile homes and rental communities aren’t real estate. can’t sell them. People don’t get it. So they taught me about land, about manufactured homes. And then I just started getting client after client. And I was like, you know, there’s more than one location. Everybody likes donuts and know, brochures. So.

Michael Stansbury (05:41.78)
Right?

Whitney Wiglesworth (05:42.438)
I made my rounds, I introduced myself, I ended up working with 23 different dealerships, doing a lot of transactions with them. And at first I was just desperate. I’m like, need to sell something. Like, what am I going to do? I’ve thrown myself into real estate and I’m like, you know, trying to stay afloat. And what I didn’t think about at the time was the fact that, you know, these are long closes typically of their construction. You’re talking 120 day construction loan.

60 on closing and then 60 post-closed construction. So I build these relationships with people and then eventually, guess what? They sell their house and they buy a new house. I have a client I just put under contract. sold her first home, sold her the land for her second home, sold that home and now I’m selling her daughter a home. So, you know, it kind of…

snowballs from there, plus you meet the guys at the dealerships when they want to buy a house. If they don’t want to buy one of manufactured homes, guess who they call?

Michael Stansbury (06:48.735)
Right, you developed just a network and you just began helping people and this is when you’re not in it for yourself, right? When you’re, okay, think I can provide that solution, I think can help them here. The word got out pretty quickly. did the dealership, so these are 23 different dealerships of different dealers of manufactured houses. Did they talk to each other or how did you get on everybody’s radar?

Whitney Wiglesworth (06:51.5)
Mm-hmm.

Whitney Wiglesworth (07:10.789)
So the manufactured home world, at least in Texas, is very small. Everybody knows everybody. know, the people at every dealership, everybody kind of has their own persona. Like I’m not with a dealership because I’m a realtor, but, know, they call me the mobile home queen because I know a lot about reselling them, the land for them. I actually got my manufactured home retailer license in August.

And I was working, yeah, I was selling them. I was kind of on the start of a company that’s doing it different. They’re doing developments as opposed to just land home packages where they’re move-in ready and already VA FHA with builder incentives, just like at DR Horton or Lennar or any of those places.

Michael Stansbury (07:59.455)
But they’re manufactured, I want to say mobile, obviously they’re manufactured houses, correct? Yeah.

Whitney Wiglesworth (08:04.901)
Correct, but a lot of them are tape and texture like full masonry, skirting actual bricks. And then they have their in-house lending, but the idea was when I came on, because they’re also a brokerage, I met them selling their land to the mobile places and then they wanted to be a mobile community developer. And I shouldn’t say mobile either, that’s so wrong, it’s habit.

Michael Stansbury (08:09.491)
Okay, cool.

Whitney Wiglesworth (08:31.349)
But yeah, so I started working with them doing real estate and selling the homes. And then I realized, you know, I couldn’t ride two horses. I’m good, but I’m not that good. And, you know, having to be in the office and do all the paperwork for the homes, I was missing out on real estate. And I’m like, let’s go back to like the symbiotic relationship we have before where I don’t answer to you. I’m a free agent. Still love their product. I still plan to sell a lot of them. They do pay agents three percent on the move and readies.

But I’m like, I do way better when I can do all of my different things, buy, sell, you know, help with construction loans. So.

Michael Stansbury (09:10.025)
So yeah, so this is every entrepreneurs sometimes in person, everybody that is kind of on their own, because a real estate agent is kind of their own little entrepreneurial factory. We always figure we can do it all and we chase some squirrels, but you’re like, okay, I’ve tried this, now I’m gonna focus back to really what was working, because with everything that we try and do, there’s always a trade off, right? And your trade off was,

I don’t wanna be stuck in an office selling these houses and maybe the economics of it didn’t work. You would make more money if you’re continuing to do what you’re as an agent that procured those relationships. like today, is what Whitney Wiggleworth says, this is what you’re doing to help people today, correct?

Whitney Wiglesworth (10:04.301)
Mm-hmm. Yep. I’m already making my new pamphlets so I can revisit. I’ve already made my calls. like, hey, guess what? I can sell you land again. And they’re like, yay. It’s like a lot of people don’t know how to work those types of transactions or not very, you know, pick up and just run with it.

Michael Stansbury (10:23.903)
Now Whitney, were you going out on your self, were you cold calling people that own land? How did you get the land leads to sell to the manufactured houses or the individuals that wanted to put the manufactured houses on a property?

