Florida Mobile Home Parks: Investment Insights

Justin Stamper (00:00)
I would say the biggest one for me is just the fact that Jay and his team were the first ones to answer the phone.

when I needed to talk to a mobile home dealer, because I didn’t know what I was doing. All I knew is I needed to order 10 of them and I didn’t know where to start. And I literally just Googled like mobile home dealer Orlando. And I went through the list and I’d called six people and eventually on lucky number seven, Jay’s, Jay and his team, actually his lovely wife answered the phone.

and was like, you know, hey, mobile home dealer.

Michelle Kesil (02:18)
Hey everybody, welcome to the Real Estate Pros Podcast. I’m your host, Michelle Kesil and today I’m joined by someone I’m looking forward to chatting with, Jay Eben and Justin Stamper of Heritage Housing Solutions, creating manufactured homes within the state of Florida. And they are helping to solve the affordability issue within the real estate market. So, excited to have you guys here.

Justin Stamper (02:45)
Yeah, excited to be here. Thanks so much, Michelle. ⁓ Love your show. Been listening to it this week, getting geared up, ready to come on, and ⁓ super excited to talk about what we’re doing, especially on the pro show, because a lot of times, Jay and I have to explain every step of the way of what we do. But I have a feeling you’re going to get a grip on this pretty quick.

Michelle Kesil (03:09)
Perfect, so yeah, let’s dive in. First off, those not yet familiar with you and your work, can you share what your main focus is?

Justin Stamper (03:19)
Yeah, so my name is Justin Stamper. I’ve spent the last 12 years as the host of Zombie House Flipping on A &E. ⁓

flipping houses, build a new construction, and have always had a passion for creating affordable housing just because it started as a need for my own family and whatnot, and then kind of just grew into, hey, I can help some people out, and it sure does feel good when I do that. So started focusing on providing affordable housing back in 2000.

2009? Yeah, it’s been a while. 2009. And since then, the market in Florida has ⁓ moved and shifted and it went from I used to be able to renovate houses to provide affordable housing, then I used to be able to build them. And then now where we are with cost, ⁓ I have since pivoted to manufactured housing and mobile homes, because it is one of the last affordable asset classes left ⁓ that we can use in Florida. And that’s how I met

Jay ⁓ a year or two ago found that we were instantly in alignment with trying to help people out and found out what he was doing with his company and whatnot was super impressed and then since then we have kind of joined forces and have tried to help as many people as we can and we are in the process of doing so and I’ve been learning my own crazy amount from Jay because he’s got like almost 30 years in this industry so I’ve got

when it comes to, you know, fix and flip, new construction, wholesaling, et cetera. But I’ve never known anybody that has been specific to manufactured housing until I met Jay. And I was like, man, I gotta work with this guy, because he knows the ins and outs as an operator. And ⁓ yeah, Jay, let him have it, dude.

Jay Eben (06:05)
That’s quite the intro. So yeah, mean, almost 30 years in manufactured housing, but ⁓ that’s a lot of it’s been spent in mobile home parks as an operator ⁓ over large portfolios along the way ⁓ opened up, you know, our own dealership here in the state of Florida. We are a little bit different in the sense that we are a digital dealership. We don’t put time, money or effort into having standing, standing inventory.

on the ground. So capital and product move for a purpose, ⁓ which is to bring housing to market, ⁓ to solve for the affordability issue that we’re talking about. And Justin and I became quick friends, if you will, as we started talking about the application of the product, how it could solve issues from a cost perspective, the application of it.

you know, both from an investor’s perspective as an investor is looking for ways to bring housing to market, you know, whether they’re a traditional wholesaler or flipper or even a builder, costs have skyrocketed to the point where it’s like, well, how do I deliver a product that people can actually afford? ⁓ And manufactured housing actually solves for that. You know, it solves for the price point. And we still have some issues to work through, you know, as it relates to

zoning and land use and kind of the municipal oversight of that product. But there’s very little out there that can build the square footage that we can build ⁓ at the price that we can build it ⁓ in a range that people can afford, right? Like the real estate market overall right now is, you know, depending upon city, county, state, it’s at a state of being frozen.

You know, there’s just transactions are down, volume is down, people are, you know, and the most of the discussion keeps centering around interest rate cuts. ⁓ But really what you have is people that they just can’t afford what’s on the market. You know, so how do you do that? You can keep thinking that, you know, cut interest rates to zero and then maybe somebody can afford it or you can build something that someone can afford and it doesn’t matter what the interest rate is. So that’s what we focus on. ⁓

You know, we have a different approach ⁓ and also, you know, combine 50 years of experience in the real estate market ⁓ and trying to do that here in Florida. But we have projects and partners that do business outside the state of Florida.

