Why RV Parks Are Booming: Expert Investment Tips with Emma Norman

Emma Norman (00:00)
What I loved about the real estate industry is the amount, especially in the single family home side of it, ⁓ the amount of creativity that was available. Basically, if you thought it and you could write it down correctly on your legal document, you and the seller could go back and forth until you both agree.

Dylan Silver (01:52)
Hey folks, welcome back to the show. Today’s guest is an Ohio based commercial mortgage broker who specializes in mobile home parks, RV parks, manufactured housing communities, storage facilities, and holds equity in parks herself. Please welcome Emma Norman. Emma, welcome to the show.

Emma Norman (02:15)
Hi Dylan, thank you for hosting the show and inviting me to be a guest. I appreciate it.

Dylan Silver (02:21)
Absolutely,

absolutely. It’s great to have you. I think I’ve only had maybe a handful. You could be the first guest that I’ve had from Ohio. I have to go back and check. How long have you been in Ohio?

Emma Norman (02:32)
I’ve been in Ohio for about 15 years now. I love it cold. I prefer it cold. I actually had this conversation with my daughter the other day. We were complaining about the different humidities available to you across the states. And we were complaining about Florida’s humidity. And right now, Ohio feels like Florida. So I was talking.

Dylan Silver (02:36)
It seems cold.

It’s humid in Ohio?

You’re kidding me.

Emma Norman (02:57)
During the summer it’s very humid despite what people think. Yes, we reach… yeah.

Dylan Silver (03:01)
I don’t… my gosh.

I’ve lived in some cold, cold climates. I went to school in Boston and I feel like Ohio gets very, very cold as well. But you know, one of the interesting things is you ⁓ lived in California previously, right?

Emma Norman (03:06)
Well, yes.

I lived in Washington state. Yes. Right. No, no. Everyone thinks California, West Coast, but there’s still Washington and there’s Oregon too. you know, and Idaho wants to throw themselves in it too. So there’s that.

Dylan Silver (03:20)
Okay, Washington. Not California. West Coast, but not California. My bad, I apologize. I know it’s this terrible.

We have this

thing locally. I’m a Dallas realtor. And if you tell someone from Fort Worth, which is the neighboring city, and it’s the DFW Metro. So people go back and forth all time. If you tell someone from Fort Worth, they’re from Dallas. If you tell someone from Dallas, they’re from Fort Worth. It’s like a big, big thing. It’s a whole, it’s a whole ordeal. And I said, man, it’s the DFW. Like, no, no, no, no, no, it’s a big deal. So I don’t want to miss the state.

Emma Norman (04:03)
Yes, I’ve been triggered.

I’ve been triggered. That’s correct. No.

Dylan Silver (04:08)
But Washington, so how long were you in Washington for?

Emma Norman (04:12)
there for over 25 years. was basically raised there. Yes. Seattle area. Yes, actually Tacoma, Northeast Tacoma. Stadium High School was actually featured in 10 Things I Love About You with Heath Ledger and Julia Stiles. I actually went to that school. So. Yes.

Dylan Silver (04:16)
Seattle area

Okay. my gosh. Wow, everyone loves that performance by by Heath Ledger.

One of the things that I think is interesting, because it’s two totally different areas of the country, right? I mean, Seattle real estate is a whole other animal. But then you have Ohio. When did you first know that you were passionate about the real estate space? Was it when you were out there living in that that side of the country or when you moved to Ohio?

Emma Norman (04:55)
So definitely on that side of the country in that I was fortunate enough fortunate enough to be married to a man whose family was knee deep, waist deep into developing single family homes. They at that time, I would say about the fifth year of our marriage, my ex father-in-law was building out a plot of over 150 homes at which time I, you know, it was the good time.

Dylan Silver (05:22)
my goodness.

Emma Norman (06:12)
It was pre 2008. It was the good time. So I was a realtor and I was basically just sitting there and closing deals and that’s all I was doing, you know, and I was just sitting at, you know, neptutism to its finest. So

Dylan Silver (06:14)
Yeah.

Now,

now during that time period, and I guess backing up a little bit beforehand, you mentioned that you had family that was involved in the business. Did you always know from kind of a young age that this is what you wanted to go do? Or was it more of a kind of, hey, let me get my feet wet and see what this is like. And then you found out that you were passionate about it.

