On this episode of The Passive Income Attorney, Seth interviews Ferd Niemann. Ferd discusses his Mobile Home Parks, real estate investing, and provides his best advice to those looking to get into the game. Enjoy!

 

“There are about 15 mobile home parks developed nationwide in a given year. And just as many are destroyed to build Home Depots or hospitals or something. So, it’s pretty much a fixed supply with a massive demand for affordable housing.”

 

HIGHLIGHTS:

0:00 – Intro
1:11 – Seth asks Ferd to talk about his past life & law practice
2:25 – Ferd talks about his past with real estate
3:25 – Seth prompts Ferd to speak about his current practice as an MHP lawyer
6:01 – Ferd discusses what the transition from out of the big firm to his current situation looked like
7:30 – Seth poses the question to Ferd, how did you get started with real estate
9:01 – Ferd speaks about his first MHP deal
13:49 – Ferd talks about some of the advantages and benefits of owning an MHP
15:33 – Ferd is asked to compare and contrast MHP investing vs multifamily or single-family
19:01 – Seth asks Ferd if he is currently looking to syndicate deals
19:51 – Ferd gives his advice to people who don’t have a lot of spare time, on how to get started investing in MHP or real estate in general
25:44 – It’s time for the freedom four – In an alternative universe where you weren’t in real estate what would you be doing?
27:06 – What’s the best thing you do to keep your mind and body healthy?
28:24 – Where were you at 5 years ago and where do you see yourself and your business 5 years from now?
29:44 – How has passive income made your life better?

 

FIND | FERD NIEMANN:

Website: www.themhplawyer.com

 

FULL TRANSCRIPTION:

Seth: Good day law nation. I hope everyone is having a wonderful week. If you’ve ever wondered about outside of the box ways to invest in real estate or even about investing in mobile home parks specifically, today is your day. We have an absolute expert in the mobile home park space with us, Mr. Ferdinand Niemann IV, but I just call them Ferd. He’s also known as the MHP lawyer. He’s an owner, operator and lawyer specializing in the mobile home park space. We’re going to explore mobile home park investing and how you can diversify your portfolio and get involved. All right. All right, here we go.

Seth: Ferd, what do you say, man?

Ferd: Hey Seth, how are you, man?

Seth: Doing great. Of course, of course. Thanks for coming on. So, let’s just jump right in man. Before you had your own firm tell us a little bit about kind of your past life and your previous law practice and you know, what you loved about it, what you hated about it.

Ferd: Sure. So, I used to work in a law firm here in Kansas City. It was a boutique real estate firm. We did tax incentives, real estate development, land-use zoning, municipal law, mostly real estate attorneys. A couple people did litigation, a couple of other people did criminal, but very, I think the biggest real estate firm in town. It was a great firm overall. Had some good mentors there, but I liked the practice of law, but I didn’t love it wanting to be more entrepreneurial and do more real estate stuff, more business stuff. So, one of our firm clients was a retail developer and I did a lot of tax incentives and I worked for him. So, he’d offered me a position to become his junior partner. And so, I did that, went into retail development and redevelopment, did that for several years. I was doing MHP mobile home parks on the side for several years and really just focused all on MHP the last couple of years, but it’s still do a little law, but really mostly MHP active investor.

Seth: Gotcha. Was there kind of like an aha moment at some point when you’re working for that a pretty decent size firm where you’re like, Hey, I need to start investing in real estate or were you always in…

Ferd: Well, I was in real estate five years before I was an attorney. So, I was always investing in real estate on the side. So, I did both. I mean, for the firm, the aha moments, if you will, would be, you know, working for somebody else. So, like now I still have my own law firm, but it’s my law firm and I have other associate attorneys that can do some work for me. So now it’s like, I’m still more of a business owner. And then I practice law kind of on the side I say, versus at the law firm, you know, if you work, you work an extra 10 hours, extra 15 hours, you get maybe some bonus in the year, you don’t get rights to it, you don’t have control your own schedule. So, it’s really just working for other people’s account. And then, you know, I had supervisors too, so they’d say, Hey, we need you to do this component of the work. I was like, that was the grunt work. You know, I didn’t want to do that part. I’ve worked on the most challenging work. Again, I didn’t hate it, but I didn’t love it. So, I wasn’t looking for another job at the time, but I always thought maybe I’d do development. And the job opportunity came, and I took it.

