The Riches Are In Niches: How Landon Dory Built a $350M Commercial Real Estate Business

Landan Dory (00:00)
Well first and foremost, they always say, and I’m a big believer in this, but the riches are in the niches. So in any position in any industry, pick a very particular niche, pick a per per very particular avatar, get very good at solving the problems that are unique to that person, and you’ll never run out of work.

Scott Bursey (01:48)
Welcome back to the Real Estate Pros podcast powered by Investor Fuel. I’m your host, Scott Bursey. And today, pros, we’re delighted to have Landan Dory, the founding member and CEO of North Star Brokerage and Advisory, based out of Austin, Texas. Landan has managed over $350 million in completed commercial property transactions across 21 states. His niche focuses on RV parks and mobile home communities presently. Pros expect a masterclass on how to scale high-level assets and find your opportunity in the unique niche sectors. Landan, welcome to the show.

Landan Dory (02:30)
Happy to be here, Scott. Thanks for having me.

Scott Bursey (02:32)
It’s awesome to have you here, my friend, and help our listeners get up to speed. Please give us the ninety-second highlight reel on how your career ignited and where you’re pouring your fuel now.

Landan Dory (02:43)
Absolutely. So this will mark my eleventh year in the commercial real estate industry— nine years as a commercial agent, two years as a broker. I’ve covered a lot of markets, bunch of different product types before really solidifying my my interest in the niche of outdoor hospitality properties, including RV parks, mobile home parks, campgrounds, marinas, and pretty much anything that’s tangential to that. It’s a very exciting time to be involved in that space. Blessed to be surrounded by an awesome team who’s just as enthusiastic about what we’re doing as I am. And we are growing rapidly. We are making our clients as happy as we possibly can every single day. And then just solving problems the rest of the time, which is the never-ending challenge of being in my position.

Scott Bursey (03:31)
That’s awesome, man. And Landan, what really caught my attention about you was the way you’ve been able to transact over $350 million in commercial property while dominating niche sectors like RV parks and mobile home communities. You know, that kind of volume in specific asset classes is impressive. And on that note, what was the defining moment or specification that allowed you to achieve that milestone? What was the moment where you knew that, hey, I have reached— I— I— I’m on that trajectory to achieve three hundred and fifty million dollars in— in— in sold revenue?

Landan Dory (04:15)
Well— well first and foremost, they always say, and I’m a big believer in this, but the riches are in the niches. So in any position in any industry, pick a very particular niche, pick a per per very particular avatar, get very good at solving the problems that are unique to that person, and you’ll never run out of work. And the decision that we’ve decided to make… the background on how we got to where we are today is a— actually a total accident. I’ve got a very deep and rich background in doing net lease property sales all across the country. That led me into doing a lot of work with people that were involved in a 1031 exchange and looking to exit a management-intensive property and replace that with a more passive income property like an AutoZone, CVS, Starbucks, so that they could avoid paying capital gains taxes and then not lose a cash flow. And then as I was w— working with a lot of different types of people, specifically for that 1031 exchange product, I recognized that one of the most management-intensive asset classes is outdoor hospitality. And there’s a lot of older owners who are aging out and wanting to transition out of that type of ownership, but don’t want to lose the equity that they’ve worked hard to build. And they certainly don’t want to lose the cash flow, which was the— the— the kind of marrying of the idea of the 1031 exchange for owners exiting management-intensive properties, getting into passive income properties. So we took on a couple of those projects early on and we just found that it was absolutely rich with good people, good projects to work on, and a lot of opportunities. So we said, “Hey, let’s not just take this as one component of a 1031 exchange model. Let’s take this as our primary focus.” So we made that switch in 2022. And then ever since then, we’ve been extremely focused on that particular property type and that particular client profile.

Scott Bursey (06:52)
That is incredible, Landan. Scaling to that level requires a mindset shift that most investors never actually make. So hearing that it came down to a few key decisions is so valuable for our pros. And on that note, what are a couple core strengths of your operation right now?

Landan Dory (07:10)
Well, one, it’s— it’s the team. I— I came from a background where I did everything myself from property owner research to making the phone calls to putting together marketing collaterals and all that good stuff. And once I hit my own personal critical mass for any given or calendar year, I realized that, “Hey, there’s a lot of other people that are doing what I do in different areas, but having way higher volume, way higher success. So what’s the problem?” And after some reflection and consulting, I found out that the problem was me. I was the— the limiting factor in a lot of my growth, which meant that I needed to scale beyond myself, hire a team, and then kind of dissolve my responsibilities out. And the trajectory for me in that process over the last couple of years has been really letting go of critical tasks that are involved or required to run my business and empowering the team around me to— to take on those responsibilities and do them. And in many cases, at this point, a lot of those folks are better than me at doing those things now, which has allowed me to go focus on the things that I excel at and I’m probably one percent in, and let those people focus on the things that they’re one percent good at.

