Trailers & Dirt: Hidden Cash Flow in Real Estate Niches

Looking for cash flow? Check out this niche within a niche in the real estate investment realm with , Adrian Smude. Plus, Adrian shares how credentialed professionals, such as mobile notaries, can be valuable bird dogs for investors like him.

Guest Information:

Adrian Smude has been investing in real estate since he became an accidental landlord in 2002. Adrian attempted to invest again, but his second home ended as a short sale. After 11 years of being a hobby landlord, he discovered his passion for real estate through REIA meetings. Adrian switched his investing niche to Mobile Homes with Land and has been following this path ever since. He is a part of 3 masterminds, including a high level mastermind which he hosts. In addition, he helps facilitate his local REIA, and teaches about his success and failures.

Go to AdrianSmude.com to connect with him and find his new book!

Episode Highlights:

7:17 We have stuck to this middle area that seems to be this like forgotten, hidden class within the mobile homes. The single unit with the dirt. So it is a real estate transaction, buying the home and land together.

14:31 It's still going to have cash flow. Not as much as the older ones, but it's my lotto ticket. I go to it because it's in the path of progress and I'm hoping a developer one day is gonna offer me multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars for just the land and build a three quarter million dollar house. But if they don't, I have cash flow!

36:43 Take action and ask for help. Seasoned investors wanna help people that are actually taking action and not just talking about it, and talking about it, and talking about it. Take some action! And then next time you go back and talk to a whoever you're asking advice from say, ‘Hey, I did this and this and this, but I'm lost here’. And I believe you get a lot more help that way.

--- Full Raw Transcription Below ---

Adrian Smude (00:00):
I completely believe in the abundant mindset and I, to the point where I know the more, I help other people, I'm gonna get it back. The karma where you can't, 'outgive' the system. I love that quote. So the more I give to other people, the more it comes back to me.

Introduction (00:18):
Welcome to the SideHustle Lounge. If you're looking for flexible ways to earn income, grow your mindset, and live the lifestyle you've always dreamed of, you are in the right place. So lower the lights. Grab your favorite beverage, and join your host, founder of NotaryCoach.com and Amazon bestselling author of “Sign and Thrive: How To Make Six Figures As A Mobile Notary And Loan Signing Agent,” Bill Soroka.

Bill Soroka (00:52):
Cheers and welcome to my guest today, Adrian Smude, Adrian is a self-described mobile home problem solver. Adrian - welcome to the Side Hustle Lounge.

Adrian Smude (01:03):
Thank you for having me Bill.

Bill Soroka (01:05):
It's absolutely my pleasure. I've been looking forward to this conversation because your particular niche is about the only area of real estate that I'm really intrigued about, but I think we better unwind it a little bit. What the heck does mobile home problem solver mean? Exactly?

Adrian Smude (01:24):
Well to keep it simple, it just means that I solve people's problems, that own mobile homes. And we think of a lot of times in the real estate investing world, people just say, I'll give you cash. And that doesn't always work. I like to look for what is their true problem. And then what tools have I learn from different mentors and educational classes I've been to, to apply there that hopefully I can still make some money and solve their real problem. Not just say, Hey, I'll give you a bunch of cash or I'll give you a little bit of cash is really what people usually think about when they think about these older mobile homes they think about just giving them a tiny bit of cash.

Bill Soroka (02:04):
Yeah. I, I think that that's what probably drew me to it is it was back then, you know, this was in the early two thousands. When I first heard about this, I, it was an unblazed trail and there was just so much opportunity cuz people underrated it, it was just really underrated. Right. And I'm sure it's gained some traction since then, but what led you to mobile homes?

Adrian Smude (02:30):
Well, the quick story of my real estate investing career started in 2002, I was a landlord. I was being a, sorry, I, I was being evicted from my landlord and I decided to become a landlord by buying a house. And remember back then, banks didn't really care who you were. They just gave you money.

Bill Soroka (02:51):
Yeah. Throwing money out everywhere.