Emma Norman (06:48)
So, absolutely not. I, ⁓ like I said, I was fortunate to marry the man I did marry.

It was a whole different mindset, a different way of living, a different social economic class. I’m going to be straightforward.

What I loved about the real estate industry is the amount, especially in the single family home side of it, ⁓ the amount of creativity that was available. Basically, if you thought it and you could write it down correctly on your legal document, you and the seller could go back and forth until you both agree.

I loved that so much just like software right and coding like you write it and you get this Magical thing on your screen and you’re like, how the heck did I just make a whole new universe? the same logic Exactly exactly

Dylan Silver (07:34)
I know.

And now you don’t even need to do anything. You just do it in AI, say AI right. I’m in

a software engineering program and about halfway through we were all like, oh my gosh, what are we doing here? We can just, we should be liberal arts majors, right? But, um, which is the total opposite side. But I actually think on that note, we may see more people pivoting towards kind of the creative and away from kind of the STEM.

Emma Norman (07:52)
Right.

You

Dylan Silver (08:06)
You might need maybe an AI cert or a certification, but a lot of the creativity is now going to be in high utility. I want to pivot a bit here, Emma, and ask you about going from retail, you know, as a realtor to then the lending side, the mortgage side. And what spurred that? And then also, what was the pivot points or what did your ⁓ career in business look like going from that side to the lending side?

Emma Norman (08:34)
So, ⁓ I have a plan, an overall plan.

where I wanted to own my own properties and I wanted to be able to scale on a huge level, right? And I’m not talking one at a time. I was thinking 50 to hundreds at a time because my overall goal would be a debt fund where I would be able to give loans. But in order to start any kind of fund at all for any kind of credibility, you have to be able to put your own assets in it as well for people

to take you seriously like you have the GP side ⁓ experience as well as the LP side and of course you understand how to get your capital investors and equity capital as well.

Of course, when I first started out, I had no idea about any of this. You know, all I knew is I wanted to own a ton of assets that would be able to somehow hold a program where I could provide housing for free for a year for domestic violence victims and their families. I was very particular about that. So I woke up one day and I went on Indeed.com

Dylan Silver (09:45)
Yeah.

Emma Norman (09:53)
And Eastern Union was looking for commercial mortgage brokers. And I just went ahead and applied. They rejected me.

Okay, they totally rejected me. And I kept pushing and pushing and pushing because I just had this idea in my head that that’s where I’m gonna end up. I don’t care how long it takes. I don’t care how long it takes me to learn. ⁓ That’s where I’m gonna be.

Dylan Silver (10:44)
I like this.

Emma Norman (10:57)
So no, no, didn’t. didn’t. So commercial mortgage brokering is fantastic in that way. A lot of people don’t know this, but certain states and actually most states, exactly, you don’t need a license.

Dylan Silver (10:57)
Did you have the license at that point?

You don’t need it.

Do you need it but you do need it the residential side or you don’t?

Emma Norman (11:15)
You need it on the residential side. Absolutely. Because you’re dealing with a different audience. When you’re dealing with commercial mortgages, I guarantee you 90 % to 95 % of your clientele is smarter than you.

Dylan Silver (11:18)
Okay.

So when you’re in the commercial mortgage space, do most people have the mortgage? What’s the license? The LMO? I’m probably butchering it. You know what mean?

Emma Norman (11:41)
Yes, yes, you

start off with that. No, I would not say that necessarily at all. As a matter of fact, a lot of the a lot of people that I can, I can sort with, they don’t hold a license at all. Because like, for example, in New York, you, you can actually start being a broker as small on small loans as small as $18,000 and up.

Dylan Silver (12:00)
Yeah.

Emma Norman (12:10)
Okay, and then in the state of Florida, in the state of Florida, I can broker loans there as long as it’s with brick and mortar banks, not private money.

Dylan Silver (12:19)
I gotta look into this for myself. Now you’re gonna get the creative

thoughts flowing here, Emma. I’m gonna be taking a look at the… That’s right.

