The Cash-Flow Investor with Kevin Bupp

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Kevin Bupp is a seasoned commercial real estate investor with over $1 billion in transactions. Kevin discusses his journey from buying his first single-family home at age 20 to founding Sunrise Capital Investors. The focus is on his strategies in mobile home parks and parking facilities, reflecting on lessons from past financial crises and the importance of staying within one's lane. They also explore the potential of AI and the current real estate market, particularly in Florida and other states. Kevin emphasizes the value of long-term investments and diversification in dynamic real estate sectors.

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
I think that there's a, there'sa 1,000,001 different ways to

(00:03):
make money in real estate.
I don't think that there's anyright or wrong way.
You and I both know many peoplein the industry that do
different things than what wedo, and they do quite well,
right?
Yeah.
They're kinda masters of theirown craft.
However, I would say that we tryto stay our lane.
It's, I've, some people do itreally well, but I've never been
great at, at doing many thingsand, and being excellent at all
them at the same time.

(00:23):
And so that, that's why.
We focused on mobile home parksfor many years before we ever
even considered another assetclass.
Welcome to the Wayfinder Showwith Louis Hernandez, where
guests discuss the why and howof making changes that led them

(00:46):
down a more authentic path orallow them to level up in some
areas of their life.
Our goal is to dig deep andprovide not only knowledge, but
actionable advice to help youget from where you are to where
you want to be.
Come join us and find a way toyour dream life.

Kevin Bupp (01:15):
Welcome back to the Wayfinder Show.
I'm your host Louis Hernandez,and today I'm thrilled to
welcome Kevin Bup to the show.
Kevin is a seasoned commercialreal estate investor with over$1
billion in transactions underhis belt.
He's the author of the CashflowInvestor and host of the Top
Rated Real Estate Investing forCash Flow podcast.
As the founder of SunriseCapital Investors, Kevin is

(01:37):
passionate about help helpingpassive investors achieve
financial freedom by focusing onhigh performing assets like
mobile home parks and parkingfacilities with decades of
experience at Insights featuredon platforms like BiggerPockets
and the best CRE show, Kevin ishere to share his expertise in
identifying top investmentopportunities in today's market.

(02:01):
Kevin, welcome to the WayfinderShow.
Hey Louis.
Thanks for having me.
I'm excited to be here.
I.
Yeah, we're excited to have you.
So Kevin, let's let's start outa little bit about your journey.
What's your origin story?
Where are you from?
How'd you get to where you are?
That kind of thing.
Yeah.
No, sure, sure thing.
So I've I always joke and sayI've, never had a real job.

(02:23):
I I got started in real estateat a young age.
Got introduced to it at 19,bought my first single family
investment at the age of 20.
And it really just followedthat, that similar trajectory
was following a mentor of mine.
And just building a singlefamily and small multifamily
portfolio of rental properties,in the first six or so years

(02:46):
found some good, momentum atscale.
And in my my mid twenties hadbuilt up a portfolio of about
120 single family homes and wow,a few hundred apartment doors
and and was doing really well atleast on paper.
And ultimately oh eighthappened.
I was living in, I live inFlorida now.
I was down in Tampa Bay area andown everything I had down here.
And Florida was, one of theground zero spots for, the

(03:07):
crash.
And ultimately real estatebecame, the market became
incredibly challenging in a veryshort period of time down here.
And so just really found myself,running damage control and just
working through loanmodifications and dean lose and
just a challenging.
Roughly three years of, my lifefrom oh eight to oh 11.

(03:28):
And then basically came back inand had to rebuild had to figure
out a better way better way toto make the mousetrap and
ultimately fast forward to whereI'm at today.
So I during that period, I gotintroduced to another asset
class, which is mobile homeparks.
It's, one asset class that westill focus, on today.
It's our primary focus.

(03:49):
Bought that first mobile homepark back in 2000, late 2011.
And then ultimately foundsuccess with that and bought a
sack in a third or fourth, thefifth.
And fast forward to today we've,got about 350 million of assets
under management in ourportfolio and most of it being
manufactured housing.
And then we also have one othervertical that we specialize in,
and that's parking.

(04:09):
So parking lots and parkinggarages and strategic locations
across the country.
That was a very condensedversion.
I've been at this SN for over 20years full time.
This is all.
All I do, we've got a wonderfulteam and we built some we've
been involved with some reallyspecial and amazing projects and
have a lot of fun doing it too.
That, I think that's the mostimportant aspect, right?

(04:30):
Enjoy what you do and you neverhave a day at work.
With that, again, that's my 20plus year story of of being an
investor.
And it's been a fun ride.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I, remember the oh eight era.
It has defined you you've, beenmuch more resilient, jumped back
at it and, obviously it showssuccess.

(04:51):
I, I I spent quite a bit of timerecovering from that as well.
The I was in Baltimore and Iremember going down to Denver to
Tampa to Florida, actuallyduring that time and just seeing
like whole communities that werein the mid.
Middle of getting built up andall of a sudden they were just
like left abandoned there.

(05:12):
Big subdivisions and such.
Lots of that.
Amazing.
Yeah.
Yeah that was the biggest, issuethere was obviously the, loans
were very easy to obtain backthen.
Lots of subprime loans.
You had no, no income, no dockloans.
Yeah.
And if you could fall ga mirror,you could go buy four houses,
right?
And that was the, and so therewas builders that were building

(05:35):
tens of thousands of rooftopsfor really a population wasn't
here.
It was just really Hot potatoHot potato.
And then when the music stopped,there were, there was an, a
massively excess, a large excesssupply of of housing units.
And then on top of that a lot ofthe, a lot of the employment
down here during those boomyears was fueled by construction
work or revolved around the realestate space.

(05:58):
And so when, housing stopped,guess what?
A lot of the jobs went away andfolks had to move and find new
occupations or careers, or go toa new, literally leave Florida
and go somewhere else wherethere's a little bit more job
stability.
And so not only did we have amassive amount of excess supply
of, rooftops, we also saw a outmigration of population for a

(06:20):
period of time.
And so it was pretty nasty formany years.
But as far as the resiliency,man I literally, I, three years
of, I ran, I managed this kindof damage control for three
years trying to figure shit outand yeah.
And I wouldn't say that I,immediately bounced back.
It was a my first, the firstproperty I bought I, my credit

(06:40):
was gone.
It was many years went by,probably six years went by
without me even looking at mycredit score.
'cause it was in the, washorrific eye judgment, things
like that.
Judgments.
I was working through liens.
I tried to work with all mycreditors and try again.
It was many, years of trying towork through that while I tried
to figure out a way to rebuild.
But it didn't come quick.
We started buying properties,but it was a, using the last

(07:03):
penny I had had to make it work.
And trying to figure it out.
Back then, everything was stilldistressed, we were buying
stuff.
But Jo the unemployment is stillhigh.
Jobs were still tough to comeby, right?
And so it wasn't a, it wasn't aneasy go, even buying things at a
discount, it still wasn't aneasy go we had to fight tooth

(07:23):
and nail to to get thisproperties to cash flow and to
to, hold onto'em for long term.
But it I'm happy where we're attoday.
It's.
It's definitely helped me buildwho I am and really reshape my
character as an individual anddefinitely wouldn't trade it for
the world.
So lots of, good lessons learnedduring those challenging times.
Yeah, totally.

(07:46):
I'm wondering if you see any,with having gone through that,
makes you really wise, right?
Like you, you just have a lot ofexperience that you just learn
about that you can't read youabout you have to experience to,
to really learn.
And with that in mind, I'mwondering what you're seeing
with today's market, right?

(08:08):
You said out migration fromFlorida.
I can't imagine people evenimagining that now you,
Florida's been a top marketright?
In this country for probably thelast, I dunno, five to 10 years,
right?
And yeah.
And it seems to continue thatway.
That's all we read about.
How are you seeing any signs ofanything turning at all?