Seth: Nice. Nice. So, what’s your current practice look like as the MHP lawyer?

Ferd: The MHP lawyer. Well, you know, last year I didn’t practice anymore. Six months ago, I didn’t practice any law. I haven’t practiced law in several years really, but I saw a niche in this field. So I’m been actively buying the loan bars for about six years, but the pricing has gotten pretty high because a lot of people realizing it’s, in my opinion, it’s the best asset class in any real estate by far. And a lot of other people figured that out, a bunch of RIETs figured that out, a bunch of private equity groups figured that out. So, there’s literally billions of dollars of equity coming into the space. So, it’s pushing pricing, it’s kind of through the roof. So, it’s hard to find deals. There’s guys that have 10 full-time assistants, literally cold calling and direct mailing everybody in the country. And if anything on market gets priced out, says, man, I got all this knowledge, all this experience in this asset class. I mean, they’re going to have to pay up, which I don’t feel comfortable doing, or, I mean, I got to, maybe be I can be part of the team. So I said, you know, I’m not seeing a lot of sophisticated people out there and, you know, even these private equity guys, they’re sophisticated on the finance side and on the operation side, but a lot of them are pretty green on MHP specific. So, I said, I might as well be their lawyer. So, I launched my law firm and my podcast six weeks ago and I got 25 hours a day at work. So, I’ve hired a couple of attorneys this week to help do some of the blocking and tackling and the CFA to help on the investor reporting and financial modeling and that kind of stuff. So, it’s now, it’s like, okay, I’ve practiced enough law. You know, I got to practice some more law, but enough to be dangerous. But ultimately would like to just own the law firm and be kind of chairman of the board and advisor, and then focus on my own projects, which I’ve also got some new projects that have come through, you know, the quote, the law firms. So we did everything at MHP, you know, from your, your LLC or PPM, your title work, title objections, contracts leases, zoning letters, financing documents, seller finance documents, operational consulting, you know, financial underwriting, due diligence. I pretty much done, I got my retailer’s license, my broker’s license, my CCIM. So, anything in MHP, real estate I’ve pretty much done. So, I figured I might as well be out there and you know, “practice law” for a minute.

Seth: Yeah. Yeah. Seems like you’ve found a really good niche and that’s the key is niching down.

Ferd: I think so, so far so good.

Seth: So let’s rewind just a little bit, you know, what did that transition look like when you transitioned out of the firm at that big firm you’re talking about, and then you did some retail development work and then you transitioned to all the way out of law for a little while. What did that look like? Was it all at once or a little bit of time?

Ferd: Yeah, it was, I mean, it was all at once. I mean, part of my, when I left the law firm, I went to the retail developer and I was kind of you know, we were a small firm, but did some bigger projects. So, I was kind of a little bit in everything. I was doing some project management, some leasing, some kind of political stuff, negotiation with municipalities, you know, development with, you know, overseeing some contractors and architects and working with city planners. But as part of what we did, we did tax incentive projects with things like tax increment, financing, tax abatements, community improvement districts. So, there was a legal piece to that, and I didn’t charge legal fees. It was for my own project, but some days I’d wear a suit, somebody that wear jeans, sometimes I wear a blazer, you know, it depends on what I was that day. So, I still did a little bit of law, but it was probably the actual legal work, we hired somebody else to do the contracts and title work and stuff. I was focusing on, you know, finding and negotiating deals, but then did that, and really just left that a couple of years ago and been doing MHP for the last two years or so. And there’s this legal, I used my legal experience if you will, on a regular basis, but as far as billing hours or, you know, sitting, I mean, I’m out in the field a couple of days a week, you know, more about at a job site wearing jeans. So definitely different than the standard legal practice. And I like it a lot better.

Seth: Yeah. I definitely don’t miss a dressing up in a suit every single day. So, what’s your real estate story. I know you’re; I think your family is in real estate. How did you get started?