Adrian Smude (02:53):
So I bought a house. I moved my friends in that helped me get evicted. And that was a nice, I live for free. Basically. I did that for a few years. I ended up having a short sale. My second property ever bought I bought it at the top. The long story short there is, it made me very conservative and I thought, you know, we've been at the "top", we can't go any high. The prices are crazy about six or seven years ago. So I've been incredibly wrong. Right. But because of that, I was too scared to buy those single family, beautiful houses that most people buy and rent. And then I just started listening to the seasoned investor at the meetings and in my area, most of them talked about mobile homes and some sort of fashion. I said, well, these guys and girls know more than me. They've been doing this longer than I've been alive. So I listened to 'em and the cash flow is phenomenal. Really. I mean, most of the time I'm getting four to 10 times the cashflow that I was getting out of a site built home.

Bill Soroka (04:05):
Wow. Well, that's pretty significant.

Adrian Smude (04:08):
Yeah, it's massive. But you don't get, you know, the quote unquote upside the equity, all these other pieces that a lot of people want. But one of my coaches helped me realize that what I at this point in my life is cashflow. Cause that's what I eat off of. That's what I wanted to live off of. So we decided to forget about the rest of the benefits of real estate. If they happen, it's a plus and cash flow. So cashflow is what excites me about mobile homes.

Bill Soroka (04:38):
Ah, what great point. I, and I think that's a really good lesson. I'm glad you have a coach with that. Cuz I, I think we get drilled in from a very young age that you're just supposed to buy the single family home. That's supposed to be your dream and you're gonna buy it. And it's the smart thing to do, but it's not always the smart thing to do for everybody in every situation. Right? So you, you gotta have clarity about what it is that you're trying to create.

Adrian Smude (05:04):
Exactly. And, and I don't regret buying any of the ones I bought because I got very lucky. There's no other term for it that I had the appreciation. I was able to sell, capture that appreciation, and buy more mobile homes. And I was not smart enough to know the market time or anything. Like I said, I just got lucky, just got lucky and, and it worked yeah.

Bill Soroka (05:25):
Luck plays a role in it. Yeah. well, so let's talk before we even started recording, you mentioned that there's three different types of investing in mobile homes. Can you break that down for us?

Adrian Smude (05:37):
Yeah. So we have the, we'll see its smallest deal possible. And this it's just gonna depend on numbers in your market, but still it's gonna be the smallest is when you buy just the mobile home and it's typically on a rented land. So lot rent is a common term for it. And it's usually within a mobile home park. A lot of people like to buy them and then sell them as a rent to own or just rent them. We've done a few of these some things I don't really like is the park manager makes all the rules. So you lose a little bit of control. You also have that lot rent. That's never gonna go away and you can assume it's going to go up every single year. So you lose more control there, but they're really, really good ROI. They're relatively cheap to compare to everything else in your market to get into.

Adrian Smude (06:32):
So you can build really fast. Then there's the home mobile home park. Like I said, the one that makes all those rules, there's two main ways to run those. You can run one as a flat apartment complex where you own the homes and the person lives there just pays rent.

Bill Soroka (06:49):
Oh, okay.

Adrian Smude (06:50):
Or you can own a big parking lot where you own just the dirt, the asphalt, and everyone owns their own home and they pay every month to park there. And that's the lot rent stuff.

Bill Soroka (07:00):
Lot rent. Okay.

Adrian Smude (07:01):
We haven't done anything with, with the mobile home parks. We look at 'em but there's, they're still great. They're just a little bit more moving parts and government regulation and pieces in it that I haven't found the, the home run I'm looking for. And, but we have stuck to this middle area that seems to be this like forgotten, hidden class within the mobile homes.

Bill Soroka (07:26):
Okay. Tell me about that.  