Michelle Kesil (08:40)
Awesome. What an exciting opportunity. And so what have been some of the main keys that made the biggest difference in allowing this business to be able to grow, run successfully and yeah, continue to scale.

Justin Stamper (08:59)
Hmm. I would say the biggest one for me is just the fact that Jay and his team were the first ones to answer the phone.

when I needed to talk to a mobile home dealer, because I didn’t know what I was doing. All I knew is I needed to order 10 of them and I didn’t know where to start. And I literally just Googled like mobile home dealer Orlando. And I went through the list and I’d called six people and eventually on lucky number seven, Jay’s, Jay and his team, actually his lovely wife answered the phone.

and was like, you know, hey, mobile home dealer.

And I was like, oh my God, finally somebody answers the phone in this place. And that’s how all this got started. And Jay and I have always kept it like top of mind when we talk to our team of like telling that story.

I needed to buy 10. 10 is a pretty thick order. know, if you’re talking 100k a pop, I need to spend a million bucks in the next like month or so and people aren’t even calling me back. I mean, I left voicemails that still haven’t been returned. So apparently everybody in this industry is just filthy rich and doesn’t need a paycheck. ⁓ But luckily, Jay, you know, not only did ⁓ his wife answer the phone, you know, instantaneously was a wealth of

in her own right ⁓ as their office manager, but then Jay called me like an hour later and then the very next day he had me like VIP passes to the mobile to the largest in the country mobile home convention though like next day VIP passes in my hand meeting with suppliers You know walking me through the process and we sat there in the lobby for like literally like three hours just chatting We weren’t even sitting I can’t even say we’re sat we were standing there so long that probably both of our

knees were about to buckle just in deep conversation and because of that that’s kind of been like our mantra when we decided to launch Heritage Housing Solutions of customer service first treat people like humans and don’t just pass them along you know call them back when they call treat it like a business you know like I kind of feel like mobile homes have been ⁓ you know

ripe for renovation and innovation because it just kind of seems like one of those asset classes much like how self storage has been treated of like you know you just said it and forget it it’s like you know running like a boat storage facility like yeah you know Bob leaves his boat here Susan comes and gets a kayak every now and and everybody pays 50 bucks a month when they can ⁓ I’ve noticed a lot of self storage being treated like that ⁓ mobile home

home from it, but they have been treated. And then the dealership side, it’s like, well, if people come in and they buy a unit, cool. And if not, you know, maybe we’ll get them on the next one.

And that doesn’t, I mean, that’s fine and dandy, but for me, especially coming from the world of like high level wholesaling and high level targeted, like very competitive. And I’m in Orlando, one of the most competitive markets in America. So for me and how I’ve run my teams for,

ages is like 60 seconds to a lead. Call every single person back like you’re leaving money on the table if you are letting more than one minute go by on any deal any lead that’s through that door. So for me realizing that mobile homes weren’t like that at all. Jay and I started talking about the problems that we think we could innovate and help solve and it’s always kind of gone back to like the reason we’re connected is because he was the only person to pick up the phone. How many other people out there are

going through what I was going through that we potentially could solve their problems the same way that he solved mine. So ⁓ as far as for me, the biggest thing has just been what problems can we solve and take into the modern age, especially utilizing Jay’s wisdom and understanding of the entire asset sector of business as a whole.

Jay Eben (13:56)
That’s a good way of summing it up. mean, the basics of any business is you got to be connected to your customer, And, you know, there’s something that’s been lost with technology these days where you had everything from AI that might be answering phones, which is a step in the right direction. ⁓ But if you’re not going to have something like that in place, then pick up the phone. I mean, because it’s where you learn what your customer is dealing with. I mean, taking the time to actually listen to people ⁓ is a lost art for sure.

⁓ you know, he had, you know, when Justin and I first started talking and I didn’t know who he was, ⁓ and, know, and had never watched a TV show called zombie house flipping, but, ⁓ was just curious by like, well, why do you think you need to, you know, to do a B and C, you know, he explained to me some stuff that he’d learned or had been told by a couple of people in conversation. like, well, I’m not sure what exactly what you were trying to solve for, but like, you’re going to waste a bunch of time, ⁓ doing something you don’t even need.