Ferd: Well, I was after, I have an MBA. So, after graduate school, during graduate school, I read a lot of books on real estate. And then I got interested in doing real estate. I had my securities licenses and I said, you know, I shouldn’t be selling stocks and bonds. I should be, I should be in the real estate game. So, this was 2008, tough job market. So, I ended up getting a job. It ended up being a good opportunity, but it was a Jackson County as a commercial real estate analyst, looking at TIF projects, Tax incentive projects. I did that, got promoted a couple of times. Got involved in government affairs, became the director of economic development, the director of assessment, which is the County appraiser while going to law school part-time and got involved different aspects of real estate. And then during grad school. So, before this, I was buying single-family houses and duplexes and renovating, did some flips. Did some buy and hold, my dad was my business partner. But I wasn’t actually, my family was in real estate, I guess I was in real estate first and then brought dad. Dad Was at a bank, bank got shut down. So, Hey, we started to, you know, get business together, but then he came on, quit his job. So, he started doing full-time while I was practicing law. And he still does. We still work together full-time. I do the legal stuff myself, but he does a lot of the construction management and property management stuff and the operational stuff as well.

Seth: Nice. Sounds like you’ve got a good team going on there. What’s the, what’s the first mobile home park deal that you got. What did that look like? How’d you find it?

Ferd: So, it was in my hometown in Quincy, Illinois, you know, it was pretty hard to find mobile home parks. When you find them off market, they’d pretty much, you contact the salary, they pretty much say I’ll never sell. It’s a cash cow. So, there’s like 20 mobile home parks within our, within 25 miles of my hometown. So, we contacted all of them and all of them, most, all of them said no way, I’ll never sell. One of them said, maybe. So, we said, well, tell us more. And we ended up paying retail price, I think we paid 695. It was $685,000. It was a 54-unit park. It was probably like 45 units full. So, we sub-metered water. We brought in more lots, filled it up, increased the rent a little bit, fixed the roads, you know, put in some decor, professionalized management Basically, we sold it to some private equity group two and a half, three years later for about $950,000. So, it was just kind of a fix and flip, but the plan was to buy and hold it, but there’s a lot of upside there. So, you know, so we did that and then have done some similar business model several times and have some now that we’re going to probably buy and hold and have some more that are intentional flips, assignments, things like that.

Seth: Yeah. And then you said there were only a, you know, a number of limited number within kind of your geographical range. I mean, mobile home parks are a limited commodity.

Ferd: That’s one of the benefits of them, as opposed to say apartments, you know, I mean, if I’ve got an apartment at fifth and main street and there’s an old building next door and you can buy the old building, knock it down and build a bigger, shinier, or better apartment complex. Great. Now I’ve got tons of competition in my exact location with a superior product, the mobile home park business, that’s nearly impossible. There are like 15 mobile home parks developed nationwide in a given year. And just as many are destroyed to build home depots or hospitals or something. So, it’s pretty much a fixed supply with a massive demand for affordable housing. So it’s hard to find the existing ones, hard to get hands on existing ones, but you know, it’s possible, you know, I’m under contract on three right now, but the ones that are the big, you know, there’s a lot of, there’s some parks that are selling for, individual parks that are selling for tens of millions of dollars. Those are really hard to get. The big players. There’s several publicly traded RIETs. They’ve pretty much taken control of the 200 to 400, 5,000 lot mobile home parks. Northwestern mutual just bought one for $95 million for a single mobile home park. So, like the cap rate is like a one, like I can’t compete with that on price. So, they want it, they’ll pay for it. You know, it’s just a land. It’s just like a, for them, it’s a buy and hold just like park the money, diversification strategy. But for me, I need the cash flow, I need wealth accumulation, things like that. So, stuff is on the open market that’s a high dollar is going to sell at a super-premium.

Seth: Gotcha. I actually didn’t even realize they were building new mobile home parks. Where some of the places in the country that are doing that?

