From Duplex Work to 30-Unit Payoff: The Mobile Home Park Scaling Playbook with Ryan Wanner

Ryan (00:00)

after doing some analysis and realizing that the work to

operate a duplex is roughly the same to operate a 30 unit mobile home park. I decided that we were going to try to go all in on that and then we bought our first mobile home park which was a 27 unit community ⁓ just north of Minneapolis and kind of the rest is history so it’s been all downhill from there. It’s been really good.

Michelle Kesil (01:57)

Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Real Estate Pros Podcast. I’m your host, Michelle Kesil. And today I’m joined by someone that I’m looking forward to chatting with, Ryan Wanner, who has been making serious moves as a mobile home park investor, as well as working with AI to help build out workflows for businesses. So excited to have you on the show today, Ryan.

Ryan (02:25)

Thank you so much for having me.

Michelle Kesil (02:26)

Yeah, absolutely. think our listeners are going to take something away from how you’re approaching mobile home parks and the efficiency of using AI. So let’s dive in.

Ryan (02:39)

I certainly hope so.

Michelle Kesil (02:40)

Yeah, cool. So first off, for those not yet familiar with you and your world, can you share what your main focus is these days?

Ryan (02:49)

Yeah, so we focus on mobile home park acquisition. So

accumulated six properties, about 354 lots across three states now. And the biggest thing that we are seeing is kind of the opportunity to use AI to way, way improve our operational processes and just kind of the things we’re doing.

as it relates to tenant management, operating the properties efficiently, reducing expenses through insurance policy analysis and all the kind of stuff that ⁓ I’m not particularly good at. AI tends to raise the floor of what we’re able to do. So it’s been really, really helpful ⁓ for us, especially because the mobile home park space as a whole does not get a lot of love as it relates to the technology sector because it is

It’s affordable housing and it’s kind of the stepchild of real estate in some degrees. being able to bring modern technology into an underserved space has been really, really transformative for us.

Michelle Kesil (03:58)

Yeah, absolutely. How did you get started investing in two mobile parks?

Ryan (04:04)

Yeah, so I actually met a guy who ⁓ at I don’t know right now, but I know at one point he they were the fifth largest owners of mobile home park communities in the country. And I approached him and I was like, hey, if I were to start investing in real estate, which I do. And he said I would never invest in anything under the under 30 units. And I was like, okay, that’s different than what I was expecting to hear. So

after doing some analysis and realizing that the work to

operate a duplex is roughly the same to operate a 30 unit mobile home park. I decided that we were going to try to go all in on that and then we bought our first mobile home park which was a 27 unit community ⁓ just north of Minneapolis and kind of the rest is history so it’s been all downhill from there. It’s been really good.

Michelle Kesil (04:55)

Cool. What have been some of the obstacles that you faced during that journey and like how did you overcome them?

Ryan (05:50)

Yeah, so the biggest obstacle that we faced, it was actually on our first one. ⁓ It was not having any experience or capital to actually do a deal. So kind of big roadblocks. ⁓ So what we ended up doing is we partnered with someone in the space that was a known operator and he did a great job. We also raised a small amount of capital from a relative that was able to help us and then

The final piece of the puzzle that kind of made the deal happen was we were able to ⁓ get the seller to go along with seller financing and that worked great for everybody involved.

Michelle Kesil (06:31)

Awesome. Yeah, like, have you invested in other real estate besides mobile home products? Like what made you go down that path?

Ryan (06:39)

Yeah, so honestly the mobile home park path for us was due to the fact that it’s one of those things that will always be a need because regardless of what incomes do, regardless of what housing does, there are always going to be people who need affordable housing. ⁓ And so if you choose good markets, so we try to choose markets that have heavy concentrations in government, education and healthcare, so very recession durable ⁓ industries.

you couple that with the need for affordable housing and mobile home parks tend to thrive ⁓ as recessions tend to pop up and they do ⁓ equally well, I guess not equally well, ⁓ almost as well during prosperity. So there’s not really a downturn when you’re in the mobile home park space because of the way the asset is set up.