Scott Bursey (08:15)
Landan, we love to dive into the challenges of your niche. In your experience, what is the biggest internal blind spot, if you will, or operational weakness that most investors in mobile home communities fail to address early on?

Landan Dory (08:30)
Well, whether it’s mobile home, RV, marinas, the— the interesting thing is every single one of these properties is deeply unique at so many different levels, from the utilities to the operationals to operational structures to the org chart and everything. So everybody’s differ— everybody’s business is different and requires a different skill set and person running that particular property. However, most people are trying to do the same thing. They’re trying to solve the same problems, they’re trying to market to the same customers, or trying to increase retention of those customers. And those types of things we can actually put into a box. So at our company, we have what we call the FOMIE framework. It’s F-O-M-I-E: Financials, Operations, Marketing and revenue generation, Infrastructure, and then Exit readiness. We tell people like, “That’s the lens that you need to look at your business, and your business is the picture. The picture is unique, the lenses don’t change.” So what we like to do is work with people to better understand what their pic— what their business looks like through those lenses, and then use our deep and rich history, having analyzed hundreds of businesses, transacting God knows how many at this point, to make better decisions. ‘Cause if we can take the best practices that we’ve seen implemented in different properties in different states, help plug those into the rest of the properties, everybody wins. Our— our clients’ businesses get better, we maintain a better relationship with them, and then our likelihood of— of being— of making them lifelong clients goes up tremendously.

Scott Bursey (09:53)
Tell us your thoughts on the current landscape for RV parks. You know, where do you see the most untapped potential for an investor looking to break into that space today?

Landan Dory (10:40)
Well, the best way to do that is to look at what the ownership profile is of most of these properties right now. And what’s interesting and very unique about this asset class is that somewhere in the range of seventy-five percent of RV parks specifically are owned by individual mom-and-pop-style investors. So it’s a very fragmented market. Now, we are experiencing right now the same wave of syndication and roll-up and aggregation that many other asset classes have been experiencing for decades, but it’s just now hitting our market right now. So there is a lot of new people that are trying to get into this space, and there is a lot of opportunity to do so. The— the challenge that these people face is getting a deal in the first place, because it’s a very competitive market. And then it’s actually plugging in a business plan that works and it makes sense, because running an RV park is absolutely nothing like owning and managing a multifamily property. And unfortunately, a lot of people don’t realize that until they already own the thing and they’re trying to take their multifamily playbook and make it work in an RV park. And it’s just apples and oranges, which is why we have our advisory practice, which is why we have our community to help facilitate a lot of that learning and a lot of that knowledge beyond just what’s in my head, but to diffuse it across multiple different owners all across the country so they can all learn together.

Scott Bursey (11:56)
Understood. If a pro only has the capital for one acquisition in the RV space, let’s say, what metric should they be concentrating on first?

Landan Dory (12:08)
What metric should they be concentrating on first? In the acquisition, I would say first and foremost, understand your basis in the property, because you make your money when you buy, not when you sell— I’m a firm believer in that. But at the same time, it’s understanding all your operational KPIs because again, this is an operating business. It’s not just a property that sits and you collect a monthly check. So understanding what those operational KPIs are is the first step. The second step is understanding ways that you can improve those, and then now you can track and change those over time. So you can add a tremendous amount of value to one of these businesses in the way that you would normally a business. You can multiply the revenue of a business— it’s very similar to that— versus just making incremental improvements over time, paying down debt, taking advantage of depreciation, which is the game plan of a lot of other typical commercial investors out there.

Scott Bursey (12:58)
Curious, how do you handle the shifting economic tides? You know, what’s the biggest external threat to— to the outdoor community right now in your view?

Landan Dory (13:08)
The biggest threat, it has nothing to do with the market, it has nothing to do with the war with Iran or the Strait of Hormuz moves— all that stuff is— is so detached. I mean, it has an impact on our market, but you just can’t control it. The biggest threat that people have is not keeping up with the times. Because if you’re an old-school mom-and-pop RV operator and you’ve done your entire business off pen and pad and email and everything, you’re gonna find yourself so far behind so quickly. The owners who are rapidly adopting AI and who’ve already demoed and tested multiple different reservation management softwares until they found the one that works, and the ones who are really experimenting with creative marketing— all the small little levers that as on their own, they maybe not— they don’t move the needle that much, but when you pull enough of them in the right direction, they can have a monster impact on your business while also having a detrimental impact on your competitors’ business. So the threat to people is just not adopting to the times and understanding where the market’s going.

Scott Bursey (14:01)
How are you adjusting your underwriting to say safe?