Adrian Smude (07:28):
The single unit with the dirt. So it is a real estate transaction, buying the home and land together. And it could be in a neighborhood that just like any single family neighborhood, but they all happen to be mobile homes. They might have a quarter acre lot, might have a acre lot. It doesn't really matter the land size, but we're buying the home and land together. So we're, we're getting for me the land value that if something happened, like, let's say a tornado or hurricane blew away the home, I still have land. And then I get rental income.

Bill Soroka (08:06):
Interesting. So, and so the mobile homes we're talking about are permanently affixed to that land, right?

Adrian Smude (08:11):
Exactly. So they, they strap 'em down with these metal straps and then they sit on blocks like piers. It's just like a wood frame home and it, it works. It it's forgotten is one of the reasons we were, it would be successful so quick is no one knew about 'em and I would go to meetings or everyone I talked to I'd tell 'em about it. And they kind look at me weird and say, aren't, isn't that a terrible investment? And I jokingly said, you're right. They're terrible. Bring me all your leads.  

Bill Soroka (08:46):
Right. I like that strategy. So tell me what, what, what makes it so attractive.

Adrian Smude (08:53):
In my area - I'm in central Florida in between Tampa, Orlando, and I really focus probably the bigger city people know about is Lakeland. Cuz it's hit a lot of these charts of the best rental market in the US and all these different newspaper headlines. But there, it's not that negative stereotype to live in a trailer or a mobile home or manufactured home because people value the land. They want privacy, they wanna live on a quarter acre or really they wanna live on an acre and they just wanna be left alone. They don't care that they're renting or even if they're gonna buy it, they want to be able to bring their animals and live there in peace. And it doesn't matter that it's a mobile home, a manufactured, a site built block home. And then on top of that, it's a cash flow. So it's those two combined that attract me to it so much.

Bill Soroka (09:48):
Yeah. That's and there's pockets of that everywhere in the country. Right. It's not, doesn't have to be in central Florida. I know in Arizona we have lots of those communities, lots of people who don't - who just wanna be left alone. It's kind of the stigma…

Adrian Smude (10:01):
For me, it's been a little more in the rural areas. Yeah. But I know people doing well in, we'll say downtowns, sometimes the city limits try to give 'em a little hard time cuz they honestly, they just want higher tax dollars. So they want you to get rid of the trailer, and put a site build or four story building, but it still works. There's still, people need affordable housing and that's the market we're really in.

Bill Soroka (10:26):
Well, that's huge right now cuz just about everywhere. Housing is ridiculous right now. So that kind of brings me to the next question is you mentioned cashflow. So why is it so much easier to reach exciting cashflow with this particular type of home?

Adrian Smude (10:49):
Well, our starting out niche happened to be 1960s and seventies. So these really older ones that people are just scared of, even if they're falling apart they can not get bank financing. Yeah. When they're that old mm-hmm and so price really drops because you have higher risk because they just weren't built as strong before 1976. And really not many people want 'em older than the eighties. And if you don't have bank financing that really leaves investors and someone with cash. But our society has taught people. If you have $20,000 in cash, you don't buy a free and clear mobile home. You buy a down payment on a $200,000 house. Right. And you make payments on it. Mm-Hmm so really that's how I, I, I got into it and I just found that it works and the cashflow is higher because there's "higher risk", but I'm comfortable with the risk. And I mean that's, that's the short of it.

Bill Soroka (11:52):
Yeah. And so it, well, it sounds like, or what I'm hearing you tell me if I'm wrong you you're paying cash for it. So you don't have mortgage debt or mortgage service that you have to take care of. So that $20,000 becomes $12,000, $15,000 a year in cash.

Adrian Smude (12:10):
Yeah. And I did leave out one other, we alluded to it at the beginning with the problem solver. Yeah. Is a lot of people in the mobile home space, they already know about seller financing. It's not this brand new term to them cuz a decent amount of people bought on that. And then they also understand that you can't get bank financing. So I don't get the pushback - Well, why don't you just go to a bank?

Bill Soroka (12:36):
Oh yeah.