Michelle Kesil (07:34)

Awesome. Yeah, that’s super interesting and a unique perspective.

Ryan (07:37)

Mm-hmm.

Thank you.

Michelle Kesil (07:41)

So, can you expand more about how specifically you’re using AI to grow your business and how it’s serving you?

Ryan (07:52)

Yeah, so ⁓ I went down like a fairly technical path since learning AI. So ⁓ we’ve been like building apps and coding our websites and building agents that help us do everything. But the biggest thing that I would give for anyone who just wants to do something with it is to figure out what your company does well.

and try to do it at more velocity and higher volume with AI. ⁓ Because typically, if you know a process works really well, you can install AI in it and solve it much more easily than saying, hey, I have this problem. How can I solve it for me? Because then there you have to figure out a lot more things. And it kind of slows down the implementation process quite a bit.

Michelle Kesil (08:40)

Can you share some more specific examples of how that’s worked for you?

Ryan (08:45)

Yeah, absolutely. So one of the best things for us has been tenant communication, ⁓ whether that’s positive or negative. So whether we’re awarding a yard of the month or we’re giving someone a violation, having AI ⁓ kind of build more personalized outreach letters and more… ⁓

the kind of the quality, volume and speed of which we can make those communications happen. you know, we’re very responsive, we’re very in tune with our tenants. And so that has really pushed that to the next level. ⁓ You know, so instead of saying, hey, community member, please, you know, clean up your yard or whatever, it’s, hey, Janice, you know, you’ve been such a great tenant for us. We really appreciate X, Y and Z.

this is what we found that needs changed, please make that change happen. And it’s not a template or something that we have to pull in. It’s uniquely generated specifically to them so that they don’t feel like, man, I’m just another customer here, I’m just another lot number. They’re getting really personalized feedback on, like I said, whether they’re getting yard of the month and we’re hyping them up for that or whether we’re telling them that they have to power wash their house.

It’s been really good for our relationship with the community members.

Michelle Kesil (10:39)

Yeah, that’s amazing. So is this a software specifically that you’re designing that other people can get a hold of or what does that look like?

Ryan (10:50)

Yeah, so we are designing some internal tools and stuff that we will likely make public when we figure them out fully and stabilize everything. But this can be done using simple ⁓ custom GPTs or having a prompt that you copy and paste ⁓ so that you can take something that you’ve pre-built, take it to ChatGPT, say, hey, this is the document that I want. These are the details. Give me something useful. ⁓

We try to make things as simple as possible and then iterate forward from there. So if you’re not technical but you want to kind of access this kind of stuff, I would highly recommend playing around with writing a really good prompt so that you can use that over and over again. ⁓ Especially one of the great things to use it for is like new deal outreach. So that when you’re making a ⁓ you know, a cold outreach.

It feels a lot less so if you’re like, hey, I saw that project you did. ⁓ It looked like it really worked well, whatever it is. You can pull in the accomplishments of the people that you’re actually trying to reach out to and make it feel like you spent 20 minutes doing a bunch of research to really make the custom email or make that phone call a lot more.

personal and connectable to the human element of the seller on the deal.

Michelle Kesil (12:18)

Yeah, amazing. That’s such a cool system that you’re able to implement.

Ryan (12:24)

Thank you.

Michelle Kesil (12:26)

What are you most focused on solving or scaling to next in your business?

Ryan (12:33)

Yeah, so the biggest thing is for us just trying to get our operational efficiency as dialed in as it can be. like I said, one of the things that I’m really bad at is reading insurance policies and renewals and all that fun stuff. so like using AI to compress that time of, okay, what, does this insurance say? And if I’m going to shop it around, does it make sense to actually switch or

is the company that I’m shopping around to, are they missing some key provisions that my current insurance has, all that kind of stuff. And so the very time consuming administrative work is something that AI can compress dramatically. And that’s something that we’re really finding is able to free up our community managers and kind of our backend staff to actually, ⁓ you know, focus on higher value things so that

you know, the community manager can stop by someone’s house and say, hey, we’re awarding you yard of the month, and then give them the custom letter rather than be, you know, stuck saying, I’ve got to compare these insurance policies, whatever, I guess I’ll just mail that letter, I guess I’ll just tape it to the door, right? It gives our team more time to be able to focus on the things that are.

maybe not so much revenue generating, but are helping ⁓ kind of connect us to our customer base. And that has been really, really big for retention and making sure that people are taking care of things and just building a sense of community that impacts more than just the revenue side of things, ⁓ at least with what you see.