(08:29):
As far as speaking to Florida,no Florida's incredibly sound
it's got a, it's a much morediverse economic base than what
it was back then.
It's a night and day difference.
As far as and obviously there'sa, lot of markets within
Florida, the state of Florida,so the major ones being the
Tampa Bay area, Orlando, Miami,and Jacksonville.
But all incredibly resilientareas.
Lots of lots of employers thathave moved their operations to

(08:52):
Florida.
So again, just for a litany ofreasons Florida's a very sound
and solid place.
We still have quite a bit ofpopulation trying to make their
way here.
We have no state income tax.
There's a lot of benefit in theweather's pretty amazing too.
I don't see Florida slowing downanytime soon.
We've got, unreasonably lowinventory on the market.

(09:15):
I know a lot of, lots of areasare dealing with that same
thing.
But it's just, there's there'smore folks that are trying to
move here than move away.
So it's it's, a positive thingall the way around.
So I definitely don't see anystress cracks in Florida as a
whole, and even the majorsubmarkets I've mentioned there.
And prices are still, pricing isstill incredibly tight.
Whether you talk aboutresidential or commercial, still

(09:37):
a lot of capital that's tryingto find its way into these,
various markets within Florida.
And so again, I don't see thatchanging anytime soon, but I'm
not an economist, all I can seeis, what I see and and what I
feel and just being in theimmediate marketplace and, it's
still incredibly strong.

(09:57):
Yeah.
I would argue with not being aneconomist probably makes you
more qualified to your opinion,but what about, what, what got
you into mobile homes and,parking, let's take one of them
at a time.
Why mobile homes?
Yeah.
I've always been in residentialreal estate.
Residential is just fairly easyfor me to understand.
Everyone needs a roofer overtheir head, right?

(10:19):
It's one of our basic needs.
And and so I understood when Iown a few hundred houses, most
of them were a they were workworkforce type houses in the
lower end neighborhoods.
Not lower quality, but justlower end demographic as far as
the income standpoint.
And and so I just, I was alwaysvery comfortable in that space.

(10:42):
And so I had never consideredmobile home parks.
It just accidentally fell on myradar.
When I was going through therebuild phase sorry, really 2011
when I was okay, version two,how do we do this better?
The second time around I I dididentify that I didn't really
want to go the route of buying abunch of single family homes.
Again, I I'd identified some,inefficiencies in that business

(11:03):
model and just felt that buyingmulti-families, which I own a
number of as well, was just abetter way to scale and to you
have to get to a certaincritical scale as well before
you can really start affordingto hire staff.
Yeah.
And and when I was building asingle family home portfolio,
literally I ended up building itup to about just shy of 40 units
by myself and I was runningragged, I'm like, I'm not doing

(11:24):
that again.
And I didn't really have theactual, I didn't have the funds
to go out and build the teamfirst before I.
Built the portfolio.
And so I felt multifamily wasgonna be the easier way.
I can just go buy one or two 30,40 unit properties and quickly
get to a scale where I couldstart bringing some some
teammates in to help run theorganization.
And so during that time, I went,I went through this explore

(11:45):
exploratory phase.
This is starting in early 2011where I just went out the market
had really changed, thelandscape had changed.
Everything was different from oheight to oh 11, and when I say
from oh eight to 2011 when I wasrunning damage control my,
portfolio and I was managingthat crisis, I wasn't paying
attention to anything else thatwas going on in the world,
right?
Things were crumbling, theeconomy was in really rough

(12:07):
shape.
But I just, I wasn't keeping myfinger on the pulse of the real
estate market or what didfunding look like nowadays you
know what were loan terms.
I literally, I wasn't payingattention to any of that stuff.
And so when it came time toreinvent myself.
If I needed to understand whatwas happening out there, right?

(12:28):
What's real world, the peoplethat are actually that own
multi-family, the people thatare in the areas I wanna buy in.
Like how are they managing howwhat did occupancy look like?
What were rents like what weresome considerations?
Or, like things likeconcessions.
Were those still being givenout?
And so I went on this mission tomeet as many people as I could

(12:49):
that are still in the space.
And during that, timeframe, Iwas introduced by a good friend
of mine to a gentleman by thename of Randy.
And Randy just happened to belike a commercial banker for 30
years of his career.
And had, recently retired.
I literally just was introducedto Randy,'cause Randy knows a
lot of people.
So my buddy's Hey, go meetRandy.
Go have lunch with, he's a cooldude.
He's got good stories.
And he's, been a banker for 30years.

(13:10):
Good, person to know.
And I had lunch with Randy andfound out that he owned a couple
of mobile home parks.
So he, his last 10 plus years ofhis banking career, a lot of his
clients here in Florida ownmobile home parks.
And so he made the comment to meof I found myself in the wrong
side of the closing statement orthe wrong side of that p and l,
right?
Like I saw how much money myclients were making for 10

(13:30):
years.
And so I he's like, when Iretired, I made the decision
that I was gonna go buy a coupleparks as my retirement.
And and he did, and I met himabout two years after he had
retired, bought a couple parksand and he just, he's the first
person I had ever met that ownedmobile home parks.
And he started selling me allthe beautiful things about the
asset class.
And he was really trying to makecomparison to, I.
Mobile home parks to totraditional multifamily.

(13:53):
'cause he knew that, that, waswhat my focus was as as I worked
towards rebuilding.
And yeah.
Anyway, long story short, I hadtwo hour lunch meeting with him
and he spoke probably an hourand a half of that about mobile
home parks and how great theywere.
And I was so excited and I wasso intrigued about the asset
class.
And I literally left that lunchmeeting and I made a commitment
to myself that I was gonna gobuy a mobile home park and, see

(14:14):
whether or not it was as greatas what Randy had said it was.
And so I did that.
I there wasn't a lot ofinformation out there, there
weren't any podcasts on thetopic.
There was a few select randombooks, but there just wasn't a
lot of information out in themarketplace like there is today.
And and so I just really, what Idid is I started calling on
listings and I started going tolook at parks and I started
talking to brokers and, Istarted making offers.

(14:36):
I got cold feet a bunch oftimes, got offers accepted, got
cold feet.
And I finally, just over a yearfrom that point, I had lunch
with Randy.
I bought the first park.
Bought asset up in Atlanta,Georgia.
And Louis owned it up untilabout two and a half, two and a
half, three years ago.
But that was the first one.
And the first one went well.
Bought the second one, wentwell, bought the third, fourth

(14:56):
so that's probably 50 parks ago.
And it's been a fun ride eversince.
So never planned on it, it wasnever part of the the grand plan
to, buy mobile home parks.
But it's been a great assetclass and on top of that, it's,
it truly is.
I, I truly believe that it's thebest and most affordable

(15:16):
non-subsidized housing thatexists today.
In the market.
Any market you take, any marketwhere we own parks, I guarantee
that we are by far by no meansthe lowest quality option.
In fact, a lot of our work'sincredibly nice, but I guarantee
we are the most affordableoption.
If you compare two bedroom, twobath, a thousand square foot
apartment to one of our, one ofour homes or one of our

(15:38):
communities, I guarantee ours isway nice.
And it's probably about 25% lessthan what you pay to live in an
apartment in the same area.
So again, it's just a phenomenalvalue and really is a a a, a
critical element of solving andmaking a debt in the affordable
housing crisis.

(15:58):
Yeah.
I, don't know a lot about mobilehomes.
I grew up in the Northeast wherethere's just not many around to
be found.
But over time, obviously beingin the space you, hear you, more
of it, more of'em here inColorado and such.
But, I have seen it becomeincredibly popular in probably
the last five years.

(16:19):
I remember reading a Wall StreetJournal article that talked
about how there were these bigoperators and I think from after
that just opened my eyes to alot more about it.
What are some differences interms of the challenges?
We have our stereotypes of,trailer parks and such, and.
Obviously, and yeah, it seemslike it's just another version

(16:39):
of low income housing, right?
At the end of the day mobilehome parks are really, it's a
different form of multifamilyhousing, right?
Yeah.
It's just horizontal instead ofmaybe a couple levels vertical,
but really at the end of the dayit really falls in the same
bucket as, an apartment complex.
It just comes in a differentform.