New Speaker (12:37):
That I used to get on site built homes. Right. Someone's whatever they're asking for the most part, I will give it to 'em on payments if I can get the right payments. And it's been a lot easier for me to get owner financing.

Bill Soroka (12:52):
So you're getting owner financing from the homes that you're purchasing. So they're covering it. You give 'em a down payment, they walk away, you take it over and then you rent it out or do you resell it?

Adrian Smude (13:02):
My favorite strategy is just to rent it. We have done a little bit of rent to own, but I like to keep the business as boring as possible. So putting someone in there that's hopefully gonna stay for the rest of their life and take care of the place. That's my goal.

Bill Soroka (13:19):
Nice. how many… well is the, is the price point that you threw out? You mentioned $20,000. Is that kind of in that in central Florida? Is that realistic or does it go up from there three

Adrian Smude (13:32):
Years ago? I was finding them in the twenties. All in, we found a bunch of 'em. Today I'm not finding them at that price. A few reasons. I am buying a little bit higher quality of a home. So I've been buying a little bit more like in the nineties, I still will buy an older one, but I'm looking for less management and maintenance these days because they've already built to a good place. When we were estate building heavy, I bought pretty much anything that would work. Now I'm pickier. So today we're closing a few weeks on a property a hundred, about a hundred thousand dollars. It's a beautiful in 1997 on an acre of land, it has a newer roof and a newer AC and it's got a really good structure. So for me, I have that value of those extra pieces and I have that acre of land.

Bill Soroka (14:30):
Yeah.

Adrian Smude (14:31):
That it's still gonna cash flow. Not as well as the older ones, but it's my lotto ticket. I go it because it's in the path of progress and I'm hoping a developer one day is gonna offer me multiple hundred thousand dollars for just the land. Yeah. And build a three quarter million dollar house. Right. But if they don't, I have cash flow.

Bill Soroka (14:51):
You're still, you've got the cash flow. Right. I like this strategy. Do you how so, how do you find these types of properties?

Adrian Smude (15:00):
A few different ways. I do all the traditional marketing. I replace the word house with mobile home and it all works. We've bought properties that way. But half of the deals throughout my six years of really focusing on mobile homes have come from networking. And over the last year and a half, they've all come from networking. And by networking, I mean other investors, either as wholesalers or bird dogs, and then realtors, I think people really under or estimate realtors, especially in this little niche, because let's say it's a hundred thousand dollars property, which is way below average in my market, the realtors that are getting a lot of consistent market houses to market, they wanna spend their time on the $250, the $300, the $400,000 house. So they still wanna help their customer. Now this was easier when it was a $20, $30, $40,000 mobile cause yeah.

Adrian Smude (16:01):
Right. They would literally tell me it's not worth the paperwork. So they would refer to me because I would go to all different types of networking. I went to, I'm not a realtor, not licensed any anyway, but I still want to continue education classes that they had to be at because I knew that those were the very serious realtors. Right. I made a name for myself. I told 'em if you need ever need help, anything, I'm here to help. And then every once in a while they would call and say, Hey, I have someone, can you help them out? Or they would bring me a pocket listing and, and investors are the same way, you know, bird, dogs we have bought from a few wholesalers. We just let everyone know exactly what I do over and over and over again. I'm I'm like a broken record. When I go to meetings, people can almost fill in the blank of what I do.

Bill Soroka (16:50):
right. Well, that's a great place to me. I mean, you're really, you're, you're claiming your space as the mobile notary problem or the mobile notary, the mobile home, a problem solver. Yeah. Well you wanna be top of mind that way, especially with something like this. Can you tell us I know there's people listening that don't know what a pocket listing is.

Adrian Smude (17:10):
It is a realtor that brings the listing that they are about to have, or it's about to go live to me earlier. So it's funny, you mentioned the mobile notary. I actually met the lady I bought two of them from ago. She was, I knew her as a mobile notary. And then she's like, by the way, you know, I'm a realtor, if you ever need some help.

Bill Soroka (17:35):
Nice.