Whitney Wiglesworth (10:38.917)
So there are people like SkyTex used to where they would subdivide the land and they knew that I represented a lot of manufactured home buyers. So they would call me and be like, hey, here’s a plat, here’s a pricing list. I have a lot of relationships like that. Plus, you know, I’ve done it so long and I’ve done it so many times that I can tell looking at a piece of property pretty much if it’s gonna allow manufactured home or not. Like on my website, like I said, I have color coded what to expect for pricing.

I know what the utilities pretty much cost in those areas. They still do a site inspection and get, you know, punch lists with quotes. But for example, I know if it’s somewhere really rocky like Bandera or Canyon Lake, you’re going to need a very expensive septic system because they’re going into the rock, you know, or the areas that need wells. So I have to think about all that because on these loans, it’s a three bucket thing, the home and then the site work and then the land.

So if I know what the full package is from my experience, I’m like, okay, well, I know what this loan type, they need this much in this bucket for improvements. And then this is what we have for land, but the land at that price is gonna need more than is in the other buckets. So, you know, it’s just kind of learning as you go. But that’s why I put together that site. It’s kind of like an FAQ for my buyers to be like, these are the red flags on land. Don’t, if it looks like this, if it has this, don’t, don’t, just don’t.

Michael Stansbury (12:05.543)
Right? Just walk away. Just walk away, trust us.

Whitney Wiglesworth (12:07.202)
Yeah, it’s not worth it. It’s that price for a reason. It’s a campsite.

Michael Stansbury (12:10.783)
Yeah, well that’s what time under tension does. So you figured out your niche and you drill down. And one of the things that is, I can think critical for somebody is to like know what you’re good at. Real estate, when somebody says they’re in real estate, that could mean a whole host of a lot of things. And some people want to try it all. And to have that buffet style type of business is hard to make profitable. But if you are really niched out, you can be

The one, the one that people go to and know that okay, Whitney’s gonna be able to help us out because she knows the area, she knows what to avoid, I don’t wanna put a septic tank in a rock, who wants to do that? Well, if you do, it’s gonna cost you three and a half times as much as it would be over here. So those are the things that people don’t know what they don’t know and they trust people that wanna help and have been through it. So yeah, so how long have you been in real estate? What does the timetable look like?

Whitney Wiglesworth (12:51.317)
Mm-hmm.

Whitney Wiglesworth (12:56.574)
Yeah.

Whitney Wiglesworth (13:10.06)
Hmm, almost 10 years now. It’s eight and some change. But I literally got right into it. Like Palm Harbor was like, she’s new. She doesn’t know to hate us. And I don’t hate them. But, you know, like there’s a lot of competition between the two. And I haven’t gotten that because I’ve always been on both sides of it. Like I went to Palm Harbor’s company Christmas party. I’m just part of the family. You know, and I have Brost and Mikasa smart choice like.

Michael Stansbury (13:35.955)
That’s right.

Whitney Wiglesworth (13:39.86)
You name Titan Clayton. I’ve been to the clean the Cavco factory and seen him make the homes and all that. So I know a lot about them.

Michael Stansbury (13:51.199)
Well, Whitney, maybe you can speak to this or not because I’ve seen some things and it’s all just on the internet. as far as the technology and manufacturing houses, I mean, there hasn’t, I know what one looks like, but I’ve seen some things like Boxable has a product and there’s just these other products that have. I’m scrolling through Instagram for everything’s housing with me on my Instagram feed. And so I’m seeing these tiny homes, I’m seeing these other types of manufacturing homes.

Whitney Wiglesworth (14:13.749)
Mm-hmm.

Michael Stansbury (14:20.359)
Are you guys in Texas doing anything different than you did five or six years ago as far as the product is concerned?

Whitney Wiglesworth (14:26.119)
Yes, a lot. So manufactured homes have gotten more expensive since COVID. I mean, a lot of things have. I’m reselling one right now where they’re going to walk away with more than somebody that had a site built that they bought at the same time. There is a lot of stigma about depreciation, but that’s not necessarily true because they’re typically on rural acreage on larger lots. If it’s under a third of an acre, you typically need a 20 grand septic.

So, you know, their land and they’re very easy to move. Renters love them because, you know, you can depreciate them. But, you know, I’m getting sidetracked here. I mean, there’s there’s a lot that has changed with them. Now they have a lot more insulation. Most of them do. Every home’s built a little different. Every factory has their own specs.

