This episode is brought to you by Presario Ventures, a private equity real estate firm based in the booming Austin, Texas, market. To learn how to invest in the future of Texas with Presario Ventures, visit info.presarioventures.com/bestever.
Derek Vickers shares his journey from manual labor jobs to dominating the mobile home park space. Join us as Derek dives deep into his experiences, shedding light on the pitfalls to avoid, the importance of systems, and the transformative power of hiring right in the commercial real estate realm.
Key Takeaways:
- The Pitfalls of Rapid Growth: Derek emphasizes the dangers of growing too fast in commercial real estate. Without the right systems in place, it's easy to lose money and find oneself overwhelmed. Preparing and scaling responsibly is paramount to sustainable success.
- The Power of Systems and Processes: Derek's experience highlights the importance of establishing robust systems early on. From noting step-by-step processes to ensuring checks and balances for managerial roles, these systems can save investors from significant losses.
- Overcoming Limiting Beliefs in Hiring: Hiring the right team can make or break your real estate business. Derek's initial hesitations about bringing in help, rooted in limiting beliefs, later transformed into an understanding of the invaluable role a supportive team plays. Especially when scaling, the right hires can be game-changers.
Derek Vickers | Real Estate Background
- CEO of Vicktory Investments and Owner of Park Investing Pros
- Portfolio:
- 1,926 mobile home park pads
- Based in: Orlando, FL
- Say hi to him at:
- Best Ever Book: Zeckendorf by William Zeckendorf
- Greatest Lesson: Don’t grow too quickly. Establish systems and processes along the way, so you can handle the growth when you do decide to scale.
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Transcript
Ash Patel:
Hello, Best Ever listeners. Welcome to the Best Real Estate Investing Advice Ever Show. I'm Ash Patel and I'm with today's guest, Derek Vickers. Derek is joining us from Orlando, Florida. He is the CEO of Vicktory Investments and owns Park Investing Pros. Derek's portfolio consists of over 1,900 mobile homepads. Derek, thank you for joining us and how are you today?
Derek Vickers:
I'm doing fantastic, Ash. I appreciate you having me. Looking forward to it.
Ash Patel:
It's our pleasure. Derek, before we get started, can you give the Best Ever listeners a little bit more about your background and what you're focused on now?
Derek Vickers:
So my background actually started in insurance. So that's really where my entrepreneurial journey started. I was selling insurance. I moved to Florida with a $300 tax return in my pocket and got the wonderful idea to start selling insurance, commission sales door to door with not having any money. So just got my face kicked in and my teeth kicked in on a daily basis. Ended up doing that for almost 10 years. And I actually built that business up to where I had over a hundred salespeople under me. So I went through the gauntlet for the first three, four years, getting killed every day, basically coming home with battle scars. I think I probably still have some scars from the evil people that I knocked on their door and they told me to get the heck out. So after I built up my team, we were doing really well. We were crushing it in all the categories that the company I was with measured. And then COVID happened in March, 2020. We all remember that and everything shut down and our revenue on a monthly basis just got blown up. So I'd always wanted to get started investing in real estate. And I had started actually practicing underwriting multifamily deals in 2015, 2016. So I would look on Loopnet or any site where I could find them and just learning how to do back of the napkin math on deals. So in 2020, when COVID happened, I'm like, okay, I got to get the fuel estate thing going. And then I started underwriting multifamily deals again. I wanted to get scale. So I was like, man, a hundred unit apartment deal is 20 million bucks plus in Orlando, like Tampa. I couldn't make sense of that at the time. So I had a buddy that was investing in mobile home parks and I checked out the asset class. I love the fundamentals of the asset class and I fell in love with it. And so I started doing what I do best. cold calling owners of mobile home parks. And then September of 2020, it was kind of a funny story, how I fell into the first deal and we can get into that. But that's the background of how I actually got into the space of mobile home park investment. We went to buy 17 parks in 2021. We bought into a portfolio and beginning of 2022, along with a couple other deals that took us to the size and the scale that we're at today. So that's the short story of it. And you can pick that apart, Ash, and ask any other questions that you would like. But there you go.
Ash Patel:
Derek, I've got a lot of questions. Do you still have the insurance business? Did you sell that? Do you run it as a side hustle?