Emma Norman (12:25)
Exactly. Everybody thinks they can do it. That’s what’s the funny

thing about it is everybody thinks they can do it. But the fact is it’s just as time is consuming as running an asset. That’s why we’re a value.

Dylan Silver (12:37)
Yeah.

Emma Norman (12:39)
I can say that when I’m running my assets, it takes away a lot of time from me to be the mortgage broker side of it. And I take just as much time being a commercial mortgage broker. Thank goodness I’m an empty nester. I have the time now. But like if I was raising my family, there’s no way. There’s no way.

Dylan Silver (12:56)
It’s a time consuming thing, right?

I want to ask

you about the persistence with getting that job. think this has not been something that I’ve talked about at all on this show. We’ve done hundreds of episodes. ⁓ A lot of people, I think, may face rejection in the job market, right? And just say, OK, well, it’s not for me, or I don’t know. Maybe I have to get additional certifications, or go back to school, and on and so forth. And you just said, no, I’m going to get this. I’m going to make this happen.

What was your approach? You mentioned like, indeed, did you reach out to them on a granular level? How did you get that job?

Emma Norman (13:37)
So.

was very I guess the best way to say it is unsophisticated I took the interview video in my bathroom in a cami so I reviewed that and I thought ⁓ that must be it so I put on a decent shirt and I took the video again and I think I emailed them another five or six times and said no you have to hire me no you have to hire me

no, you have to hire me. And then things really began to change when they realized that I had enough nuance in the business to understand certain things that weren’t, weren’t being taught because of my real estate experience way back when. ⁓ When I was in the group, a group zooms, I was like, I just asked him if he had more assets to add to the loan amount so that we can go ahead and get him a loan. And that got me like,

Dylan Silver (14:20)
Yeah.

Emma Norman (14:34)
They started whispering about me at that point. I remember them whispering It was the CEO now and then along with the right-hand man in the industrial sector of our company They started whispering back and forth. So I made a huge splash within eight days I was actually recruited to the MHP division because they realized my gosh This woman is not going to bring in anything but mobile home parks and RV parks and I did not cover ground with you on that

why that was so comfortable for me.

I was actually a mobile home park ⁓ property manager for solid five years before. Yes, so it came that just made sense to me. So I’d like to say that it never happens right in that moment. It’s the culmination of all of the years of your experience and like taking your shot and knowing when that moment is and saying anybody says

Dylan Silver (15:53)
Yeah, there it is.

Emma,

I love hearing these stories. I have a buddy, good buddy in San Antonio who’s a ⁓ recruiter. And what’s interesting is I’ve learned so much about the job market and because he’s recruited for all different types of jobs, a lot of nursing, but a lot of roles outside of that as well. And I see like from the mindset of the hiring people how things happen. And of course, because I have applied to jobs and so many people have, right.

You can kind of, in a way, demonize all people that hire and be like, they’re missing it or whatever. But I’ve seen from him, there’s simple things that so many people can do, such as make sure that they’re including the keywords in their resume that people might be looking for so that it gets through like the applicant tracking system, right? And then also understand that just because it’s up on Indeed or LinkedIn or whatever, ZipRecruiter, right? So many other places that you may need to have kind of that

Contact sport mentality like you had Emma and be like I’m not just gonna do the indeed I’m gonna reach out to them like three or four times and you did five times. So, I mean, you know Personally, like you just can’t you can’t have the the mentality of like, okay I got rejected or they haven’t responded I’m just gonna move on because that’s what it what it takes right now and good on you for doing that but I do want to pivot to where you are today and kind of chronologically get us up to speed so you’re a

equity partner in some ⁓ parks and you’re involved in deals, brokering deals in the ⁓ storage facility, RV parks, modular mobile home, right? And all of these have a tie in of land. I love land. We were talking about this before hopping on here. I’m a big fan of land. I’m in North Texas. So we’ve got plenty of land within the commercial space and mortgaging these types of deals.

Do you see that there’s a lot of kind of similarity between these types of deals and that an investor who might be looking at a storage facility might also be looking at a RV park or modular home park or is it something totally different entirely?

Emma Norman (18:23)
no, that is what they’re actually adjacent, adjacent. ⁓ The three sectors I just went over. It’s not very hard for them to be jumping from one to another to another. And that’s why I do such. I have clients who just started off in mobile home parks, let’s say six years ago, right? And ⁓ presently they’re up to 50 mobile home parks and they want to slide into

Dylan Silver (18:28)
Yeah.