Adrian Smude (17:35):
And then eventually she brought me a lead. She had the, actually the seller and me as a buyer before he even went live, the, the seller really didn't wanna put it on the MLS. Yeah. So she just said, Hey, can you help? And then she took both sides of the transaction. It was great for her. Yeah. It was great for me. Great. For the seller. It was a win-win for everyone.

Bill Soroka (17:57):
I love that. I love it when that happens. And that really, that brings me to my next question. You're really good at this Adrian the I, you know, I, I mentioned a lot of the audience that's listening right now are mobile notaries. So they're out in the field all the time. They see these transactions, they overhear conversations. They're part of the conversations before homes make it to the MLS. And that's basically what bird dogging is. Right. Can you do, do you have a definition or just a description of what good bird dog is for you

Adrian Smude (18:31):
More information's always better. And you know, I kind of pay I'll pay anyone, anything they ask, but if they bring me very little information and they ask for a lot smaller chance, I'm gonna buy it. But I always like to pay people, but again, more information is better. And I think something that is good for the bird dogger is to ask for feedback from the person that's actually gonna be buying it. Well, what else do you need? And then try to get that the next time, or why didn't this one work? What did you like? Didn't you like? And that's how you build it, where you have more and more information to give them. And eventually you'll just get the contract yourself and assign it. So that being a wholesaler and I've done many times when I was starting out, I brought my in buyer to the property before I even had the contract. The very first time visiting. I said, Hey, I'm going over there. I'll get you first rights to buy it. If you want to come with me. And if they wanted it, you know, I just assigned it to them. I told 'em all the numbers up front, but I also got to ask, what did you see? What did you like, not like, and I got to learn from those people.

Bill Soroka (19:47):
Oh, nice.

Adrian Smude (19:48):
And what I gave them in return is the first rights to buy it.

Bill Soroka (19:52):
Yeah. And win, win too.

Adrian Smude (19:55):
And we still BirdDog today. You know, another strategy is to actually buy and move the homes. And you're essentially a, a used car salesman, but it happens to be mobile homes. Yeah. And we don't do that. And I still wanna help those people and make a little bit of money. So I've got a guy locally. He does the whole state of Florida. And that's what he does. That's his business. So he's taught us what he wants and looks for. We pre-screen the people and we just send him phone numbers, address, pictures. And he either replies saying not able to buy it or check shows up.

Bill Soroka (20:31):
No kidding. Wow.

Adrian Smude (20:32):
I love it. My best dollar per minute. Cuz we have less than an hour into it, wish I could do more of them.

Bill Soroka (20:38):
Oh, I love that. I love that. Talk about tapping into or optimizing your business model. And that's what I really, I, I, I'm hoping that there's somebody listening right now who thinks, all right, maybe yes. Maybe I'll do the investing part of it. Maybe I'll get dialed into this. But if not, if you're out on the road and you're meeting people and you see these opportunities, there are investors like Adrian out there willing to, and you, I love that you compensate your bird dogs too. It's not just a, it doesn't have .. it can be just doing people a favor. But if there's an investment on the line, there's oftentimes a, a bonus for that. Right.

Adrian Smude (21:20):
Well, yeah. I, I wanna pay everyone and I wanna pay people as much as I can. Cause if I pay you money, you for probably wanna talk to me again. and if I pay you more than the last person that paid you, you're probably gonna come to me first and I just wanna buy, I don't, everyone needs to make money. Everyone deserves. If you do work, you deserve to make money.

Bill Soroka (21:41):
Yeah. Yeah. And if you're out there connecting dots and you're making relationships and making stuff happen, I love that. I think when you start paying people for those opportunities, they prioritize those opportunities. So you, they end up finding more and more of those. So how could where do you hang out? Where do investors, like you hang out. If we had people who wanted to get dialed into a community like this, where did they go?