Derek Vickers:
No, not now. And basically with that particular company, you're a 1099, you're a quasi entrepreneur. So when I had all the salespeople, I had all the expenses of the office. I had all the headaches. But I didn't have equity in that business. I have renewals and stuff. I still get paid from the insurance business. But I couldn't sell the book of business, which really kind of ticked me off a little bit. So that was one of the reasons why I decided to exit that business.
Ash Patel:
Okay, so you were cold calling mobile home park owners, but you've never owned a mobile home park. How did you establish credibility?
Derek Vickers:
Well, it wasn't easy. And one of the ways that I figured out how to do this is that I actually, when I found my list of mobile home parks in my area, I actually started driving the parks and just feeling them out, trying to learn the asset class. So what I called, if you were a park owner, Ash, and I found out you owned 50 space mobile home park. It's six three, two Northwest Avenue. I'd call you and be like, Hey, I just drove your park. I saw this, and that. So I'd pick out specific things. And I wasn't just some regular cold call. And I knew how to develop rapport on the phone. I just knew how to talk to people. I don't know. Maybe it's the Southern accent or I don't know what it is, but these guys would just open up to me and tell me their freaking life story. You'd be surprised that some of the things that these guys would tell me, but that's really how I did it. But again, it wasn't easy.
Ash Patel:
That's great advice because you're competing with virtual assistance. You're competing with people that own a lot more. in terms of number of pads than you do, they're calling with a lot of credibility. So if I got a phone call saying, hey man, I just drove by your strip mall, I would be very receptive to that conversation. So good for you. I love that tactic. The first deal that you closed on, let's dive into that.
Derek Vickers:
Yeah, actually a friend of mine had actually introduced me to a guy that's actually a partner of mine right now. He was a capital partner with him, had bought some mobile home parks with him. in the Carolinas. So he introduced him to me and I started throwing in deals. He actually lives 10 minutes down the street from me and actually started, Hey, look, I'm finding this deal. He knew about the business. I was like, Hey, I'm underwriting this and an eight cap or whatever it was. And he'd be like, okay, well, Hey, you should look at this. Your R and M expenses are a little low. You should up them here. So we became close during that period. And I was finding some pretty good stuff. It was in September. I got a call from him one day and him and I had been going back and forth talking for a few months now. And he's like, I have a deal. My operating partner backed out because it was a nasty deal. We're closing in seven days. Do you want it? I'm like, I'll call you back tomorrow. So I got off the phone and I'm like, what the heck am I thinking? I call him back. Yes, I'm in. So I actually got into that deal seven days before closing. There was no due diligence done and we can get into the, all the nasty disasters and dead bodies we found in that park. And so I got into that deal and my agreement was that I wasn't going to put any money into the deal and I was going to get 20 to 25% of the actual deal for doing the operations. And I wanted to do that anyways, because I wanted to learn the business. I wanted to learn how to manage a property because I had never done that before. And the great thing about this property was actually about 15 minutes for my insurance offer.
Ash Patel:
So this should have been a no brainer, no money in and a fair amount of equity for managing the property. What was the purchase price?
Derek Vickers:
$425,000. Now I'll tell you, Ash, the only reason there was some hesitation, because if you drove to this property, you'd be like, Oh my God, I'm not even buying this. So To give the listeners an example here, this park actually used to be the place that the health department in Florida would actually take their new employees as an example of what not to do. So it was nasty.
Ash Patel:
And when you say nasty, just a lot of trash everywhere, unkept homes, drugs. Yeah, unkept homes, drugs. Half the park was vacant units filled with homeless people, drugs, criminals were living in the park. It was nasty.
Ash Patel:
Damn, I'd pay you 25% to manage that too. All right. So what was step one once you get in there?
Derek Vickers:
So step one was just establish ourselves as owners that were going to be present because the last owner was nonexistent, not present. There was this one car that would drive through every day. It was his drug dealing spot. He would meet all of his customers there in our park because he knew there was no one ever there. The cops were never there. And so we had to establish presence there. And then we had to start getting the non-payers out because most of the people that were there weren't even paying rent. And the thing about this, yes, it was 2020 and COVID, but half of these people weren't even paying months before COVID started. So it was just a mess. These people were having parties in their house at night. I could go on and on. So that was step one.
Ash Patel:
How do you get them to pay rent all of a sudden?
Derek Vickers:
Well, you don't you get rid of them because if they haven't paid rent in eight months, they're not going to pay you rent anyways. And I'm sorry, unfortunately, real estate investing is not a charity business.