Emma Norman (18:53)
Self storage right so they have three or five of those Why they tend to be adjacent is some of the same players like to make the scooch over as well you get to this certain point this breakage or emergence that happens to where Maybe you’re not so interested in taking care of where people live anymore. You’re more interested in running businesses and self storage is abyss more like a

Dylan Silver (18:55)
Yeah.

Emma Norman (19:23)
business model and same with RV parks. It’s more of a business model. You’re running a business. You start qualifying for SBA and things of that sort. that yes, exactly. So you get to go into those sectors with a little less money down if you’re qualifying for that SBA and a different set audience of people you’re working with on a daily basis.

Dylan Silver (19:26)
Yeah.

Yeah, it’s huge.

I want

I want to ask you about some of the hotbeds areas of ⁓ land investing. mean, I think, of course, there’s people who are involved as real estate agents, maybe in some of these deals. But the lenders ⁓ are heavily, heavily involved. And I think maybe more so because everything depends on them. And then also, you see all different kinds of investors from all across the country.

Where is some of the hotbeds that you’re seeing for some of these deals, whether it’s the storage or the RV parks, which area of the country are you seeing a lot of these deals happen right now?

Emma Norman (20:27)
So they happen across the nation. ⁓ Let’s say Utah and Wyoming and Idaho. It’s a very scenic area of the country. So RV parks are very hot there. They’re very hot there. Anywhere, and then of course Florida. RV parks are a huge industry in Florida. ⁓ There’s RV parks anywhere. There’s a workforce, Texas for example.

oil and gas, you know, it’s huge RV parks are huge there. And I know we’re trying to focus on land and everything else. I tend to step away from that when it comes to MHC and RV parks, in that there’s not enough of ⁓ an appetite for it on the stabilized side of things. However, on private equity, people are gobbling that up. They are looking for that debt funds, JV

Dylan Silver (21:16)
Mmm.

Let’s go.

Emma Norman (21:27)
partnerships, they are looking to definitely find the spots where there’s no regulation to stop you from building a new MHC or a new RV park. There’s hunger for that. For example, in Atlanta, are so severely behind on affordable housing that they will do whatever.

Dylan Silver (21:44)
Yeah.

I believe it. I believe it. I’ve seen actually a guest on this show introduced me. I was unaware. They have super everything from very cost effective to super lux RV parks, which I’ve never seen before, but definitely exists. Well, they’ll have attractions. They’ll have restaurants, know, water. And I said, that seems amazing. Yeah, I want to go right.

Emma Norman (21:53)
So that’s what I had.

yes. Spas.

Yes.

Yes. Yeah.

Dylan Silver (22:21)
But

Emma Norman (22:22)
They

really enjoy out there, especially in Florida, Ocala ⁓ area. There’s an RV park there that is actually quite famous in our sector, the Champions Run. And it is the crème brûlée of RV parks. It has the spa, excessive showers and excessive laundry mats and things like that. And they only let in coaches at like a quarter of million and up, like things like that. Yeah.

Dylan Silver (22:51)
Yeah,

I gotta get to that level. Let me get a luxury. As soon as I get either a spot in a luxury RV park or I’m part of the deal, that’s when I’ll know that I’ve made it. Emma, are coming up on time here though. Where can folks go if maybe they’d like to reach out to you or maybe they’re looking at a deal and would like to get your perspective or if they’re maybe based out in the Ohio area themselves and would like to reach out to you?

Emma Norman (22:52)
you

⁓ would love that. I would absolutely love that. So we started deals out at a million dollars in low loan proceeds and up and you can reach me at enorman at eastern unions account.com. You can also reach me on Facebook. I’m a Facebook fiend. I love to do messages, DM messages, and I’m the sneaky person in the shadows who just DMS everybody. Same with LinkedIn. You can find me on LinkedIn. ⁓

So that’s and of course you can always text me at 330-314-4878.

Dylan Silver (23:53)
Emma, thank you so much for coming on the show here today.

Emma Norman (23:58)
Thank you, Dylan. Thank you for your time.