Adrian Smude (22:05):
Well, before COVID, we went to physical meetings, REIA meetings, real estate investor associations. And they're not all officially part of the big REIA stuff, but sometimes it's just a bunch of investors that get together for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. And my first, probably eight months of taking this business seriously, I was going to four to eight of the, those a week. Now I'm in a market that has probably more of these meetings than any other city in the country.

Bill Soroka (22:36):
Oh, okay.

Adrian Smude (22:37):
So I'm very fortunate, but I just kept going because I was learning, I was networking finding my niche, finding that shiny object syndrome. And that's partially, I guess, said how I fell into the mobile homes, but hanging out at those, you build that reputation. Now, today, we don't have that as often. And most of 'em have moved online either a hundred percent online or hybrid.

Adrian Smude (23:03):
So now you can do that all over the country. I mean, I, I know people that are here in Florida that are on meetings in California every week. And so getting online, a lot of that has also moved to Facebook groups. You know, there's tons of Facebook groups out there. I'm in a few hundred of 'em. I, unfortunately, I can't even keep track of 'em and now it's all confusing and I started joining them, but it it's another great place to network. From me, I went to all of 'em say anything with the Facebook groups, but I found the few that just resonated with me more. And I'm very diligent about making those meetings, or making those Facebook groups or whatever online forum and just doing whatever I can do to add value. Even if it's just saying welcome to the group, you know, I hope you do well. If I can ever help you with something in my area, let me know. It's simple as that, just helping people, letting them know you're there a lot.

Bill Soroka (23:57):
Yeah. That's huge. And I'm telling you, Adrian, you you're like an intuitive when it comes to these things. So I was just gonna ask, how do you add value to your communities? Do you and it sounds like you've got an abundant mindset too. Like you're not worried that there's gonna be too many mobile home investors. Is that true?

Adrian Smude (24:15):
Exactly. I completely believe in the abundant mindset, to the point where I know the more I help other people, I'm gonna get it back. The karma, or you can't 'out give' the system. I love that quote. The more I give to other people, the more it comes back to me.

Bill Soroka (24:34):
I love that. I love that. And speaking of that, you wrote a book about this business too. What's what's the book about?

Adrian Smude (24:42):
It's a story form of my journey. And within that journey, I'm teaching about mobile homes. So I'll be talking about a deal and I stop and talk about the tie downs and different pieces that you need to know. And it's like, you just said the abundance mentality. If you are a hardcore action taker, you can read the book and go take action. You know, it's, if not, you're, it starts you out and it gets you, you know, either interested and say, Hey, I like mobile homes and I wanna learn more. And if not, you're like, well, mobile homes scare me for whatever reason. You're like multifamily scares me. But it's good to know that ahead of time before you really get into it. Yeah. Right. A journey while teaching.

Bill Soroka (25:31):
Well, I'll tell you I'm a hardcore action taker. That's one. That should probably be the epitaph on my gravestone for sure. Cuz that's one thing I do. So I can't wait to actually read your book and take some action on it. Something, oh, I don't know if I read it or you said something earlier, do you … is there always a mobile home involved or do you do raw land as well?

Adrian Smude (25:58):
We done a little bit of raw land, so I'm very big on staying in my hardcore lane. Like I buy mobile homes with dirt. I will literally post pictures of dirt to try to get people to understand what I do and don't do. But a lead comes, a lead comes. I want to be able to help the person and make some money. So I will do a few things with raw land. I will look to see, do I know anyone that's buying in that area? And honestly I usually bird dog more than wholesale these days. Mm-Hmm because it consumes less than my time that I can redirect to my focus, but how have I actually bought land and made money with it? Especially in the mobile home space, is I made friends with someone that works at a mobile home retail shop. So he sells brand new mobile homes.

Adrian Smude (26:52):
I made friends with him, I sent him addresses and he'll tell me, Hey, we have five people looking to buy a piece of property just like that. They are pre-approved to buy. They just don't have land to put it on.

Bill Soroka (27:06):
Oh wow.