Ash Patel:
Yeah, Derek, $425,000. I'm assuming this property is unloanable. Was it a cash purchase?
Derek Vickers:
It was a cash purchase. Yes.
Ash Patel:
How far are you guys from being able to have this sell ready?
Derek Vickers:
We refinanced it eight months later, reappraised for 1.7 million.
Ash Patel:
Wow. That's incredible.
Derek Vickers:
Yeah. We crushed it on that deal.
Ash Patel:
What all did you do to gain that value?
Derek Vickers:
There was 22 boxes, which we would call a mobile home. There was 22 boxes on the dirt. 10 of them were occupied and all of the homes were owned by us. There was eight double wides and then the other 14 were single wides. So after we switched over the tenants, we actually sold the vacant mobile homes. They were in terrible shape for next to nothing, like 500 bucks, a thousand bucks to people as handyman specials. So the object was to get buyer to come in and fix up the home. And we wouldn't charge them lot rent for three or four months while they were doing that. And we also required them to put new vinyl siding and skirting on the mobile homes. And after they completed that. We actually brought additional capital into the deal that where we would reimburse them for the material costs of the siding and skirting after they were done. So a, we were able to bring in new great people that needed affordable housing. They passed a background check. These are good families. One, and we were able to bring them in at market lot rent. So the single wides were in there at four 95 and then the double wides were in there at six 45. And that's what we did. So we had a fully occupied Payne park and this was in a great market too, over in Brevard County in Florida. I don't know if you're familiar with that, but a great market and we were fully occupied.
Ash Patel:
Doesn't Brevard County have their jail on the water?
Derek Vickers:
Maybe. I'm not sure exactly.
Ash Patel:
We're on some riverboat tour and we saw the jail from a beautiful yacht. Anyway, so 22 homes, 10 were occupied. How many total lots?
Derek Vickers:
So there's 30 total lots there, but there was eight vacant pads.
Ash Patel:
Okay, and did you bring new homes for those?
Derek Vickers:
Yeah, because we had to tear one home down, so I brought in one new home in that park, but we haven't done the rest of it yet.
Ash Patel:
You hear all the myths. They're not building any more mobile home parks. They actually are. They're not building any new mobile homes. They actually are. How hard is it to find a home to bring into your pad?
Derek Vickers:
Well, it's actually relatively easy. You can get a new home today. It's just, do you want to pay 55 grand for the home plus moving costs? And then you have to sell that home. So it's a lot of out of pocket capital. There's programs that you can use where people can get financing for these things. But again, you have to be in a better market for people to be able to afford a five or $600 payment above the lot rent. Used homes are a little bit harder to find. But even now in Florida to get a good use tone, you're 20 to 30 grand in your five to 10 to move it depending on where it's coming from. So they're easy to get. It's just, you have the capital to actually do it. If that makes sense.
Ash Patel:
And that's the only solution. We've got to pay to bring them in. What did you do to reestablish the reputation of this park?
Derek Vickers:
Well, that was difficult because this park was actually a known place where criminals could go after they got out of whatever they were doing. So basically, I put a new sign out front, Sunshine Mobile Home Park. You can look it up. You can go by there and drive it if you want to. I put it's a white vinyl fence, but it's not the flat vinyl. It's actually like you would see in the front of a farm or something. I can't think of the name like the two panel fence. And now these people in this park have taken such pride of ownership that they've got plants planted out in front of their house. Some of the tenants actually have cobblestone driveways that they've made pulling up to their mobile home. It's 1633 Lake Drive, if you want to check it out. But I drive through this park now, it's like, oh my gosh, and we put up solar lights. So we have these solar lights that give the park sort of a futuristic type look. And just over time, people. start to drive by there and like, okay, this place isn't a dump anymore. It doesn't happen overnight. It just progressively happens over time. And it obviously is not what it was before.
Ash Patel:
Derek, you had a $1.7 million appraisal. Why not sell it versus doing a cash out refi?
Derek Vickers:
Well, because we could pull our money out and some, and then we could use that capital to go buy more because when that appraised, what is that per pad? That's. per unit now that's 70, 70 units, probably worth more than that. But we actually look, hold on, why not sell it now? Because I like keeping the cash flow and just sitting on it because it just sits there. Now it's stabilized. It literally just sits there.