(17:00):
And so with that, a lot offolks, unfortunately, there is a
stereotype and it all getslumped into the bad stereotype
of trailer trash drug, sex, rockand roll, like really just the,
wrong elements.
But it's, really the farthestfrom the truth.
Again, you could pick any,market and pick let's use Denver
as an example.

(17:20):
There's really the wrong part oftown where in that wrong part of
town where you don't want to gothe dangerous part of town.
There's apartment complexes,there's single family houses,
and there's probably a fewmobile home parks here and
there, right?
And they all they truly are allthat.
You know that, that element thatyou don't want, right?
Sure.
You just, you probably don'twanna go there during the day.
It's just dangerous, right?
It's where all the drugs happenand, just crime and what have
you.
It's the wrong side of therailroad tracks.

(17:42):
Then you take the middle class,right?
Plenty of obviously blue collar,middle class neighborhoods,
subdivisions in Denver.
There's also apartment complexesin those areas of town.
I can promise you.
There's mobile home parks aswell, and it's all very similar
demographic.
And then you take even thehigher end stuff you take you
got your white collarneighborhoods you've got your
brand new, a class typeapartment complexes that are

(18:07):
catered to a certaindemographic.
And while it might not be theexact same demographic as a
higher end mobile home park andmaybe Denver's not a good
example, but here in Florida andin Arizona, in the Sunbelt
areas, there's a lot of what welike to classify as lifestyle
communities.
These are.
These are mobile home parks.
However, they're really they'rea, master plan subdivision.

(18:28):
They've got swimming pools,they've got clubhouses, they've
got bocce ball, they've gotpickleball courts, they've got
all these things.
Really?
Wow.
It's more of a master plansubdivision community.
It just happens to be mobilehomes.
A lot of these, they're secondhomes for snowbirds that are,
that live up north, but wannaplace down south, wanna be
around other folks maybe oftheir same age.
And mobile home parks come inall forms, and they also serve

(18:53):
all various levels of of income.
And so it just happens that weall get lumped in that really
low bucket of of the drugs,drug, sex, and rock and roll.
And so that's just not the case.
As far as I think the originalquestion was.
Maybe what's, what are some ofthe things that, that, you know,
that we that, we feel reallyhelped Mobile home parks kinda
stand out?
What stood out to us as as anasset class?

(19:15):
What really intrigued us enoughor intrigued me enough to like,
go out and buy one?
A couple of things that Randyhad mentioned to me, which were
quite interesting and, it'sstill very true, first and
foremost, again, I'm gonna makethe comparison to like a
traditional multi-family rentalunits.
Most of our residents actuallyown their own homes.
They own their mobile home andthey rent the land from us.

(19:40):
If their roof leaks, if their ACgoes out, if plumbing breaks, if
their toilet flapper goes badand he's replaced whatever all
the normal stuff, it's theirhome.
They own it.
They call the vendor just likeyou would if you owned a single
family home, right?
They call and they get it fixedand basically they're paying us
the the, a fee on a monthlybasis to rent the lot that, that

(20:00):
their home sits on.
And a lot low lower maintenanceand management intensity than
that of of managing an apartmentcomplex of the same size.
So that's a huge one.
On top of that, the turnover isincredibly low.
So what ultimately occurs isbeing that they own their home,
and number one it's veryexpensive.
The movies, 99% of mobile homeleave a factory and they go to a

(20:21):
mobile home park like ours neverleave.
They stay there, they getanchored into the ground.
They are mobile, they can bemoved, but it's a, you gotta get
a professional mover.
It's license, it costs a lot ofmoney to do it.
And so most of that time, theyjust stay there.
They never leave.
And so what occurs is they tendto live and breathe li again.
I'll use like a single familysubdivision as an example.
If you own a home in asubdivision, you live there, you

(20:44):
pay your HOA, you pay yourproperty taxes, all that.
If you decide you wanna leave,you put your home up for sale,
you continue paying all thosefinancial responsibilities until
you sell your home.
You sell your home.
A new buyer comes in.
They purchase the home from you,you move on.
That new buyer assumes theresponsibility now of the HOA of
the property taxes, right?
But there was never a point intime where the property taxes
didn't get paid.

(21:05):
There was never a point in timewhere the HOA didn't get paid.
And very rarely is there ever apoint in time we don't get paid.
They put their home up for sale,they continue paying us lot
rent, and a new person comes in,new buyer comes in, purchase
that home.
They take over responsibility ofthat lot rent, and we don't
really have that downtime likeyou have in a normal
multi-family property where, soyou turn a unit, yeah, you've

(21:25):
got a month or two of makeready, get that unit back
online.
You've got lost rents there,you've got the cost of rehab
that unit to, to get it back inlivable condition, which can be
a few hundred to a few thousanddollars.
And we very rarely ever havethat.
And so for that reason, it'sjust a, it's a much stickier
resident base.
Lot lower turnover and lot lowermanagement costs.

(21:46):
We've got a number of residents.
We've got about 3,500 lots inour ownership.
And, there's probably a fewhundred of them that have lived
in our communities for more than20 years that haven't moved.
Wow.
And we've got a few residentsthat I know that come to mind
that have reside there for over40 years.
So Wow.
Very sticky resident base tothem.
It's their subdivision, it'stheir neighborhood.

(22:07):
And we've got a number ofcommunities where there's
multiple family members thatlive in that neighborhood that
live in that same community.
And so they stay that's theirhome.
That's where they live andthat's where they wanna raise
their kids, their grandchildren,their, there's aunts and uncles
and all that living in the samecommunity.
So it's just a, it's a beautifulspace.
Or it's a, beautiful investmentand.
Again, it gives us, it's we do,we could do well financially

(22:31):
while also doing well socially.
Like we can offer a greatproduct, an affordable price,
and then also on, on theinvestment side, make good money
doing so.
So it's a beautiful thing.
Yeah.
It seems like the best of allworlds.
You got less maintenance, longerterm tenants that have pride of
ownership.
Yeah.
It sounds like best of allworlds, right?

(22:53):
Yeah.
I see there's I don't, want, Idon't wanna paint as though
there's never, challenges.
So some of the in interestingaspects of the business, we're
value add guys and so we like togo in and be able to identify
problems that we feel can befixed and that we can do it
better.
So I'll give you an example.

(23:14):
A lot of these parks they werebuilt.
40, 50 years ago.
We've actually acquired manyfrom original owners that have
developed them 40, 50 years ago.
And then we'll go in and what wehave found is that a lot of
these old, older owners, theytend to, at some point in time,
they stop putting money backinto these properties.
They tend to degrade.

(23:36):
They let the roads get messedup.
Amenities or playgrounds tend tofall in disrepair.
Just, slowly, they deteriorateover a period of years or
decades.
And what ultimately occurs whenthat happens, sometimes folks do
start moving their homes out.
They're like, man, okay I don'twanna live here.
They're not taking care of thisplace.

(23:56):
I'm gonna move my mobile homesomewhere else.
Like I said, it's expensive tomove'em, but like you give a
resident enough of a compellingreason to do meaning I'm not
taking care of the neighbor,we're not putting money back in,
everything's broken.
They're gonna move it, right?
Yeah.
So we'll go in and buy acommunity.
It might be a hundred lots.
And it might only have 70 ofthose, 70 of those a hundred
lots occupied with homes.
And so the challenge then isfilling in those remaining 30.

(24:20):
And so it's what some of thebusiness that is there's an
opportunity, but it's also verycapital intensive and there's
logistics involved is that we'llgo basically buy 30 brand new
homes over a period of time, andthen you'll run the logistics of
bring these homes in installingthat.
And then we have a whole salesbasically think about a new a
home sales lot, right?