Adrian Smude (27:06):
And he backs out numbers and say, Hey, they can buy it around $40,000. So my job is to get it under 40,000, I buy it and hopefully they will buy it from me. And when they do buy it in that manner, the end buyers getting a mortgage, a traditional mortgage, and it wraps everything into that mortgage. The home, the moving cost, the land itself, impact fees if there's any, the tree clearing, a septic, a well utilities, absolutely everything goes into that loan. But the first person to get paid is the land.

Bill Soroka (27:44):
Yeah. The dirt. Right.

Adrian Smude (27:45):
So I have less risk. I, I make less money, but less time, less risk. And, and I've made some pretty good money that way. It's, it's another fun way to, to get into the mobile home space. When someone just brings, usually those are people that bring me land that has a mobile home that needs to be demolished that like even I wouldn't fix up. Right. Or it's already been demolished and it used to have a mobile on it.

Bill Soroka (28:11):
Okay. Okay. So what's the worst part of this gig?

Adrian Smude (28:20):
I have a few worst parts. One, I take it offensive when people talk down to the people that live in my homes, we have different levels of homes. And I mentioned some of 'em are the older homes and they are not in the best condition. I have some true handyman specials. Mm-Hmm that they're ugly but safe. And for me, it, that is step up for someone in their life. They live in somewhere worse condition and probably paying more and I'm giving them a different opportunity. And sometimes they're gonna have to do some work, paint it, put some skirting on, you know, the non dangerous pieces of it. But when we've posted those on Facebook, people just trash talk it. And it bothers me for the person that's going to live there. That it's a step up in their life. So I, I don't particularly like that.

Adrian Smude (29:17):
We've stopped actually posting those cuz it's just to me, it's offensive to the person that's a step up for and …

Bill Soroka (29:23):
Shame.

Adrian Smude (29:24):
The other part I say repairs. I have a higher risk tolerance and I don't do ridiculous inspections. I walk it. I don't do any one professional. And I have unexpected repairs. Last year was a year of septic tanks. I think we did five and it was a expensive year with septics. If I did full inspections, I think I would've been too scared to buy them in the first place. But I'm very happy. I bought 'em and ended up having to pay for as septic six months, a year, two years later, you know, conservative with my numbers because of that. But it, that's not so fun. How about that?  

Bill Soroka (30:07):
Yeah. Yeah. I can see where that would be. I mean, I guess that's like every investor's worst nightmare, right. Is stuff like that. That could happen. Yeah.

Adrian Smude (30:16):
Yeah. And I mean, I do plan for it and I'm honestly now getting a better plan where we have a better reserve fund automated for that. But when you don't have a business set up, you just have your investor and not a business owner, it can be troubling when the, your (illegible) goes up and down and swings, massive swings. It can be a little upsetting.

Bill Soroka (30:41):
Yeah, it's the a rollercoaster ride for sure. Can, can a gig like this be done Part-Time?

Adrian Smude (30:49):
Yes. I, I definitely think so. It depends on how fast you wanna grow. Obviously, if you're gonna put more time into it, full-time you're gonna grow faster, but you can definitely start Part-Time. Going to whatever meetings you can. And I think that also adds on to adding value somewhere. A lot of people don't think they have any value to add when they start, but there's always something it can be a website. It could be notary services that you donate for exchange for time. A lot of people will just think, well, I'm just gonna buy you lunch. There's only seven days a week. And a lot of successful people have most of those booked or they don't wanna spend out at lunch. So tweaking the way you add value, I think is very helpful. And then another way to leverage time. And it can also be that value is getting a really deal and not asking for a bird dog fee saying, Hey, I want 10% of this or 20% or 50%, whatever the value you're bringing. And then you get the ride along with that person using their experience, their time, maybe their money, you know, more, you can bring in probably the bigger percentage, but then you start building some of that passive that help snowball a little bit faster.