Ash Patel:
And I'm playing devil's advocate here, but you are a value add investor. So you've essentially maximized the value of this property. If you take all of that cash, not just it. I'm assuming 70, 80% on your cash out refi. Yeah. Okay. So if you take all 100% out on a sale, can't you exponentially grow that money like you did on this park?
Derek Vickers:
Well, I guess we could have at that point in time in 2021. Now we'd have to find something to buy that is worthwhile to make that worth it because the market's a little odd now, but I guess in 2021 we could have done that. We could have just cashed everything out, 1031'd it, or just bought other properties and accelerated the depreciation to hammer the tax bill. Yeah, we could have done that, but we didn't because our goal was to build up a big portfolio and then put those together and then either sell that or refinance that again, which we ended up doing in half of it.
Ash Patel:
Derek, you mentioned the market's a lot more difficult. You've probably inspired a lot of people with your story. and they want to follow in your footsteps. We're in Q3 of 2023, heading into Q4. What's going on with the mobile home market?
Derek Vickers:
Well, the problem is, is that every seller in America with a park over 50 units got called by every broker in America in the last two years, and they were told that their property is worth 150% of its value. And you could probably make sense of that deal. Back then you could have gotten a four, four and a quarter rate on the deal and probably made sense of it in one way, shape or form. And mom and pop sellers went to the Caymans in their minds. They went ahead and spent all the money and they never ended up selling actually. So now there's just a discrepancy between what we can pay and what we think it's worth versus mom and pop who still think. It's 2020 and 2021 and they want to sell these things at a four cap and numbers don't work anymore. So if you're really over 40 units, 40 and 50 units, and even down some in like some places in Florida, but that's where some of the issue has came in today. There's still just the discrepancy and sellers haven't came back down to reality yet.
Ash Patel:
Derek, you're a hustler. What are you doing to find deals? When you get these people on the phone. I know you could figure this out. What are you doing to try to get deals?
Derek Vickers:
We're pushing for seller financing. If they're like, hey, we want a big number, we're really trying to get creative on the financing aspect of it in any way, shape or form. So that's really it. And we're just looking for people that are in distress situations and they have to sell. The guy that doesn't have to sell, he's going to be like, yeah, my number is a four cap and that's what it is. And I don't have to sell now. So it's really the same thing as we were doing before. We're looking just for more distressed sellers. Back in 2020 and 2021 and even beginning of 22, you could offer a higher price. So the guy was like, yeah, dude, I might as well sell because I never thought I could get that for the property. So there was some of that and there were still distressed sellers, but in our coaching program, I mean, we've got people flying around with deals now and they're distressed sellers in one way, shape or form, or they wanna do their creative financing.
Ash Patel:
Here's a crazy idea. What if you approach somebody who owns a mobile home park and essentially do a JV where you buy 50% of it and you split the upside?
Derek Vickers:
That's definitely a possibility. The only rebut I would have to that is that sometimes The mom and pop has been operating the property one way for the last 30 years. And for the property to become more profitable and make sense, you have to do a one 80 almost and having them still involved, they're not going to like that. And it would be a difficult partnership if they weren't on the same page. So if you've got a partner, if you could get on the same page, that could actually work for sure.
Ash Patel:
Is there a particular software that you use to manage these?
Derek Vickers:
Yes. Rent manager.
Ash Patel:
Okay. What are the risks of buying mobile home parks now?
Derek Vickers:
The risks. Well, I think one of the biggest risks, and I talk about this in my due diligence checklist thing that we have in our program, we have a park that was developed in 1948. Okay. They were developed in the late forties, fifties, sixties and seventies. The infrastructure was installed, permitted and built then. So here we are in 2023. You're 30, 40, 50 years out. on the lifespan of these things. Septics are breaking, people are having to dig new wells, even city water and city sewer parks. The pipes are old and they're having to be replaced. And so the biggest risk is infrastructure and not understanding that when you're going into the deals and understanding that there's probably gonna be some capex regarding the infrastructure and it could be huge. So that's, I would say one. And then another risk is just not buying one and waiting for a home run deal like we had, I see people waiting for that deal, but I think it was right place, right time thing for us, but buying a base hit deal now is good because think about the learning experience that you're gonna get from that. You're gonna get some wealth building over time, but you're gonna learn how to operate a park. You're gonna understand the nuances of it. And that is just as valuable. Now you don't wanna buy a deal where you lose money. Of course, but that's what I would say the two biggest risks are now.