Michael Stansbury (15:05.331)
No, you’re good. I like where you’re going. You’re going good.

Whitney Wiglesworth (15:20.797)
And when people are buying a home, they will see those specs. Like here’s where the floor joists are, the spacing on them. There are some very premium home products. I don’t know if you’re familiar with like a Deer Valley.

Michael Stansbury (15:33.629)
familiar? Yes.

Whitney Wiglesworth (15:34.739)
Have you seen their barndo?

Michael Stansbury (15:36.97)
I have not seen their Bondo.

Whitney Wiglesworth (15:38.527)
They’re making a four part two story barn dominion that’s a modular.

Michael Stansbury (15:43.145)
How about that? So Deer Valley’s doing that. So I hadn’t seen that yet, so I’m definitely gonna check that out. I’m redoing a house that was built in 1985 and I made it into a bar dominium. And so I love that look and I think that the bar dominium thing, especially in Texas, because if you ever, again, my YouTube algorithm, my Instagram algorithm, it’s all real estate. But I love, I.

Whitney Wiglesworth (15:48.264)
It’s wild.

Whitney Wiglesworth (16:10.877)
Mm-hmm.

Michael Stansbury (16:11.731)
I don’t necessarily, I’m not thrilled with the way they look, but I love the amount of space that you get from a bar dominium. I’m excited about that. so Deer Valley has a modular barn door. That’s really interesting.

Michael Stansbury (16:29.63)
Whoops.

Michael Stansbury (16:57.279)
Hey, don’t worry about that, we can edit that.

Michael Stansbury (17:04.105)
They want to get, yeah, they want to, they need you, they need you to sell them a mobile home. All right, so three, two, one. So you were talking about the bar dominium that Deer Valley’s doing, yeah, and all the new stuff coming down as far as technology is concerned, and just the different ways they’re doing things in manufacturing houses. I’m kind of excited about it because we do have, you know, we do have a housing crisis, and you know, it’d be great if,

The manufacturer housing is part of the solution there.

Michael Stansbury (18:39.197)
Well, act like I don’t. I do a little bit, but I’d love for our audience to hear it.

Michael Stansbury (19:05.295)
Right.

Michael Stansbury (19:52.937)
Yeah.

Michael Stansbury (19:58.015)
Yeah, beautiful. I love it. That’s a really good way to kind of articulate like the differences and the value differences as well and what, you know, what they were. I actually own a couple old mobile homes and they are just hilarious. They’re, they’re, they’re old. They’re, they’re just old. The one’s in 1971 and then one’s a 76, but it’s still just hilarious. But we’ve, we’ve, we’ve re-upped them, redone them and, and they’re good, good rentals for us.

So Whitney, somebody is in, they’re looking for, yes ma’am.

Michael Stansbury (20:36.616)
Okay, go ahead.

Whitney Wiglesworth (20:46.683)
I’m so sorry.

Michael Stansbury (20:48.519)
No, if they’re blowing you up, I get it.

Whitney Wiglesworth (20:58.296)
wow, really? Is that what all that was about? Great, okay, well that’s silly. I won’t even get into that because it’s going to sound like smack talk, but that was nonsense.

Michael Stansbury (21:09.115)
Alright, well, so I’ll do a little break. Three, two, one, go. Alright Whitney, well if people want to get in touch with you in Texas, what’s your Instagram handle, what’s your Facebook, what website can they go to to take a look at those things that you were talking about earlier? How can people reach you, Whitney?

Whitney Wiglesworth (21:27.053)
Easily smoke signals, you know, like whatever now I’m kidding. If you go to findingyourtexas.com It’s a one-page website, know, talks about I do buying selling of homes land and then there’s a whole blurb on Kind of a guide to your land and at the bottom there’s links to all my socials

Michael Stansbury (21:30.516)
Yeah.

Michael Stansbury (21:50.975)
Perfect. Well folks, thanks for watching the Real Estate Pros podcast. Whitney, it was a pleasure having you on. Folks, if you want more information about her and her ability to help you in Texas, the information will be in the show notes below. Remember to like and subscribe and do all the things that the folks tell you to do. Make comments, do whatever you want to do, folks. And it’s great to have you again on the podcast. Folks, we’ll see you next time.

Whitney Wiglesworth (22:17.135)
Yay. Thank you for having me.