Ferd: Well, it’s going to be city by city specific and it’s pretty tough. You know, I’ve actually, I’m going into Illinois on Friday. I got tenant approval to build 14 more lots on one of my 90-unit parks, so I could expand it. But the reason I can do it is, I’m in the County. So, I’m just outside of town. So, there’s no zoning code. And then, so generally in a municipality, it’s really hard from a zoning perspective and a permit perspective. You can do it in more rural areas, but rural areas are typically less desirable for this type of lower class or lower income clientele because there’s no public transit. And then to develop it, there’s no public utilities. So, you got to put in, well water, septic sewer, lagoon, and that’s not, expensive and not as desirable of a location. So, development by its nature is pretty, pretty infeasible. I know there’s a few guys doing it. I don’t personally, I don’t have any clients that are doing ground up development. I have people all the time calling me, Hey, can we do it ground up development in this city? I’m like, maybe not, I do have a conference call today, one with a mayor who’s asked me to help be a thought leader, if you will, on low-income housing in her town. So, I’m going to propose building 250 lot belong parks, you know, but I’d still say it’s a long shot, the day from now, I’ll know better. And I’ll know if it’s realistic.

Seth: Yeah. I mean, if you have the space somewhere to do it, I mean, there’s affordable housing shortages everywhere.

Ferd: Absolutely.

Seth: Yeah. So, what are some of the other positive things and advantages to investing in a mobile home park? I know a lot of people have kind of a stigma about them that they may not know a lot about them. So, what, you know, what are some of the positives and the advantages?

Ferd: Yeah. Well, one of the advantages, like I mentioned, a supply demand gap. Another advantage is your tenant base is kind of sticky, I like to say. Because it costs about $5,000 to move a mobile home. So, they’re not really mobile. The average mobile home moves once and that’s from the factory to a mobile home park. And so, by virtue of that, if lot rent is 200, but that market rent is 500. You can push the rents, you shouldn’t push them that fast to 500, but over 10 years, could you push them to 500? Yeah, you can push them, rents at a considerably higher margin than other asset classes. Unfortunately, there’s people that are doing that really, really fast. And that’s really given industry some people bad name and it’s, and I wish they wouldn’t do that, but they are. Other benefits, if you have no park owned homes, usually on the land, it’s got a very low expense ratio, about 30% compared to say 50 for apartments. So low expense ratio. Other benefits, it’s a fragmented industry, meaning the big guys that the top hundred players, they only own about 10% of the industry. So, there’s still 90%. There’s about 44,000 parks in the country. Recent estimates are like 7,500 of those are owned by people that have one or more, two or more. So, most of the operators are mom and pop that built a park or a second or third generation park, which means there’s upside in the sense that you can have more professionalized management. And then also from a, you know, negotiation, sophistication standpoint, there’s upside. It’s just not as much competition now that is getting to be less and less true every day, because more and more sophisticated operators jumping in. But those are some of the key benefits of the asset class.

Seth: Cool. Could you expand a little bit on maybe comparing and contrasting mobile home parks, investing versus multifamily or single-family?

Ferd: Yeah. Single-family, I feel like there’s not, there’s just not the economies to scale. I mean, you got 300 units, you got 300 roofs, you got 300 toilets. Multi-Family is, you know, there’s more expenses and the tenants are not as sticky. You know, if you up the rent, the tenant move down the street. The tenant doesn’t pay the rent, they jump, they jump on the 30th of month and you don’t get your rent and you got to fix it up. On a mobile home park, If the tenant doesn’t pay the rent, you say, Hey, I’m going to take your house, this is your entire net worth. And you’ve nowhere else you can go. So how about you just pay the rent? So as a result, collection rates, especially during this part of the, the benefit right now in the mobile home park space is COVID. The COVID has shined a light on it that, it’s the best asset class from a collection standpoint. And also, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac are lending more and more mobile home parks, because of the stability. So, you know, like my collection rate is down compared to prior years. But not as much other are asset classes. So as a result, there’s more demand for MHP. So, my asset values are up, because of the cap rates are down. So, there’s little differences from a management perspective. If you only own the land, you don’t have to do park owned home repairs. You don’t have to do as much leasing, turnover. You don’t have to own the personal property. You need less of a maintenance staff. You just, you push the snow, and you mow the common areas. It’s very, very minimal one stabilize. And the other real benefit, I should’ve said this earlier, though. One of the key benefits of MHP, at least in the business model that I’ve been doing is I buy parks that are of low occupancy. So, say 20 out of 80, let’s say it’s worth a million dollars. An apartment complex, an 80-unit apartment complex, it’s probably like 65 or 70 or 78 units full. Mobile home park, it’s often that you’ll find 60 lots with no home on them. Well, you can go get your retailer’s license, get in touch with manufacturers. You can go buy the homes, bring them in and then rent them or sell them on site. And as a result, over time, you have turned your 20-unit apartment complex into an 80-unit apartment complex. So, you’ve increased your value considerably, but not just by that multiple, but you also have more stabilized asset. You have more economies of scale, so less expense ratio. And as result you can push the value, maybe 5 or 6 X, I don’t know any other asset class where you can pull that off.