And so like we can figure out how to help you right now. And that was just one conversation. And then it did spawn from there that like, well, if there’s, if there’s you, you know, how many other use are there out there that are either trying to figure out how to pivot, you know, as Justin mentioned, he was pivoting, ⁓ or people that are, you know, entering in the barrier so high because they don’t understand the asset class. They don’t understand the product, how to order it.

how to buy it, where you can install it, what you can do with it, what you can’t do with it. And very few people are trying to solve it at that level. There’s a lot of people out there that are trying to solve it at the local street level of like, as Justin said a second ago, like come roll on in on a Saturday afternoon and buy a manufactured home that’s been sitting here for three months that we didn’t have you in mind when we bought it, but like, I’m sure you’re gonna love it.

Or there’s the approach of like, let’s actually customize this to each individual investor or customize it to each individual person ⁓ and get you the house that you’re looking for. Or if in a volume situation, get you the price that you’re looking for with the product that matches up to your exit strategy for your project. And just not a lot of people approaching it that way. ⁓ But that’s.

That’s how we do it on a day-to-day basis. But it starts with just the very basic of like, people are people and we solve problems. And if there wasn’t a problem, then people wouldn’t be on the internet searching or making phone calls looking for someone to talk to. And AI is great and it’s advancing every single day, but there are certain problems out there where you want to talk to somebody who’s done it before.

Especially if you’ve got capital on the line. I think AI is great, know, chat GPT, Gemini, open claw, you know, and if I have a $5 problem, I’ll throw a question at it all day long. If I have a $5 million problem, I’m going to want to talk to somebody that’s actually done it before. And you start by picking up the phone and actually talking to people.

Michelle Kesil (17:43)
Yeah, definitely. Glad.

Justin Stamper (17:44)
And I had a $5 million

problem and Jay helped me solve it. So it has been a huge eye-opener experience putting it all together. And it’s been so cool to now ⁓ finally start growing it. You know, it started with ⁓ the first year of just him and I working together as me as an investor doing my own developments. Because what I was focused on was just buying like one acre parcels of land. ⁓

connecting them to county infrastructure.

putting in Well and Septic and then ⁓ delivering a brand new mobile home to then sell on the open market. ⁓ And that was fine and dandy and that’s how we started working with each other and building rapport and trust. But now this year, we’ve come together and ⁓ in the last three months, we’ve actually doubled the size of our team. We’ve been onboarding and training. We’re coming out with ⁓

you know, just ⁓ SOPs, ⁓ know, operating procedures and branches of the business and, just all the checks and balances to lead a team to success. ⁓ And now we’re kind of ready to build it. You know, it’s in its infancy stage. Soon enough, our new hires will be toddlers. We’ll be able to let them, you know, go a little bit on their own. You still gotta keep the pool noodles on the corner of the coffee table though so that, you know, we don’t have

⁓ I’m

teaching

them our systems and we’re ready to take it to the next level. ⁓ So it’s been great. It’s been really cool to put all the pieces together. But it really started with like, know, Jay nailed it. How many other people are out there like me? So we started just kind of building it off of me as the original avatar. And then Jay did something which was hilarious. ⁓

He took every avatar that we had as a customer like in live action or every customer that we had and just made them an avatar. So now everybody has like, you know, there’s like the Rachel and the Reeve and the Steve is like, you know, so it’s it’s people that we’ve dealt with in real life of like, okay, well, this person, you know, is a beginner investor. They need this. This person walked in off the street, but each client that we are actually dealing with in real life. We’re creating like digital

avatars to then teach our staff in the future and create content and education around like actual real people and ⁓ I think Jay and I will take it one step further when we have this rock and roll and we’re gonna have to send fruit baskets to every single one of our clients that became an avatar because they are like literally built and scripted and now they just get referred to as that person in our business we’re like ⁓ you’re like kind of dealing with an Adam on it and they’re like yeah it’s an Adam I’m like nice dude awesome

⁓ Get them to order more, you know like So it’s place and now everybody just has like a nickname in our business of based on like our first clients that we ever dealt with as a company So it’s actually kind of funny watching it all evolve, you know businesses always have pretty entertaining origin stories You know, it’s never a linear straight line. I can tell you that much

Jay Eben (21:29)
That’s for sure.

not even close to a linear straight line. So as long as it’s not a circle, right? So that would be too painful to keep doing the same thing over and over again. So, but ⁓ absolutely. What an image. I got to check on our toddlers here in a minute.

Justin Stamper (21:46)
Yeah, yeah, it’s interesting.