Michelle Kesil (14:14)

Absolutely, that’s really important to focus on the community and the relationships.

Ryan (14:21)

Yeah, we found that that is kind of the hidden gem to making things run a lot more smoothly.

Michelle Kesil (14:27)

Yeah, are there any like specific tools or tactics in that realm that have made the biggest difference for you?

Ryan (14:33)

Um, so we often will use an app called Claude desktop and it’s if you’re not a technical person, but you want to get into AI that actually can, you know, impact your spreadsheets and actually take actions. I highly recommend, um, it’s by a company called Anthropic, um, but it’s Claude desktop and it’s very, very easy to set up. Like as an example, we use notion and so it’s very easy to hook it into notion. And so it can pull data from.

as well as push data to. ⁓ And so instead of it just going blind, it’s got all of the context that it needs to actually take the action, log the action, then actually remind the manager, hey, please follow up with this in seven days when the violation comes due or whatever it is.

Michelle Kesil (16:07)

Yeah, that’s so important.

Ryan (16:12)

Yeah, we found it to be big. Yeah, I was just gonna say, we found it to be one of those things that we kind of overlooked, but has been massively ⁓ impactful for just kind of all elements. Even collection percentage and delinquency rates, stuff like that. If people feel kind of connected and in tune with the community, they really want to participate in it in a better way.

Michelle Kesil (16:12)

What? Go ahead.

Yeah, totally that makes a lot of sense. What are some of the goals you have for where you want your business to head, whether it’s in the realms of the AI or the mobile parks or both of those facets?

Ryan (16:47)

Yeah, so right now we’re really kind of dialing in our operations using AI for the mobile home parks. ⁓ Once the operations are kind of complete and we’re happy with ⁓ where they are, we’re really gonna focus on the acquisition side and using the AI to build out our deal funnel and all that kind of stuff. Right now we’re just kind of managing things as is on that side. We don’t wanna spread too thin, because I think that’s a mistake that people make.

is saying like, I’ve got a hundred great ideas, I’m gonna implement them all right now, rather than saying like, hey, I have a priority, I’m gonna execute this one idea really well, and then we’ll move on to the next thing. So kind of executing complete ideas as quickly as possible, rather than, I was always told, don’t build half bridges, is one of the best pieces of advice that I ever got. And so if you do that, you end up with a bunch of started really great ideas, but no actual productivity from them, right? And so,

For us, we’re really trying to dial in the operations and then we’re going to move to acquisitions and then once those things are kind of ⁓ functioning as they should be, we will likely move to kind of others ⁓ using the AI to kind of power their businesses as well.

Michelle Kesil (18:07)

Awesome. That’s super cool that you’re able to find all these ways to integrate it and support the business.

Ryan (18:14)

Yep.

Michelle Kesil (18:16)

Where do you kind of see things heading in the realms of AI? Are you looking into the future of what you think it could be possible?

Ryan (18:25)

⁓ 100%. Yeah, think that where AI is headed, it’s going to be really, really neat ⁓ because the administrative side is going to continue to get easier and easier. And so you’re going to be able to have the talent on your team focused on kind of unique ways to add value. And as an example, one of the things that just the time margin has helped us do

is we’re actually doing ⁓ newsletters now where we will provide like a move-in kit. And so it’s not a lot of revenue every month, but it allows you to create like an Amazon affiliate account. And you can say like, hey, these are the top 10 items that I recommend or that people forget when they’re ⁓ moving into a mobile home, right? And it’s like light bulbs, a welcome mat, fire extinguisher, you know, that kind of thing that they, you know, people don’t often think about. And so…

they get that email in their inbox. If they buy one of the products from that, we end up getting a small commission on it. And so it’s one of those things that we would have never even thought about if we didn’t have the time margin that AI created for us to actually say, okay, what’s another way that we can monetize ⁓ our business?