(24:41):
Like we basically put thesehomes in and then have to go, we
have a full blown sales programin house and have to sell these
units, find folks come in get'emfinancing lined up and,
ultimately help them, acquirethat home.
So there's some moving partsthere in order, it's not all,
it's not all easy breezy.
These homes never leave ahundred percent occupy when we
buy'em.
Sometimes we have to go throughsome more difficult value add

(25:02):
strategies such as that in orderto really extract all the value
outta the community.
Interesting.
What about the, parking lot?
What, does that business looklike?
Yeah, that's a great question.
A similar story in that I'dnever met, I never knew anyone
or met anyone that owned aparking lot.
And I've been running a podcastnow for about 11 years and on

(25:24):
that podcast I interviewed a lotof guys that are in different
forms of commercial real estateinvestments.
And about seven years ago, Iinterviewed a guy.
That happened to own parkinglots and it was an asset class
and I didn't know anythingabout, we all have parked, we
have all paid the parksomewhere.
Somebody owns that lot orsomebody owns that garage.
Sometimes it's a municipalitylike a city.

(25:46):
Other times it's a privateowner.
But I'd never met anyone justlike I'd never met anyone that
owned mobile home parks.
I had never met anyone thatowned parking.
And so when I had this interviewon my show, I was very
intrigued.
I had a lot of questions'cause Ididn't know the business model.
And in theory it's simple.
Someone pulls in, they pay anhourly rate for parking and they
leave, right?
And it's like that's a part ofit.

(26:07):
But there's a lot morecomplexity to it.
But generally speaking, what welike about parking is we're very
strategic on where we buy it.
And we look at it as a a cashflowing covered land play on.
Irreplaceable real estate.
And an example we just closed ona parking garage 800 unit
parking garage in downtownCharlotte.

(26:29):
It's literally right across fromthe Spectrum Center where the
Charlotte Hornets it's wherethey call home.
Oh, yeah.
Spectrum Center also where allthe big concerts happen.
The, obviously, say a coupleweeks ago and Justin Till was
there.
And so our parking garage is theclosest proximity to this
Spectrum Center.
It's also attached, or notattached, but it's attached by a
walkway to the Bank of America,US Headquarter building, which

(26:52):
they have, to they have too manypeople that work out there, so
they have overflow parking intoour center.
The truest headquarters is rightthere.
There's lots of otherrestaurants.
It's a 24 7 city.
There's hotels right next doorto it, so it's a phenomenal
location.
But the footprint that we takeup there is about two acres in
the heart of downtown.
Again, irreplaceable realestate.
And how we look at it is, it'sgotta make sense as parking

(27:14):
today.
So this garage makes a lot ofmoney.
It it's just a great economicinvestment.
So it's a standalone as parkingtoday, it makes a ton of sense,
but we want to know that it willmake sense as parking for the
next five, 10 years, maybe 15,20 years, right?
At some point in time, we knowthat there inevitably will be a
higher and better use because ofthe location of that real

(27:37):
estate.
So whenever cars are flying orwhenever folks aren't driving
their cars to the city anymore,Charlotte's very much a driving
city.
Maybe very different than thatof just like Denver's very much
a driving city, right?
San Francisco might be the,opposite argument, but we wanna
know that our plot of realestate today, it's lowest value
is parking.
It will only be up from there.

(27:58):
It'll only be higher assomething else from that point
forward.
And and during that period oftime, whether it be a decade or
two, we can.
Cash flow and, make a good bitof money on the parking aspect.
And then whenever that's not thehighest and best use, we've got
some of the best real estate inthe city that we can that we can
redevelop.
That's our, and it's all icing.
We don't underwrite, we don'tunderwrite the future value of
it.
To us it's icing on the cake.

(28:19):
It's gotta standalone today asparking and make a lot of sense
as parking.
And we have to feel verycomfortable that there's at
least a 10 year runway, to whereit'll continue being highly
desirable as parking given thelocation.
Again, just, it's another cashflow play for us.
We're all about, buying stableand investing in stable cash
flow for our investors.

(28:40):
And parking is a, it's a, it'svery complimentary to that
mobile home parks.
'cause that's pretty much thebusiness model of mobile home
parks.
And with parking we can go inand we can, you, we can identify
a few levers of pool, like we'revalue add guys as well.
So using the Charlotte Garage,just using that as a, as an
example.
There was a, couple levers thatwe identified.
Rally Gate one being.

(29:01):
The rates it had, been owned bythe last ownership for roughly
10 years, and it was aninstitutional owner and they get
pretty lazy.
They've had the same managementcompany in there for the last 12
years.
They get lazy, they getcomplacent, and they, haven't
done a a market study for thelast, like four years.
And come to find out they'reabout a dollar 50 an hour on

(29:23):
average, lower than every otherparking facility in the
immediate area.
And it's, ours is the bestlocation.
So people park in ours firstbefore they park at these
others.
And so literally just by raisingthe rates, a dollar 50 an hour
at$300,000 of of revenue to thebottom line on that garage, like
relegate, without doing anythinglike it's, it, alls we have to

(29:46):
do is.
Just the program the parkingprograms, it's literally,
there's nothing else.
There's no letters that have togo out, there's no cost
associated with changing theparking rates.
Yeah.
And so that's, just one of theeasy levers to pull, right?
There's a number of others aswell, but so some, value add
pieces that we can go in andpull levers on and buy a great

(30:06):
asset and be able to still addvalue to it thereafter.
Do you buy them as parking spotsor garages in, or do you ever
buy I, where I'm going with thisis, I'm thinking about right
now, I think there's a lot ofopportunity in downtowns across
America with overbuilt officespace, right?
Yeah.
We're finding that, yeah.
So I would think that the landvalue might be greater than some

(30:29):
of the buildings there now,right?
So in some of these places,maybe I'm wrong.
But have you evaluated it thatway?
Yeah.
Maybe buying it based on landvalue, turning it down, making
it a lot, or making it a garage.
Is that an opportunity's a It'sa great.
Question.
There's a couple ways I canapproach that answer.
And I guess number one is, asfar as like buying an office

(30:51):
building and tearing it down andusing it as like a service
parking lot, I a lot of citiesdon't, will not allow you to
permit a new, like if you wantedto knock down an old building
and just keep it as a pa paidparking lot, they won't allow
you to do it.
They don't really, they thinkparking lots are unsightly and
also it's not a good tax basisfor them.
Sure.
Like it's not in their bestinterest to allow you to knock
down something that's actuallygot, it's got high tax value to

(31:14):
it and basically make it into.
Something that doesn't havehardly much tax basis at all.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And that's a couple reasons whyyou would never just be able to,
in most cities that you and Iwould think of as prime cities
to invest in, you would, youjust wouldn't be able to do that
anymore.
Maybe 30 years ago.
You would have, and a lot of thesurface lots that you see that
exist in those types of areas,that, that might have had a

(31:35):
building on'em.
Historically, that building wasprobably knocked down 30, 40
years ago and back then maybethe zoning ordinance was, were a
little lighter.
But at that, as far as likebuilding a new garage what you
find is like a lot of the officebuildings, if they're in prime
downtown locations, they were,there's some type of parking

(31:55):
that was associated with them.
Either it was parking that wasbuilt.
Literally on the, maybe thefirst 20 floors of the structure
and then the office was aboveit.
Yeah.
That's common.
Or it's parking that was next toit, and that parking supported
the office.
Highrise, that was that was, soa lot of these actually have
parking.
So you bring up an interestingpoint, and I think, there is an
opportunity, and it's one thatwe're exploring and again, the

(32:17):
Charlotte Garage is a very goodcase of that.
There's a lot of distress in theoffice space.
A lot of'em are in primelocations.
A lot of'em have parkingassociated with it.
And so I'll just, I'll walkthrough the Charlotte, like the
case study and you get an ideaof where I think it answers your
question of is there anopportunity there?
And the answer is yes.
It's just you identifying thoseopportunities.

(32:39):
So the, Charlotte Garage it's onits own footprint, however,
right next to it, literallytouching walls is a 180,000
square foot office building andthen touching walls to that.
It was a hotel.
They were all on one parcel Idall underneath one loan.
Oh wow.
Wake Forest University vacatedlike 80% of the office in the

(33:02):
last couple years, and thatbasically threw the entire
project into a tailspin.
The hotel's always done great.
The garage has always donegreat.
The office basically threw thisthing into special servicing,
into foreclosure.
And and again, 80% 80% of they,they moved outta 8% of that
office property.
And it really, threw a wrench init.