Landan Dory (14:06)
The interesting thing about underwriting in my space is that we— we have a very good underwriting team. I’ve been underwriting properties for a decade. This space is very unique because everybody wants to see our model and they want to see the owners’ financials before they purchase something. 99% of them are going to look at it and then immediately throw it out the window and they’re gonna plug in their own model. So because this is a business, the operational structures that are involved to run these things vary drastically across— cross properties that on the surface may look identical, but the way that the organization is structured, the way that the capital is structured, the team that they have in place— all of that factors in so much more. So it’s very difficult to kind of say, “Hey, your on your P&L, your— your marketing budget should be here, your property taxes should be within this range,” because it’s all very different. It’s municipality by municipality, it’s county by county, it’s operator by operator. It’s all variant, which is why having a— a community of people that can all share ideas and learn from one another, we think is very valuable. And it’s why you can’t be a successful owner in this space and isolate yourself from that type of knowledge and learning from other people.

Scott Bursey (15:55)
Let’s explore your strategy on mobile home communities specifically. How do you balance the need for infrastructure upgrades with maintaining the affordability that makes those assets successful?

Landan Dory (16:08)
So that’s a critical component within our infrastructure pillar and our FOMIE framework. So there’s two ways we look at infrastructure: there’s things that you have to fix or have to repair or have to maintain because if you don’t, the park can’t run; and there’s types of upgrades that you can make that can actually generate a higher revenue through, you know, through better amenities or through just having a nicer— a nicer place that people want to live. So the best way that we found to— to— to to kind of teach that or coach that, just based on the best operators that we’ve seen do it in the space, is to just really take an itemized lens of every single infrastructure component within your property, understand what the current condition is and what the usable life is, and then really start to budget in what it’s going to take to repair that. And if you can take that from a disaster-type moment, which is, “No, my septic’s backing up, now I have to fix this,” to a point where, “Hey, our septic system, you know, we’re getting quarterly or— or semi-annual check-ins on this, it looks like we might be nearing the end of the rope. Let’s start budgeting for this so that we can fix it before it becomes a problem,” and then now that’s not a surprise on our— our balance sheet or on our income statement, now it’s something that we can plan and prepare for and then we can budget everything else around.

Scott Bursey (17:17)
Landan, do you find that sellers appreciate that value-add approach, or are they more focused on the immediate exit?

Landan Dory (17:25)
Without a doubt, people like working with someone who understands their business, understands their property, and it certainly helps if someone’s been able to actually add value to their business over a long period of time versus just a transactional broker. Transactional brokerage is a very tough and risky business to be involved in, but building long-term relationships with clients is, you know, very selfishly, it’s— it’s where it’s at for us because that’s where we— that’s how we, you know, budget out and forecast year over year. But it’s also tremendously beneficial for the owners because now they’re not looking at me as someone who just wants to sell their park and, you know, make a commission check on that transaction, but they’re looking at me as a long-term partner— kind of like a strategic partner, a fractional partner in running their business— so that they’re making the decisions day by day that I’ve already seen work or not work at the exit table. So a— a common example is people will ask me what types of infrastructure upgrades they might need to make at their park and will it move the needle on their valuation. Again, two buckets that that falls in: there’s a bucket with that doesn’t produce more revenue, and there’s a bucket that does produce more revenue. A bucket that does produce more revenue would be something like adding site covers over an RV space because that’s an immediate increase in what you can charge on that particular space. When you decide to do that in your process— or where I guess a better way to put that is where you are in your hold period— might dictate how you make that decision because there’s certain upgrades that might not monetize for a period of 12 months, and there’s some that are immediate. So if you’re a long-term holder, you might think about like, “How do I make my property as durable as possible today so that my operating cost is lower for the next 10 years?” If you’re looking at a 12-month exit, you want to try to find ways to milk every dime that you can get out of that property so that when you put it in front of a buyer and that buyer puts it in front of their bank, they can confidently give the stamp to say, “Yes, we can either give you a bigger loan or we can pay more for this asset based on what you’ve already proven it can produce.”

Scott Bursey (19:14)
Landan, you touched on the importance of relationships. On that note, what does your professional network look like right now?

Landan Dory (19:21)
I— I am a big believer in a strong and robust network where I always want to be depositing more in other people’s banks than I’m expecting from other people. I— I— there’s so many different people that can add so much value to your own business beyond just like referrals or deals. And my network is very strong and I’ve spent a lot of time and a lot of hard work getting it to that point. We’re trying to foster that same type of idea within owners themselves, but just to give you one example: I’ve got a very deep and tight relationship with one particular vendor that’s effectively building an entire AI-powered infrastructure within my organization right now. And that was a relationship that was— the seeds were planted back in 2021. So it’s been a long-term relationship with zero expectations on either side that got to a point where it said, “Hey, I have a need, you have a solution, let’s work together.” Now he’s getting the benefit of kind of demoing this on my organization, I’m getting the benefit of drastically reduced costs for these implementations. And like, I’m— I’m just a firm believer that a rising tide floats all ships and people should look for more collaborative ways to— to not just make their business better, but make their network stronger.