Ash Patel:
Derek, we only spoke about the first 30 pads in 2021. You purchased 17 parks. How did you do that? That's more than one a month.
Derek Vickers:
A couple of different ways that we did that. So when I was cold calling, I was getting a lot of momentum. I was finding sellers. So we weren't picking off one park at a time. We did sets of acquisitions. And so when we closed on that next set at the beginning of February, it was actually four parks. So we had one seller that had three parks and then just one off from another seller. So it was four parks. We never closed just one park. It was always a group of them because we had sellers that had multiple assets that we could purchase.
Ash Patel:
Where did all the capital come from? Was it primarily seller financing?
Derek Vickers:
No, it was me and my partners, our own capital and friends and family capital.
Ash Patel:
How prevalent is seller financing today versus what it was two, three years ago?
Derek Vickers:
Well, two, three years ago, if you even asked for seller financing, they'd tell you to screw off because Ash was over here with cash in hand, ready to close in 45 days. People did it then, but if you even discuss seller financing in 2021, they'd be like, no, dude, I got a guy back here. It's going to pay more close quick. cash, but it's definitely more important today. I have talked more seller financing in the last year than I did in the first two years, tenfold.
Ash Patel:
Are you raising capital today?
Derek Vickers:
Yeah, I'm actively talking to people. I'm networking with new investors and I'm still working the people that we have. Just getting people warmed up and ready when we've got more deals coming across the line, because we're underwriting stuff every single day and we've got some stuff that's close to hitting here relatively soon. So yes.
Ash Patel:
Derek, your investors, are they a joint venture partner or is it a syndication?
Derek Vickers:
It's a syndication.
Ash Patel:
Okay. How has your cold calling strategy changed today from where it was before? Because now, seller financing is an option.
Derek Vickers:
Well, the strategy changed and it was me just doing it before. And now I have a team of people doing that, but our strategy is going in. We really differentiate ourselves and I coach our team to do like I did. Exactly. It's to really build rapport, understand the property a little bit before you call and just saying, Hey, do you want to sell? Okay. Bye. We don't do that. We try to learn a little bit about the property and if they do want to sell, we really try to find their motivation. I get deals from brokers and they're like, hey, he wants to sell our finance. He wants to do this. And I'm like, well, what's his motivation? Why does he want that? Does he want the cash? Does he want the cash flows? You want to cash out really getting behind their motive behind selling is super, super important because once you dig in and actually get that motive behind them selling, you can actually structure a deal that wins for them. And then it's a win for you as well, but not until you really get into that. Why and dig into that and learn why they actually want to sell. And one other thing on that is just the relationship building. It's not Wolf of Wall Street, one call close. It's not it's rapport building and building a relationship over time because they're getting called by brokers and you want them when they do decide to sell that they call you.
Ash Patel:
If somebody on your team is struggling to build rapport on these cold calls, what would your advice to them be?
Derek Vickers:
Usually the cause for that is them having a lack of understanding on the business a little bit and understanding where these guys are coming from. So I revert them back to some of the training videos that I have and learning and understanding the lingo and how to talk about the business in general. And then just getting more data maybe on the market. that they're calling in particular or that particular park. And then I'll jump on a call and do a demonstration of how we build rapport. Because after you've owned these things, it's so easy to build rapport with these sellers because you know all the crazy stuff that happens. And so you can bring that up and they're like, oh my God, yeah, that's happened to me before too. And then you're on the phone with them for an hour after that.
Ash Patel:
Yeah, here's a great tip. If you are, let's say calling Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Read the local paper and find a couple of recent headlines. Maybe they built a new bridge or this hotel went out of business, whatever. But if you could find something in their backyard to get them talking, school board, shut down busing, whatever, that's a great way to get people talking as well. I like that. Yeah. Something local to them that it's not, hey, did you hear we just lost an F-35 fighter? No. Talk about something that happening in their town.
Derek Vickers:
Yeah, I love that.
Ash Patel:
Good. What's been the hardest lesson you've learned, Derek? And I'm not talking about I should have gotten bigger, faster. I'm talking about a gut wrenching lesson that you've learned in this journey of yours.