(33:23):
And so we we came and we didn'twanna buy the office and we
didn't wanna buy the hotel.
That's not our business.
However, it was all one deal.
It was all tied togetherunderneath one loan, one parcel
id.
And so we just, we, it's a verycomplex deal, but we ultimately
got the special servicer toapprove us.
Revising the plat, basicallycreating individual parcel IDs
for the garage, the office andOh yeah, the hotel.

(33:46):
While we were in contract andagreeing that we would get it
approved, we'd spend the moneyget it approved with the,
county, but not file it untilthe day of closing.
So literally, simultaneously,literally recorded it the day of
closing.
But in order for us.
To pull that off.
We don't wanna buy the officeand we don't wanna buy the
hotel.
'cause we thought there was alot of risks there.
And that's just not our mo it'snot our business model.

(34:06):
So we found a strategic partnerthat came in that does their big
group in Chicago.
They do office of residentialconversions.
This one just happened to checkall their boxes.
And they're well funded.
They've got a great reputation.
So we brought them in and thenwe found a buyer.
It actually wasn't the, itwasn't the hotel, it was a land
lease.
It was it was just the landlease owned the hotel that sat

(34:27):
on top.
And we found something that camein and bought that land lease
or, committed to buy that landlease.
And so we basically had a piece,piece the puzzle together.
And then at the end of the day,we got what we wanted.
We got the garage at about about$7 million below current
appraised value.
Wow.
And the middle guy got theoffice, he's gonna convert into
283 market rate apartments,which will, there's no parking

(34:49):
for them.
Our garage literally is attachedto that.
So when he builds those we'llget a.
Even if only 30% of theresidents have a car, they need
a place to park it.
Our garage is literallyconnected to it.
And then the guy that bought thethe land lease was really happy.
Like he, he felt he got a goodvalue out of it and it's a,
good, stable investment for him.
So I think there's a lot of, Ithink there's deals like that

(35:10):
out there because of the officedistress.
They're com complex in nature.
'cause a lot of times they'retied together.
The garage will probably be tiedtogether with the office.
But I think there's, I thinkthere's an opportunity that
that, that that exists there.
Anyway, yeah.
Sorry.
I.
No, that makes a lot of sense.
I thought that was a good way tomaybe answer your question, but
it was a great way, kudos to youfor the creative way of

(35:32):
structuring that's brilliant.
I'm curious now with being valueadd guys you're, obviously you,
seem to have a very clear buybox with the, mobile homes in
the parking spaces, but youprobably also getting so much
exposure through your podcast todifferent strategies and just
being a value add guy at nature.

(35:53):
It seems like you, you probablysee a lot of opportunity in a
lot of spaces.
So can you talk about that and,say are there other areas that
you're considering going into,or if not, just what are areas
where you're seeingopportunities and right now.
Yeah.

(36:13):
It's it's a great question.
I think that there's there's a1,000,001 different ways to make
money in real estate.
I don't think that there's anyright or wrong way.
You and I both know many peoplein the industry that do
different things than what wedo, and they do quite well,
right?
They're, yeah.
Kinda masters of their owncraft.
However, I would say that we tryto stay our lane.
It's I've some people do reallywell, but I've, never been great

(36:34):
at, doing many things and, beingexcellent at all them at the
same time.
And so that, that's why we,focused on mobile home parks for
many, years before we ever evenconsidered another asset class.
And it took us, we ran acrossparking seven years ago and
didn't start buying it till fouryears ago.
And studied it profusely.
And we went to conferences andmet the people in the industry,

(36:54):
tried to poke holes in the inthe in the investment thesis and
before we ever pulled thetrigger, we try to stay our lane
and stay focused and not get notget the chase shiny objects and
get and dilute the focus that wehave and just try to be experts
at what is we do.
And for us, I don't think thatthere's anything else coming

(37:16):
down the, I'm not gonna say, younever say never, right?
But I still think there's quitea bit of runway, in what we're
doing in both asset classes.
I think there's an opportunityfor us to continue to scale and
buy great assets in greatmarkets.
If you ask me that in fiveyears, maybe it's a different
story, but I don't see thatchanging at least in the next
couple of years.

(37:37):
Outside of that I love manyother asset classes.
I've got personal personalinvestment to personal capital
in me.
I love medical office.
Self-storage is great.
Traditional multifamily is stillgreat.
I think it's a sound investmentthesis.
Assisted living.
I've got personal capital and soI've got quite a diversified
real estate portfolio.

(37:58):
It's just, it's with other guysthat's their craft.
The self-storage group I investwith, that's all that they do.
They do nothing else other thanself-storage, assisted living
group, that's all they do.
S assisted living.
So I like to find guys that,that, that are, have a core
focus on one thing.
That's all they do and they doit well.
And that's pretty much wherewe're at.

(38:18):
Yeah, understood.
What about markets?
What you seem to, you mentionedAtlanta, you, Florida,
Charlotte, so clearly you likethe southeast.
Is that you, stick to thosemarkets or do you go all other
areas or, yeah in the mobilehome park space we're both in
the southeast and, northeast.

(38:39):
I think we're, in 14 or 15different states at present
time.
Mostly, east of the Mississippi.
Just for logistic purposes morethan anything else.
We, tend to stay out of, atleast in mobile home parks, we
tend to pretty much stay outtablue states.
We do em some stuff in Marylandin the red part of Maryland, but
Maryland is blue givenBaltimore.

(39:01):
But we typically don't buy NewYork or up in New England
states.
We probably would, it'd probablytake an active God for us to
consider buying even somethingout in like California, even if
it was a good deal.
Just'cause there's rent controlissues to deal with.
Same thing with Oregon andWashington and just any area
that, that, is has majordiscussions often around rent

(39:23):
control or currently has rentcontrol in place.
We, we steer very clear of, andso that's mobile home parks.
As far as parking, wait, I'msorry, with that.
Yeah.
Rent control.
Considering that the, does rentcontrol affect the land rent as
well in mobile homes?
Because you're, yeah.
It's all dependent on themunicipality or the state.
So in New York we used to own inNew York, in 2019, they passed

(39:48):
statewide rent control and it'sapplicable to every type of
residential rental housing,including mobile home parks.
And so Interesting.
And it's still the mostrestrictive rent control policy
that exists in the entirecountry.
It's yeah, it's very difficultfor, landlords to, to execute on
their business plan or to makemoney, or even put aside enough

(40:08):
money for reserves, for majorcapital improvements like roads
and infrastructure and thingslike that.
So it's we we, sold out as soonas that happened.
Within a year we sold out andand just really removed ourself
from the problem, which theproblem being the state and,
their, just, their governingpolicies.
It's just we figured there'seasier ways to, to operate our
business than in states likethat.

(40:31):
We tend to steer clear.
As far as parking we're lookingfor primary markets, big cities,
downtown, areas that areexperiencing massive growth.
I mentioned Charlotte last, or Iguess in, I guess it'd be 2023,
we bought a great parking assetin downtown Phoenix.
Right across from thecourthouse, right down two

(40:52):
blocks from the where thePhoenix Suns play and just a
core location.
So big markets like that, thatare experiencing significant
growth are really what we'reseeking for parking.
They've got a vibrant urban corearea in, the downtown district.
And and again very livable andwalkable downtown.
And we're also looking for whatwe classify as 24 7 cities.

(41:16):
So there's something going ondaytime, nighttime, and on the
weekends.
We don't wanna be in a, we don'twanna be in a downtown area that
literally, it's just Mondaythrough Friday, nine to five,
and then yeah, literally nothinghappens at night and nothing
happens on, or very few thingshappen on the weekend that's not
a good fit for us.
And on top of that, we wanna, asfar as parking we want to know
there's a very diverse nature ofparking demand drivers.

(41:38):
So who's parking in our garage?
If it's.
If 80% of the parking is comingfrom one particular source let's
say that let's say it's anoffice building and then the
other 20 percent's made up oftransient parkers that are just
coming down for the day, orpeople, visiting friends or what
have you.
Just, but 80% is like theoffice.
I feel very and easy aboutoffice, the future of it.