Seth: Yeah. That’s incredible. When you were telling me about some of the returns you were getting on some of your parks, I was blown away.

Ferd: I have a lot more people on my investor list than on my deal flow list. But yeah, I mean, if you do an infill project like that, I mean, you could get an IRR, it’s triple digits, or even perhaps quadruple double digits, if you do it fast enough. And it’s heavy lifting, but I mean, yeah, that’s been the benefit of the industry. It’s been outperforming other asset classes. Stabilized stuff is going to be more similar to apartments, maybe a 100 to 300 basis points higher on an IRR, but not double, triple. If you buy a heavy value add or heavy infill, yeah, you could do heavy numbers on a rate of return. But not by just jacking the rent up, you know, it’s like, no, you’re doing it by just adding units. So that’s the name of the game for me. So, it worked out really well so far.

Seth: Are you currently syndicating deals? Or looking to syndicate deals?

Ferd: I have, yeah, I have three deals under contract. I’m probably going to syndicate one or two of them. And then the others, the last three deals just been dad and me. But with this major contract, I’m going to diversify some funds and brings people in and then I would close on one other one that would be a big project, I was the second bidder. But I think the first guy will drop out. If that comes up, I’ll do a syndication on that as well.

Seth: Nice. So, you know, folks that might be listening that are attorneys or doctors that are full time employees, and they don’t have a ton of time. I mean, what’s kind of some, some advice you’d give them into getting started in investing in a mobile home park or real estate in general?

Ferd: Well, I think in general, just figure out, are you going to be the limited partner or the general partner. If you still got a full-time job as a lawyer or as a doctor or something, it’s probably better to be a limited partner. And then you just need, the advice I would give is choose wisely, pick a partner who’s got like interests. You know, not just taking a bunch of fees and getting out of the deal. I’ve always done recourse loans. I think that makes my investors happy. Like obviously I’d love,  I would love non-recourse loan and I’m in the process of refinancing into a couple of those, but the time I buy it to tell my investors, tell my banker like, yeah, I’m in and I’m sign on the note. Well that lets them know, you know, I am pretty pregnant on the deal. I’m not going away. So that’s a key thing. Look at the experience, but I mean, none of us have experience on the first project. So that’s, you know, it’s kind of a catch 22, but from an LP perspective, just know who your partner is and then, you know, read your contracts, read your PPM, all that sort of stuff. And then if you’re going to go active, then I think just get educated first. You know, maybe get a position as a junior partner or like an intern first to learn the trade. If not, I say start small. I see a lot of guys right now in my space that are like buying 10 parks in their first year. And I’m just sitting here, like, you have no idea how hard it’s going to be to manage these. And the only way you’re getting 10 parks is because you’re overpaying, 9 to 10 of them and then when you have the operational problems, if your proforma doesn’t work, I see proformas all the time. I’m like I couldn’t pull that business plan off. This guy is apparently from across the country on his first project with half-way education. Hey, maybe he’s going to do it, but I’ll see this one on the courthouse steps in three years is kind of what I think.

Seth: Yeah, he might be able to pull it off, but chances are, he doesn’t know, he doesn’t know what he’s getting himself into. What’s one last golden nugget you have for our listeners. Again, keep in mind our listeners are attorneys or doctors or people that have busy jobs and they want to diversify out of the stock market and, you know, possibly into some alternative assets.