Hahaha! Yeah.

Michelle Kesil (21:56)
Yeah, amazing.

So are you guys just selling these mobile homes to investors? Is that how the system works?

Jay Eben (22:06)
It is part of how the system works, right? So we will work with retail people that are individual buyers. We have a couple of those ⁓ customers right this moment. ⁓ It is more time consuming ⁓ simply because you are dealing with an individual’s or a family’s house that they’re actually going to live in in the real time. So customizations and modifications become a large part of that discussion.

And then, you know, the investor is, you know, the other lane, if you will, where, and they’re all different stages, you know, that as Justin was just talking about, there’s, you know, people that are just beginners, there are seasoned veterans, there are people that are seasoned veterans in one vertical, but not, you know, in this vertical. So all that comes down to education and, you know, teaching people, you know, what they can do, what they can’t do.

what the product can do and what it can’t do because there’s a lot of misnomers or myths about what it is and what it’s not, ⁓ and then working them through their projects. And then there’s individual projects that we have ourselves. So every day there’s a portion of our business that’s just screening deals, looking at things that we can put in motion so that we’re actually walking the talk and not just talking it. ⁓

And part of that walking the talk is knowing when to pass, like we passed on a deal yesterday. So there’s active investment, active projects, investors, individual or retail purchasers as well. And then there’s park operators, community operators, mobile home parks, ⁓ where we’ve set houses. And that branches out to many other areas. A few months ago, we set houses in Texas.

We expect houses in Georgia, Illinois, Michigan, just the last couple of months. So ⁓ that’s something that we do as well. And that’s a different class. They’re operating a business, ⁓ but are ultimately serving the same purpose, right? Like they are trying to bring housing to market at a price point that people can afford so that they sustain their business. So it all comes down to affordability and sustainability.

⁓ whether you’re the investor or whether you’re ⁓ the end user ⁓ of that end date, that product or that project.

Justin Stamper (24:33)
Yeah, for sure. And then also, you know, one big thing that we are focused on this year as well is not only providing other investors with the mobile home, but our service based aspect of the business as well, where you can hire us for full turnkey services. earlier, for example, I used Adam, one of our clients as an avatar. What they do is they hire, they buy the land and then they hire us and we handle the getting the installation set up, the path.

done, know, utilities pooled their permit, tech referral, whatever they need to get all the way to literally listing photos and on the MLS as investors, we’re handling all the service space for that too. So we’re trying to grow that because I personally forgot how much I enjoyed service space work. ⁓ You know, I’d run a construction company for 18 years. I enjoy work that can be done in a day sometimes because as investors on the other end of it, all of our projects take like

a and you know, don’t get me wrong, it’s really cool to build a house but it’s even more satisfying sometimes to just go install all the toilets in that house and be like, we did it, you know? So it’s been actually really nice too to offer our service space work as well with our clients and just trying to make it a streamlined process for investors. And again, it all started with, I needed so much help and Jay was like, hey man, I got you, boom, boom. And then we’re just rinse, wash, repeat.

process for all the other investors nationwide that are scratching their heads, how do I flip a mobile home? Well, we want to show them exactly how to do it and we’ll hold their hand through the whole process if we have to.

Michelle Kesil (26:17)
Amazing. That’s awesome that you guys are offering that. I appreciate you sharing all of your insight and everything that you’re up to. And before we wrap up here, if someone wants to reach out, connect and learn more, where can people find you?

Jay Eben (26:17)
Absolutely.

Justin Stamper (26:34)
Yeah, I’m pretty easy. It is at Justin Stamper on all platforms. So Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, you name it. Pretty easy to find. Yeah. Jay, what about you?

Jay Eben (26:48)
Basically, all leads or all inquiries would go through Justin, but we’re also at heritagehousingsolutions.com ⁓ and we’re monitoring the Facebook, Instagram feeds constantly. So if anybody’s interested, they can reach out and ⁓ you can also find us on LinkedIn ⁓ and other platforms. So if you’re searching for Jay Eben or Justin Stamper or Heritage Housing Solutions, you’re going to find us and we will be there to help you.

Michelle Kesil (27:17)
Perfect. We’ll appreciate your time and your story. Thank you for being here. Of course. And for the listeners tuning in, if you got value, make sure you’ve subscribed. We’ve got more conversations with operators who are building real businesses. We’ll see you on our next episode.

Justin Stamper (27:22)
Yeah, thanks for having us, Michelle.

Jay Eben (27:23)
Thank you

for having us. It’s been awesome.