Michelle Kesil (19:43)

Yeah, super cool of all the ways that it can work for you. I think most people aren’t aware of it and maybe are a bit intimidated by it. So that’s awesome that you’re looking into it.

Ryan (19:53)

Yeah.

Yeah, it’s been a huge asset. mean, it’s one of those things that you can get kind of as deep in the weeds in it as you want to, and it can be beneficial the entire entire way. I don’t recommend that most people get as deep in the weeds as I did ⁓ because I definitely took some side trails that were not productive. But for the most part, I think everyone should be building a little bit of a technical base as it relates to understanding how to use AI, what it’s good for, what it’s not good for.

and where it’s at right now because it’s only gonna continue to get better. the more you wait to try to get on the train, the more difficult I think it’ll be to catch up in that regard.

Michelle Kesil (20:37)

Totally. Yeah, with everything there’s a learning curve in the beginning.

Ryan (20:41)

Yep, exactly.

Michelle Kesil (20:43)

When it comes to the mobile home parks, are you looking to grow and scale that aspect of your business as well?

Ryan (20:50)

Yeah, I think we will. ⁓ Like I said, right now we’re predominantly focused on operations ⁓ and we’re also kind of seeing kind of where the headwinds go. There’s a lot of ⁓ large institutional capital that has entered the space recently and it’s been really good for the people who own parks, but it’s been to increase the challenge for acquisition. ⁓ And so I want to really get

our acquisition dialed in so that people feel like we’re like really reaching out to them because we have an interest in their property. And I think that getting the AI to function in that regard and do some of the research for us and ⁓ kind of build out a better, ⁓ more informative database will be really helpful for that because I’m not going to have to reach out and be like, how many units does your property have? And like ask them questions that I should already know the answer to. ⁓

but because of the volume of research that has historically been required to do it, you just kind of have to reach out and then build your database manually. But now you can have a bunch of that information on the front end and say like, hey, I saw that you guys won small business of the year in this little town in 2018 or whatever it is. You can kind of reach out, connect a little better, have a fun fact to interact with the owners and.

⁓ That’s especially in the mobile home park space. A lot of the owners are older ⁓ people and so they highly value that connection and so if you can kind of reach out and connect with them in that way it makes it so that they’re much more interested in working with you on the sale and that’s kind of the advantage that individual investors can get over some of these big guys that can just pay ridiculous prices is that human connection factor can really make a difference.

especially because a lot of these, people who own the parks now, the parks are paid off. are, so they’re not necessarily, they don’t, I don’t want to say they don’t care about the money because everyone who has an asset and is selling the asset does care about the money to some degree. But the ability to connect with people can sometimes be something that allows you to overcome a higher priced offer from one of the institutional guys.

Michelle Kesil (23:07)

Totally. I think that relationship building skill is what’s going to help people make it or break it.

Ryan (23:13)

100 % and most people don’t look at AI as something that you can use to actually foster human connection with right because most people when they see AI they’re like oh it’s it’s AI slop and like it’s this is gonna separate me from that but if you actually get the AI to do the output and then you do the kind of quality control work it really gives you a big advantage in kind of working and reaching out with these guys.

Michelle Kesil (23:19)

Right.

Absolutely. So before we wrap up here, if someone wants to reach out, connect, learn more about what you’re doing, where can people find you and connect with you?

Ryan (23:46)

Yeah, so my primary website right now is buildthingsthatbuildthings.com and you can reach out to me on email, ryan@buildthingsthatbuildthings.com. I’m super happy to talk real estate, answer questions, and be as helpful as I possibly can.

Michelle Kesil (24:02)

Perfect! Well, I appreciate your time, your story, and your perspective. Thank you for being here.

Ryan (24:08)

Absolutely, thank you so much for having me, I really appreciate it.

Michelle Kesil (24:10)

sure. And for the listeners tuning into the show, if you got value, make sure you’ve subscribed. We’ve got more conversations with operators like Ryan who are building real businesses. We’ll see you on our next episode.