Ferd: Well, I mean, part of me wants to say diversifying, if you’re going to be an LP, I would diversify with different promoters and different asset classes. If you’re going to be the general partner, I would just, I would narrow down your scope and your niche to just become an expert in that field. Like I don’t, I don’t dabble in hotels. I don’t dabble in industrial. You know, I’ve done legal work on that kind of stuff, but as far as in the past, but as far as, I don’t, I have zero investments in hotels, industrial upselling out of my duplexes, I got a few duplexes left, but I would say just if you’re going to be the GP, you know, figure out what you want, what is your role is on the team and figure out what your niche asset classes, and then just become an expert in that and then read and shadow people and study like crazy. Then take action. You know, obviously you can’t make money or make excuses. So, at some point you just got to take action.

Seth: Yeah. For sure. And I think you and I are a little bit different because we have kind of the entrepreneurial bug, but a lot of attorneys are, you know, a little more conservative, you know, they’re kind of stuck in their ways and they need a little bit more of a nudge to kind of get over that hump and say, you know, there’s other ways to make money other than just investing in your 401k or, you know, just working your nine to five, which is kind of a pipe dream. You’re not going to work nine to five, you are going to be working a lot more hours than that.

Ferd: No, I think, I have a friend who’s is getting close to deleting his big firm to come work in my small MHP law firm. So he’d still be practicing law, but part of the motivation for him, I think is if he looks down the ivory tower of all these corner offices and all these big dogs, how many of them are happy versus, you know, like I’m fatter, I’m older, I’m smoking more, I’m drinking more. I’m on my third marriage. That was always crazy where I was like, all of our clients were wealthier than us. It’s like, what are they doing? They’re working half time, they’re at the beach half the time. It’s like, they clearly have a passive, well, maybe it’s an active, but they have a, you know, more of an entrepreneurial upside than just cranking. You only work 24 hours a day. And so, you know, how are you going to, don’t get paid by the hour, if you can.

Seth: Yeah. You nailed it, brother. I mean, that’s what I saw when I was working at big law firms was just, you know, these older guys were just slaving away still, and you’re like, what are you doing? I know you’re making so much money and you’ve made so much money in your career. It’s like, at some point you’ve got to call it and step away. And you know, I think you get caught up in that lifestyle and you’ve lived it for so long and you get really good at it. And you don’t know anything else.

Ferd: I think attorneys more than most people, the work becomes your identity. If you ever meet an attorney, if someone at a cocktail party or after church or something, Hi I’m Ferd, hi, I’m Bob. I’m an attorney that practices like, as opposed to like, hi, I’m Ferd, I’m a Catholic husband and father of three. I live in Kansas City. I like to read books, play with my kids and, you know, play sports. Oh, by the way, I’m a real estate attorney by trade. You know, it’s like, most attorneys have the, they start with the job and then it’s like, I get it, and it’s like, they put a lot of time and effort to it. It’s kind of a prestigious profession, but I feel like that could become a curse, becomes like the golden handcuffs where you’re at your desk sleeping away forever. And maybe you like it, that’s fine. But it’s like, you know, you’re going to wake up one day or maybe not. And then it’s too late to do something different.

Seth: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. I totally agree with all that, man. I mean, you just start identifying with being, you know, an attorney and even, you know, doctors and engineers and folks that just their job just becomes who they are and that’s it. And they don’t even know themselves outside of that. All right, man, let’s jump into the freedom four. So, in an alternative universe where you weren’t in real estate, what would you be doing?

Ferd: I know I like what I like what I’m doing. So, I mean, if I wasn’t in real estate, I don’t know. I have some interest in politics One day, I have some interest in just doing some ministry work and being kind of at home with my family, but right now I’m too high-strung to slow down. So right now, I’m just hustling in MHP space, hustling a little bit in the legal space and so far, so good.

Seth: Yeah. It’s tough for some people when they answer that question. Cause they’re loving what they’re doing.

Ferd: Yeah. I mean, this is, I mean, this is my ideal job. I mean, I’m not employable, you know, and I thought, you know, one of these, I thought at some point, one of these RIETs is going to call me and say, Hey, you want to be the regional manager of our, you know, this portfolio on MHP and I’m going to be like, no, big number to get me to do it. But no, I mean, a big number in short term to get me to do it. And I was like, nah, I really don’t want to, you know, so I am like, this is where I want to be, you know.