Bill Soroka (32:07):
I love that strategy. What's the what's a day in the life look like for this. What is the time commitment? I know you just mentioned the, the networking and adding value that way, but what else is involved in this

Adrian Smude (32:19):
Until you get good systems and treat this as a business, which I've learned estate investors are terrible at business. , we're mainly good at just going buying properties. So until you treat it as a business, it can be a pretty big time commitment, especially if you're doing larger rehabs. I don't like doing those because honestly I'm not good at it. And it ends up consuming too much of my time. We've spent a lot of time, the last two years, really making systems, processes, and different things. And we're really jumping that again right now. A great book that I'm in the middle of is "Systemology", it's all about a smaller business, how to make a system and what is it it's actually eliminate, automate, and outsource, in that order, and then taking imperfect action. It's another term I recently heard. I love and yeah, you're gonna grow faster by spending more time, but spending some time is still better than nothing. And I think once you get up to that one point, you gotta start bringing yourself out of it and creating systems or you really built yourself out of a job in, into another one. Yeah. And it's just, yeah, it's okay for personal life.

Bill Soroka (33:41):
Right? Yeah. Great advice. Great advice. So in your experience, as you've been going through this through the years, who do you think is an ideal candidate for a venture like this

Adrian Smude (33:55):
To be in the mobile home sites? Who's the ideal… Me 10 years ago. That I relate to the most. Yeah. I mean, I really, I think it's someone that is frustrated with their current returns, wherever they're getting them or they can't find any deals. I don't think you have to have bought any real estate in the past, but you're just not happy with a four or five, 8% return on your money. And you focus on cashflow. Now, if you don't need cashflow, you're a high net worth investor that needs the depreciation, other things. This probably isn't the best for you unless you wanna be a lender, but someone that's really wanting cash flow and is willing to do some work. Cause it is relatively a hidden niche. It is growing in the last probably six, eight months. I like to joke around that people are finally coming down to "my level", and settling with these mobile homes that make tons of money because they can't find it anywhere else. And now they're finally coming down and it's, it's affordable housing space as well. So for me, that gives me a non dollar gratitude to be able to help that segment of people. Yeah. Cause it's, it's not being helped now.

Bill Soroka (35:14):
I can see where that would be like the absolute, most rewarding part of this is I see these terribly sad stories in social media, some of the groups of my community and things like that. People are jacking rents five to $800 a month and families can't afford these. So if you could provide a solution for that significant significantly lower, that would be very rewarding.

Adrian Smude (35:40):
Yeah. It blows my mind. Even some of the rents that we're getting, you know, I run my numbers and when it's time to actually rent it after I've done the repairs, some of these have been a hundred, $200 higher and I'm still two or $300 lower than the anything else that's on the market right there. Yeah. Yeah. And it's, it's, it's a wild time as a landlord, which is in our favor, but I worry that it's gonna come to an end and people are buying too tight of rental numbers. So I, I like to keep it conservative, remember that short sale, but the time was a worst thing that happened to me, especially my ego. It dinged me. Yeah. But in the long run it's been fantastic because it keeps me mentally in check.

Bill Soroka (36:26):
That's a great attitude and perspective to have on this. Adrian, this has been enlightening and I can't wait to read your book. Do you have any closing comments or advice for people who are, are thinking about this, either the bird dogging or even the investing side of it,

Adrian Smude (36:43):
Take action and ask for help. Seasoned investors wanna help people that are actually taking action and not just talking about it, talking about, talking about, take some action. And then next time you go back and talk to a whoever you're asking advice from say, Hey, I did this and this and this, but I'm lost here. And I believe you get a lot more help that way.

Bill Soroka (37:06):
Yeah. I love that advice. You're not just picking their brain. You're actually you're in motion and just need a little adjustment and guidance. Great advice, Adrian. Thank you so much for being here. If you'd like to learn more about Adrian and all he offers in the mobile home problem solving community, as well as his book, you can go to https://www.sidehustlelounge.com/vip room. I'll have links to everything that he's got. Plus you can check out his website AdrianSmude.com. Thank you so much for listening to the Side Hustle Lounge podcast.

Bill Soroka (37:41):
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Bill

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