Scott Bursey (20:30)
It sounds like you’ve built a powerhouse circle. Thank you for sharing that. And Landan, where do you see the company, North Star, your business in the next, let’s say, twelve to twenty-four months?

Landan Dory (20:43)
Twelve to 24 months is solving the operational constraints that were developed over the previous 12 to 24 months as we went from a team of four to a team of twelve. Now it’s: how do we solve the operational constraints that can get us from a team of twelve to a team of thirty? ‘Cause it’s a— it’s an entirely different equation. The long-term goal is to get to be the dominant name in outdoor hospitality brokerage and advisory across the country. We have some very exciting things that we’re— we want to roll out. But the first thing that we need to do is get critical players like myself and my COO and certain members of the team out of the way of the slog and be able to diffuse that workload across other team members who are just as capable, just as knowledgeable, and then can go execute that on a higher level so that we can focus on more long-term, high-level tasks.

Scott Bursey (21:30)
Landan, it would be great to understand if you were starting over in today’s market with zero deals, but all the knowledge that you have now, what is the one specific money move you would make in the first 90 days to generate cash flow?

Landan Dory (21:47)
Well, definitely hire and work with coaches and consultants because you can pay to expedite that knowledge for yourself in a way that’s more beneficial long-term than having to learn the hard lessons over a long period of time. I learned that for sure. And then it’s making investments into your team and making investments into your organization that will help catalyze that growth. There’s no substitute for what it takes to be successful in this business, and that’s a lot of deep relationships with owners, which you can really only accomplish through a pretty robust and long period of prospecting. But you really do need to equip your team and equip your internal tech stack and resources in a way that you can get to that point in time quicker. You can’t shortcut relationships, but you can shortcut everything else that helps you get to those relationships sooner.

Scott Bursey (22:34)
And that’s how you build real momentum. Thank you for sharing that. And you have shared just a tremendous amount of great advice today with our listeners. But is there any additional words of wisdom that you can leave with our pros?

Landan Dory (22:46)
Man, I— I would say, depending on who you are, I— I’d say this— this probably applies to everybody, regardless of whether you’re an investor or a broker or something else completely. But pick— pick one particular asset class or one particular avatar or one particular market and be the expert of that thing for the people who— who are in that place or in that market or have that problem. Because there’s so much more value that you can provide on a one-on-one basis by being very, very deeply knowledgeable about the thing that they are also very deeply knowledgeable about, but you can bring in a different perspective, different resources and a different lens than they can. And that’s where people start to recognize you as knowledgeable— where they start to see you as an authority in the space. And that becomes very, very difficult to do if you’re the guy who’s always trying something new, or “I’m— I’m— I— I’m playing in this asset class and this ac— asset class and this ac— asset class,” because if you’re playing in four different asset classes, you can only be twenty-five percent effective in each one of those areas versus the person who’s a hundred percent focused in one of those asset classes, because they’re gonna be a hundred percent better than you, or— or I guess four times better than you in that particular asset class, because that’s where they’re putting a hundred percent of their time.

Scott Bursey (24:01)
That’s some powerful stuff. And Landan, for those of our listeners that want to keep this conversation moving, stay in your lane or collaborate with you, what’s the best way for them to reach you?

Landan Dory (24:11)
We are across all socials— Facebook, Instagram, we stay active on. I’m personally very active on X, formerly Twitter, LinkedIn, we’re obviously very active on there as well. So you can reach us on any of those channels. If you’re an owner of one of these types of properties, I would encourage you to check out the Owners Collective, which is the community that we have that’s exclusive for owners— no brokers except for myself, no vendors, no salespeople, no nothing. And the goal there is to help people focus on ways that you can run a more profitable business today that’s worth more in the future and nothing else. So depending on which bucket you fall into and why you might want to reach out, you’re welcome to check in with me any method.

Scott Bursey (24:52)
Landan, thank you for joining us today. This has been an absolute clinic.

Landan Dory (24:57)
Thank you. I’m happy to be here. Thanks for inviting me, Scott. It’s been enjoyable. Thanks for the conversation.

Scott Bursey (25:01)
And to our listeners, we appreciate you. If you receive value from today’s episode, please subscribe. We’ll be filling your tanks with a lineup of elite guests just like Landan Dory, who are accelerating and setting the pace for the rest of the industry. Until next time, keep your standards high and your vision clear. We’ll see you on the next episode, everyone.