(42:00):
And so I wouldn't put all myeggs in that basket.
'cause if that 80% goes away,then I'm stuck in the water with
a good location, but no one topark there.
And so it's gotta be verydiverse.
We want courthouses, we wantsports arenas, we want music
venues, we want restaurants andentertainment.
We want hotels that needparking.

(42:21):
And then transient traffic.
So there's five or six there.
That, and it's gotta be prettydiverse across all those.
It's got, it can't be overlyweighted with one of those
parking types.
So we know that if one of'emgoes away, we're still good.
We can backfill with the rest.
And, so it's just, there's a lotof boxes that we have to check
with parking.
And so it's gotta be in a bigcity, it's gotta be in a growing

(42:42):
city, but then it's also gottacheck all those boxes I just
mentioned.
So it sure, it, it eliminates alot of what could be, a great
investment for us.
And, maybe it could be a greatlocation, but it just doesn't
have that diverse nature of theParkers that are using the space
that we have.
Yeah.
No, I get it.
That, makes a lot of sense.
And parking is definitely notone I had thought about as

(43:05):
deeply as you have.
That's very fascinatingbusiness.
I can see why you fell in lovewith it.
That's good.
Yeah, no, that's as I telleverybody this, I mean it's
anything can be a cash cow.
You can make a lot of money withany investment type if you
understand it really and you buyit.
You know what I mean?
If you understand the businessmodel intimately.

(43:27):
You buy it at a right price,right?
You buy, you make your money onthe buy, but then you also have
to understand how you're gonnaextract the value, right?
And unless you are a master ofthat business whatever asset
class it is, whether it'smultifamily or self storage,
like you better be really goodat it, right?
Because even if, you buy itright and you suck at like the
value, the business plan or theday to day and all that, then
like the money you made in thebuy just went poof'cause you ran

(43:50):
it like crap.
That's right.
Yeah.
It doesn't matter what yourstrategy is if your execution
sucks, right?
That's right.
You gotta, yeah.
What about I'm curious, so you,do you syndicate all your deals,
you bring in a lot of, LP typeinvestors or what do you do, We
do, fund structures.
And so we don't do one-offindependent deals.

(44:11):
We're currently in the middleof.
Not closing out, but we'repretty close to closing out the
the raise for our fourth fund,which is a a hundred million
dollar fund.
And so we we tend to blend alittle bit of parking with
mostly mobile home parks.
And so we might buy 10 mobilehome park assets and then one
par, one or two parking dealsand we'll put it in, in, in a

(44:32):
respective fund.
But we tend to, we, like thediversity across multiple
different deals in multipledifferent markets rather than
just doing standalone deals.
'cause at the end of the day youcan, no matter what you have in
your pro forma, there's alwaysgonna be deals that exceed
expectations and just knock itoutta the park.
And there's gonna be deals thatdon't meet pro forma, right?
Like they, they missed the markfor whatever reason.

(44:53):
So we found that doing it in afun structure allows, a mu a
much easier way tocounterbalance those that are
knocking outta the park to thosethat might just be missing the
mark.
'cause you're ne what I canpromise you, you're never gonna
be.
Spot on with your proforma,there's just no way.
Sure.
It's, it never, exactly meetsthe mark.
And so we put it in funstructure, like it helps create
the it's like a seesaw, right?

(45:15):
Like just you, we can even itout we can put enough, get the
heavy guy over here, but then,tell the girl to tell her to
bring her a little friend over.
Let's counterbalance this out alittle bit, get a little more
weight and evenly distribute it.
So that's how we look at a fundstructure.
And it's treeless quite well.
We've been doing funds forabout, I guess about eight years
now.
Eight or nine years.
Okay.
So that works well I would thinkI've known a few guys with fund

(45:37):
Structures who in the last fewyears they raise funds for
multi-family acquisitions andnothing's meeting their criteria
anymore.
So they had to return thosefunds Yeah.
To the investor.
So I that's good to have acouple more options there.
Are you finding that thefundraising struc environment
now is, friendly as it's everbeen?
Or what, how has it changed inthe last couple years?

(45:57):
Yeah, and that's, it's a greatquestion.
It's, it is definitely, it'sbecome more difficult.
There's, and again, I.
I can speak to the retailinvestor base.
That's who our capital comesfrom high net worth accredited
investors.
It's definitely a lot moredifficult.
However, I will say that we'vethe last two years have been
the, probably our two largestgrowth years that we've had.

(46:20):
And and we've raised the mostcapital that we have in the last
two years.
And I can only attribute andwe've worked really hard to do
that, so I don't want to, it, itdefinitely, the money was four
years ago, capital's flowing.
You could literally, you couldbe a Joe Schmuck and put a
Facebook ad up and say, I've gota great opportunity.
It's gonna give you this kind ofreturn.
And that's, someone would sendyou money which is crazy to

(46:40):
think that Yeah.
But that, actually existed.
But, after the crash happenedoriginally, I just.
I'm, I've always been aconservative investor, and so
I'm just I, know that this is along game, long or, slow and
steady wins the race type thing.
Like it's just, you can make bigpops in real estate, but that's

(47:01):
not the business model.
It there.
There's faster ways to make moreconsistent money than real
estate.
And so for me, like it's always,it's been a long, like how do
you build a sustainablebusiness, one that can like,
stand the test of time and backin 2020 when rates hit all time
lows.
And then 20 21, 20 22,everyone's.
It's a feeding frenzy.
Everyone's buying everything.
Lots of things aren't penciling,but they're buying it anyway.

(47:21):
'cause guess what?
Rates are gonna stay lowforever.
We'll be able to cash out thisthing before rates go up and
it'll be great.
We had a difficult time makinganything pencil, and so while we
bought a few things in thoseyears, we didn't buy a lot.
We definitely, we had all of ourcompetitors, we were getting bid
out left and right.
We weren't scaling to the moonlike everybody else.
And it was a difficult timeinternally because I just, I
wondered how everyone else wasdoing this when we just couldn't

(47:43):
get things to pencil.
And so we actually tookadvantage of the market and we
actually sold a number of assetsin, we plucked our portfolio out
and, got some top tier pricingfor I felt we were not so great
long-term assets for x, y, Zreasons.
And so we capitalized on thatperiod of time hoping that.
When things shifted, whateverthat looks like, that we would
be in a better position.

(48:04):
Ultimately, that's whatoccurred.
Yeah.
And again, I'm not gonna saythat we had the master plan or
the the, crystal ball that saidwhen that was gonna happen and
when rates are gonna go up andhow fast they're gonna go up.
But what, occurred was as soonas they started going up, 80% of
our competitors got put to thesidelines.
Either they were running damagecontrol on things they over paid
for.
They had, floating rate debtthat now they're just like in,

(48:27):
in a tough situation.
Just a litany of challenges.
And so their equity dries upthey start making distributions,
like they lose reputation withtheir investors.
The list goes on and on.
And so during that time, andliterally up until the today,
we've never missed a adistribution on any of our funds
that we've continued makingquarterly distributions.
Nice.