Seth: Yeah. Stay strong, man. When they come knocking, stay strong.

Ferd: My wife will veto that.

Seth: Gotcha. What’s the best thing you do to keep your mind and body healthy?

Ferd: Well, mine, I mean, I try to sit and think. I’ve got a, you know, thinking chair, you know, I sit and pray there in the morning or think there and just kind of reflect and step back or I’m going to sit in my hot tub and just relax. I like to read you know, I read every day. As far as healthy, I exercise pretty regularly. I’m not the healthiest eater by any means. So, I’m trying to get healthier. I just quit coffee three days ago. So, it’s kind of, I’m on a cleanse with my wife. So, no alcohol, no caffeine, no meat. So that’s going to be a short cleanse but anyways I think I need to be healthier. So that’s why she’s pushing me. I want to buy a hot rod and she told me no. And I said, what if I do this cleanse with you? She said, maybe.

Seth: How long is the cleanse?

Ferd: 21 days, so I’m already shopping, you know, I don’t think she’s going to let me, but I want to buy a car.

Seth: All right, man. Good luck with that. I guess it’s only a short amount of time.

Ferd: Yeah. I’m not sold that I’m going to like to become a vegan or anything like that, but she’s like, maybe you will, maybe I will.

Seth: Yeah. Will see.

Ferd: By the way I need floormats for Christmas. And she’s like, I’m not buying you floormats.

Seth: Nice, nice. Where were you at five years ago. And where do you see yourself in your business five years from now?

Ferd: Five years ago, I was at the law firm. Where I see myself five years from now. I mean, it’s going to depend on the conglomeration of the MHP space. I foresee, you know, I told people two or three years ago. I won’t be in this field five years from now because all the big guys are going to have gobbled everything up. Now that I’m doing legal work. I think I’ve extended my lifespan in the MHP world, perhaps indefinitely as long as I want to. So, I foresee five years from now being an advisor on MHP projects to big entities, but probably, probably not owning as many. Probably will have sold when the conglomeration effect happens. But who knows? It may just, I may just retire so to speak in five years and just passively invest in other people’s projects. So, I don’t have to work. I don’t see that ever happening personally, but I mean, I think it’d be viable. I mean, so we’ll see if I want to do it when that time comes.

Seth: Gotcha. Cool, man. Well, I know you’re mostly on the active side, but you know, some of those projects obviously spit off cash flow for you. So how is passive income made your life better?

Ferd: The passive income is, obviously it makes it better, whereas like there’s money coming in that you didn’t really feel don’t feel like it worked for it. Oh yeah, cool, I just got a cheque here. Yeah, I typically don’t do the LP side, so I mean, I haven’t taken a paycheck in years, you know, I just kind of funnel all the money right back into the deal. But now that I’m practicing law the last two months, there’s money coming in, but I’m just, I’m just reinvesting that to, you know, more marketing, more people looking at buying an office building for the team and that kind of stuff. So I’ve really been living off savings and then I do have some passive investments too that send me cheques, but I’m not really the, I’m not the passive personality, when I sell all my  stuff, get it all fixed, you know, do some refinances or sell them. Then I’ll probably sit back and just enjoy the ride if you will. But right now, I’m enjoying the journey on the active side.

Seth: There you go. All right, man, I really appreciate you coming on today. Where can our listeners learn more about you and get ahold of you?

Ferd: My website is www.themhplawyer.com. You can find me on there. I’m on LinkedIn. I’m on other social media stuff as well, but really that website’s great for my podcast, the mobile home park lawyer podcast, a lot of people find me through there and then I’ll be doing other speaking engagements and things like that. Conferences coming up, but at the website will have all that stuff on there. So that’s the best place.

Seth: Alright brother. Really appreciate it. Thanks, Ferd.

Ferd: All right. Thanks Seth.

Seth: All right. That was incredible. Ferd is the authority in mobile home park law and investing. I love how Ferd was able to create freedom through investing in alternative assets, namely mobile home parks, something a little outside of the box that we may not think of right off the bat. If you’d like to learn more about passive investing, go to www.passiveincomeattorney.com and get our free passive investing guide in alternative assets. See you next time. Enjoy the journey.