(48:48):
And it put us in a really goodposition.
And when it was when dealsactually came that penciled when
no one else was buying wescooped everything up and and,
our investors have faith in usand.
I, think again, reputation goesa long way.
It takes a lifetime to go toreputation.
Literally a moment to ruin it.
Yeah.
And and I think there's a lot offolks that just got out, out

(49:09):
ahead of their skis and and Idon't wish that upon anyone.
It's tough, man.
And the capital market's reallyjust, they caught a lot of
people off guard, but now it's,investors are looking for a safe
haven.
They wanna go with someonethat's now gone through some
bumps and still figured out away.
And I guess here we are, I'm notgonna say we're the only ones,
but we stand out now a littlebit amongst maybe the our pack

(49:32):
of competitors that are also inour niche that just aren't doing
so well financially.
So it's they puts in good spotand I'm incredibly grateful for
that.
And again, I'm not gonna act asthough like I knew this three
years ago.
I, was preaching it it's like,just, I think it's as long as
you're disciplined which isreally difficult to do and no
one else is disciplined.
That's right.
There was many, a nights wheremy partner, he's the capital guy

(49:53):
in our group, he raises, he's.
I'm the acquisition and thenops, I oversee those two
departments.
He oversees our entire cap raisedepartment and the finance team.
And when money's readily flown,he is saying Kevin, man, he's I
hate turning away.
I don't want to tell everyoneno.
And I'm like, I don't know whatto tell you, man.
I don't have any deals atpencil.
And so it's him and the tensionbetween him and I, it's a really

(50:14):
good tension.
Yeah.
Has always been that.
It's always been a, hey, like Idon't have deals.
I've got money.
Where say now it's a, Hey Brian,guess what?
These last two years he'sdamnit.
He's I'm like, buddy, I gotdeals, man.
Like now they're here.
And when they're here it'stypically harder to raise
capital.
That's we've busted our ass,we've busted our ass to to bring
in the capital over the last twoyears.
We've raised, I think about ahundred and 110 or 120 million

(50:39):
over the last two years.
Wow.
And it's been wonderful.
Again, we've worked really hard.
We got our capital raise.
We've got a whole team that webuilt out in the last two years.
So it's not just one persondoing that.
And we've got a, just a.
Everyone's rowing in the rightdirection for the right reason.
We've got a great, team greatstaff members, and, so I'm not
gonna act as though it was easy.
We worked hard, but yeah, yougot to it's carpet diem, right?

(51:03):
Seize the day, seize theopportunity.
Yeah.
No, that's great.
Kudos to you, man.
And you also you learned how toidentify your opportunities and,
how to do it right and staydisciplined by the bumps and
bruises you suffered from oheight, right?
That, that was you would, Idon't think you would have this
now if you didn't go throughthat then, right?

(51:24):
You wouldn't have.
I agree.
That's why I said wouldn'tchange a thing it was tough and,
it.
Again, it's just, who knows?
If that wouldn't have happened,what where would I, be at?
I don't know.
There's definitely a lot of goodlessons that, that I took away
from there and it just turned meinto the guy I am today.
So whether that's good or bad,I'm not sure, but I feel like
it's pretty good.
Yeah.
Think more positive thannegative came out of it.

(51:46):
No, for sure.
Yeah.
Kudos to you, man.
On that note, if you don't mind,I'd like to switch over to our
world famous Wayfinder four.
Kevin, if you could give us a haa hack that you use, this is
just a life hack that you useevery day.
Yeah that's a great maybe it'snot every day, but I've been
really trying to learn this AIstuff to a certain degree.

(52:09):
And there's just so many thingsthat chat GBT can do.
That's the most basic form ofit.
And even, for example, like I'llgo through and I'll, write just
this, I'm trying to like, try tosave time, right?
So we might go through and writequarterly, recently we did
quarterly reports and we alwayswrite some dialogue about what's

(52:33):
happening, property by property,fund by fund, what have you.
But throw it in chat.
JBT hey, like literally reword,I'm not the, I don't know, I'm
not the best writer, but rewordwhat I've put here.
Make it more eloquent.
Make it summarize, do a betterjob summarizing the data,
summarizing you know, what,what's happening here.
And make it a little bit more ofan institutional style report.

(52:57):
And ultimately it's amazing whatit spits out on the other side.
So if you just.
And I think the more you do thatwith ai, what I have found, like
it gets to know you, it gets tounderstand you how you, talk
what your business is.
And ultimately it's anincredibly helpful tool and just
it's more about like, how do Ibuy back more time and do things
more efficiently?
I think AI is where it's at.
And again I'm, literallyscratching the surface of I

(53:18):
don't know anything.
But Chappy Chat, GBT, has been agame changer.
I do think there's a lot ofadditional ways to to really
leverage AI to just help yougrow your business and just.
Be more efficient witheverything that you do with your
operations and everything thatyou do.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Right now if you're not thinkingabout AI as a hack, right?

(53:40):
You're just, you're notthinking.
Yeah, absolutely.
And on that note it's ironicthat you brought that up.
I wasn't expecting, but I, justread this book like in two days
called the AI Driven Leader.
Now I have it right by my sidehere.
I'm using it as a reference.
Have you heard of this yet?
I have not.
No.
No, I haven't.
Oh my God.
I highly recommend it.
I actually just got the author,Jeff Woods to commit to come on

(54:02):
the show.
We're gonna have him monsoon,and by the time this airs,
you'll probably already havebeen on.
Awesome.
And it talks about using ai,what I'm trying to figure is how
to use it, how to think about itin an evergreen way, not just
yeah.
How edit my stuff right now.
But and what this talks about isusing it as a thought partner.
So imagine like having a boardto think about all the things

(54:25):
you're thinking about.
When you talked about your duediligence for a project.
Or before you even went into acertain asset class, like
parking, all of what you did tounderstand it and, everything to
that, you decide that, okay,it's a good thesis.
I'm gonna go into it, I'm gonnaexecute on it using AI for that.
And it's not something I hadthought about.

(54:46):
And people are using it now forthat too, even therapy, which is
just mind blowing.
It's, yeah it's amazing.
I'll, and scary at the sametime.
I'm trying to learn as much aspossible and make sure that I
spend my time in the right, onthe right resources to to learn
how to leverage it in a moreefficient way.
Totally.
Man, check out this book, AIDriven Leader, the AI driven

(55:07):
leader.
It's will do.
It's it's just changed.
It's not even a AI book to behonest with you.
It's more like a strategicleadership book.
Thinking book.
And it, it is changing the wayI'm thinking for sure.
How about a favorite, justsomething that you like to do
all the time?
A show activity book what haveyou?

(55:29):
Yeah.
My, I've got two boys beautifulwife and we're a water family,
so we spend of course, prettymuch every waking moment.
Not right now.
It's pretty damn cold here inFlorida even.
But we spend a lot of time outin the gulf fishing and just
cruising islands.
We spend a lot of time in, we'vegot a property inland and we do,
I grew up wakeboarding and allthat stuff.

(55:50):
Oh, nice.
So I got my kids intowakeboarding and wake surfing,
all those fun sports.
So we just, we literally, we arewater, a water family.
Most of our vacations in thesummertime revolve around
boating of some sort.
Sure.
Whether it be sailing somewhereor doing whatever.
That's it, man.
Like we and, all of us love itequally as much as the next.
And it's just been, it's been a,fun way to just take a hobby and
then literally engulf the entirefamily in it, and everyone puts

(56:13):
a smile on everyone's face,that's awesome.
Do you have a favorite, do youprefer sailing over motor boats
or, I shouldn't even have saidsailing.
I'm a horrible sailor.
I, although I we do chartersailboats.
I'm not a great sailor.
I much prefer using the motors.
Okay.
Probably'cause I like gettingplaces faster, which maybe I
should learn to slow down alittle bit.

(56:34):
But most of my experience, Iwill say is revolved around
motorboats.
Gotcha.
I do know how to sail, but Iwould not call myself a sailor,
so I should be careful when Isay that.
Yeah.
Because I'd literal getbutchered if if he put me in the
same room with the sailor hewould, beat me up left and
right.
So I'm definitely not a sailor.
Gotcha.
I know enough to be dangerous.
Gotcha.

(56:55):
I dunno how to sail either, butI've been, had my fair share of
time on a sailboat and it's alot of fun.
Yeah.
What about a piece of advice foryour younger self?
Yeah.
It's, one of our company corevalues.
Enjoy the ride have fun withwhat you're doing.
At the end of the day none of usare promised tomorrow.
We're probably, I don't know howold you are, Louis, but I'm, we

(57:17):
look like we're probably ofsimilar ages.
And yeah, you look a lot betterthan I do.
And we, and we all we, probablyknow whether it's a immediate, a
friend, family, someone that'sin our circle that we, that's
probably lost their life likeway too early, right?
And whether it be a disease oran accident of some sort, but
again, you're just notguaranteed tomorrow.
So just have fun doing whatyou're doing, and and just try

(57:40):
to be in the moment a little bitmore.
I think we talk about AI and wetalk technology and all that
stuff.
It's, pretty hard To, to to notlose focus a lot of times be
distracted.
But I think just trying to enjoyyourself.
Whatever you're doing, justenjoy it.
No matter what part of thejourney you're in with your
growing your company or businesscareer or family, just enjoy the
day.
'cause again, you might go tosleep and not wake up tomorrow.

(58:03):
So just live live every day isyour last the best to, best of
your ability.
I know that's, such a cliche andthat's hard to do, but just be
conscious of it.
Yeah.
I love that.
Last one, you can choose betweena big opportunity or a limiting
belief.
Just pick what resonates withthat and talk about it.

(58:25):
Interesting.
I don't know how to take boththose.
But either way I, think bigopportunity.
I, don't, and honestly, I just,I think I'm just generally
speaking I'm a very, optimisticperson.
I've always been that way.
Trying to find.
Solutions to whatever problemthere might be.
And so for me that equates toopportunity.

(58:47):
I think there's opportunitiesaround all of us, right?
Find a problem and figure outthe solution.
To me that equals opportunity.
Yeah.
Do you see any really bigopportunity out there right now?
Or one that you're pursuing?
Yeah again, I think just, yeah,we spoke about AI a little bit.
I do think there's a hugeopportunity for us to leverage
that in all of our whatever.

(59:08):
It doesn't matter what you dofor work, it doesn't matter for
your, work or if you own abusiness or what.
You have a literally there's somany different capacities that
I'm trying, I'm literally like,I'm just at being staged, trying
to understand it more to where Icould integrate it into my life,
into what, we do.
But I do think that's probablythe biggest opportunity at hand
right now is understanding AIand how to truly integrate,

(59:31):
leverage it, to just reallyeverything.
Yeah.
I, everything, yeah, I literallyeverything.
You just gotta like literallyeverything.
That's big.
Yeah, that's it's, I think itputs you ahead.
I think there's probably alarge, the lar, a larger
contingent of the population isjust eh, this stuff will pass.

(59:54):
It's not, it's here to stay.
It's not just the, it's not ablip on the radar.
You know what I mean?
I think those who don't adaptare gonna be left behind.
Yeah.
I think what's exciting forpeople, especially our already I
don't know what it was like foryou when some big revolutionary
technology came along.

(01:00:16):
I'm thinking the internet,social media, the iPhone, right?
These are things that allhappened to us in our in, in our
lifetime.
And, I don't know if I've alwaysrecognized it to have the
potential that it did, right?
Like I'm thinking social mediain particular.
I thought it was a this is cool,great way to touch with my

(01:00:37):
friends, but there's no way toreally use it for money or I,
didn't recognize theopportunity, right?
But, and with ai, I still don'trecognize all of the opportunity
but clearly I, don't thinkanybody does yet.
There's so much, but clearlyit's a revolutionary technology
that I am, just so excited aboutnow, this is gonna change our

(01:00:58):
lives.
We all know it, we recognize itnow.
There's no you can't not justignore it.
You have.
And yeah, to have the attitude Ithink that you and I have right
now about it is good.
I think the momentum's rolling.
So I don't care if you disagreewith it or you think that we're
gonna get That's right.
Over overthrown or society'sgonna get overthrown by robots
or something like that.
Maybe that happens.

(01:01:19):
I hope the guy doesn't happen.
But the thing is that you'rejust you not adapting and using
it is not gonna slow down theprogression of of AI being
That's right.
In and around us in our dailylives.
It's just, it's not gonnachange.
It's the internet, right?
I don't care if.
You don't want, you don't wannabe on the internet.
You don't wanna learn it.
You don't, understand like theyou know how to leverage it and
just you're opposed to it.

(01:01:40):
Guess what?
That's like now we all probablyhave someone in our family that
literally still doesn'tunderstand like, how to get into
their email.
You can't even send'em an email.
You're like,'cause they're like,I don't know how to get in
there.
It's your life would be just alittle bit easier if you had
just learned paid attention alittle bit 30 years ago, when
when email came about and youwere actually young enough to
actually understand it.
And not saying it's right orwrong, it's just, it's part of

(01:02:04):
us and it will be That's right.
It'll continue to be that'sright.
There's no change in that.
There's no change in that.
It's probably I, can't imagineeven when cars when the first
engine and then turned into anautomobile, right?
Horses were horses and buggies.
They were reliable.
Everyone understood, Iunderstand my horses died.
I know what to feed them.
Like I know that I can get haythree miles down the road, eight

(01:02:26):
miles down the road, 30 milesdown the road.
This gasoline thing, it onlygoes so far.
And there's not another station.
It's like all the problems,right?
Like you started why would Ieven do that?
Because the horse thing, likeit's EI understand it.
That's right.
but anyway I'm sure like we allgo through those periods of
aversion to new ideas and, newtechnology.

(01:02:49):
But I think again, I think justlook at the bigger picture that
like, it's powerful.
Yeah.
Oh, a hundred percent period.
And there's already a, again,just get'em gen.
For anyone that hasn't like evenspent, just hop on chat GBT and
play around a little bit.
That's right.
Go.
Go Google.
What are 10 ways that, that Ican leverage chat GBT in my
personal life and literally justtake those 10 things and test

(01:03:11):
them out.
Yeah.
This and see what happens.
Just get some prompts, yeah.
Get, if you can't think of whatprompts you need, go type that
in.
Google, ask that, and Googlewill give you 10 prompts and
then go play around and see whatcomes about.
And you'll be pretty impressed.
I'm sure.
Yeah, totally.
Totally.
I love the car analogy becauseI'm even thinking we bought an
EV last year just with all thecredits and everything.

(01:03:31):
My wife needed a new car.
We tried one out and we're likelet's see.
We only leased it because wewere like, this is not going to
go well, whatever.
Now I still have my truck andit's a gas truck, and I gotta
tell you every time I go pokegas in that thing, I'm just
like.
I feel like I'm wasting my time.
Why am I doing this?
Like, why, you know what, that'swhy it is, it's totally changed

(01:03:52):
in just a year.
I'm like, wow.
I don't know.
I'm not sure I'll ever buy a gascar again.
And, I love my truck.
Or here's another great example,but we were little, right?
We still had the cars, we had toroll up the windows, yeah.
Who even thinks about haverolling?
If you, didn't if my kid saw acar with a, handle to raise it,

(01:04:14):
they'd be like how do you, whydon't the windows come down in
this car?
Isn't that wild?
We can't even conceive that.
But I remember the resistanceoh, this is stupid.
A button's gonna, people canpush the button from outside and
open the window and Yep.
It's wild.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Yep.
No, it's, we've all experiencedit and Totally.
And so I think it's just, again,just be open-minded.

(01:04:35):
I think that's the lesson ofthat day.
Be open-minded.
Yeah, totally.
Kevin, this has been a lot offun, man.
I, appreciate I've learned quitea bit from you.
I you've got me thinking you'vegiven me a little bit more shiny
object syndrome today oh boy.
Thank you.
I know it's so dangerous.
Anyways, if people wanna learn alittle bit more about you, maybe

(01:04:55):
a little bit more aboutinvesting in your fund or your
book, or what have you how canyou do yeah if you wanna learn
about myself and our company,sunrise Capital Investors, you
can just go over to invest withsunrise.com.
You can read about currentofferings.
We've got case studies up there.
We've got a good bit ofinformation that you can access.
My podcast real Estate Investingfor Cash Flow.

(01:05:18):
You can access that throughthat, that invest with Sunrise
website as well.
Also find iTunes, Spotify, andall the other places where you
listen to podcast.
There's a million of'em now.
And then lastly, I I'm, I've gota unique enough last name bup,
BUPP.
And so if you just, I'm prettyactive on LinkedIn.
I'm active on Facebook andInstagram.
And so just type my name.

(01:05:38):
I'm not gonna give you thehandle, but just type my name in
and you'll you'll track me downpretty easily.
Alright, thank you very muchKevin.
This has been really insightfuland a lot of fun.
Yeah, look forward to sharingthis with our audience.
Awesome, Liz.
Thanks.
Yeah, man, it's been a lot offun.
I appreciate you having me.
Thank you.

(01:05:58):
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