Derek Vickers:
There's a couple that really stand out and I think it's really just growing too fast. And I hate to even say that, but when you grow too fast and buy value, add properties fast, you don't have the organization in place to do it. It can get messy. it can get pretty nasty and you can lose money in places that you weren't thinking because you're just flying by the seat of your pants. So if I was a new park owner and I was buying my first park in planning to scale, I would actually get the systems and processes in place. If you change something, write a step by step process out and how to do that so you can actually bring someone in so you can scale that faster. Don't wait till you get to a thousand lots and the world's on fire and everything breaks like I did and try to just bootstrap your way there because it's not going to work. It's going to break. Things are going to happen. You're going to lose money and you may not even be able to survive that as crazy as that sounds because you got to have those systems in place to do that and systems in place to not give your managers access to money. Because if you're hiring these managers on these parks, they can easily steal from you. Just stuff like that. I would totally say you got to put those processes in place so you can protect your investment from day one.
Ash Patel:
That is great advice. A lot of people get inundated trying to dig their way out of not having systems. So piggybacking on Derek's advice, Best Ever listeners, if you are starting out with your first property act as if you're going to get 10 more in the next year. And can you still do what you're doing with whatever systems you have in place or do you need to step it up? So invest in the proper software, proper systems, and perhaps hiring an assistant. Who was your first hire?
Derek Vickers:
Actually, I had my mom helping me with some things and my wife was helping me with a few things, but my first actual hire was an assistant and she still works for us today. And she was basically helping me get all these back end things in order. After it was too late, we had 950 lots or something in place. And we had some other managers that worked on site, but we didn't have really that person to back me up for me to be able to manage what was going on in the property and also set the systems up in the background. So I'm telling you guys, I cannot stress that enough. If you got to pay someone 50 grand, do it, especially if you're planning on scaling.
Ash Patel:
Again, great advice. Derek, what were your hesitations in hiring an assistant and why didn't you do it earlier?
Derek Vickers:
Well, I've had the same thing every time I've had to hire my first assistant, you're like, oh my God, I don't have the money, how am I gonna pay for it? And you're like, well, I don't know if they're gonna work or not, and then every time you hire them, it's a little uncomfortable at first, but then it ends up working out. So it was just. A limiting belief in me not being able to create the extra income and me not thinking I could find enough work for them to do. So it was just a dumb consideration that I had and it's happened to me every single time. And even when we make a new hire today, I'm like, do we need that person? So just do it. If you're thinking, okay, I need to hire someone than you probably do. But that was what kept me from doing it was just, I don't want to do this.
Ash Patel:
I had the exact same thoughts. And I appreciate you really digging down deep and sharing that because I was inundated. And my first hire, I thought, Oh no, what if I hire them and either they look at my environment, it's too chaotic and they can't work in it, or they fix and streamline everything and then I have no work for them. And then of course the 50 grand or so that you're paying them is also like, look, I don't need that much help. It's all just limiting beliefs. And then a question for you, is it not like a drug? Once you're able to offload tasks and they get done and then you hire another person.
Derek Vickers:
Yeah, 100% and then especially after you learn that lesson, if you don't take the advice and you learn that lesson of not getting those systems and actually writing down SOPs for every little thing in your business, once you start doing that, it's addictive. You're like, oh, I did this today. Okay, I'm going to write that up, put it in the file. And I'm going to hand that to my assistant and then that's going to be filed away for the next person. I hired a new assistant because we had to move the other person up and now I have her writing more processes out on things that we can hand off to the next person. So yes, it is like a drug.
Ash Patel:
Yeah. And this is golden advice, Best Ever listeners that Derek's sharing, have those standard operating procedures for every little thing that you do or that they do so that you can offload tasks. If something happens to your assistant, if they get promoted, if they leave, if they move away, you've got everything where somebody can hit the ground running, or even you can pick back up because there's things my assistant does that I haven't done in a long time. And damn, if I had to take it back, I gotta read some instructions. So Derek, this has been incredible advice. Are you ready for the Best Ever lightning round?
Derek Vickers:
Absolutely, let's do it.
Ash Patel:
All right, brother, what's the best ever book you recently read?
Derek Vickers:
Best ever book I recently read. It was actually a book called Zeckendorf. It's about William Zeckendorf. He was a famous real estate developer in New York back in the 20s and the Great Depression. It's a really interesting book because the dude went through a lot of ups and downs and through some market cycles like we're going through now. So it was a really fascinating read.
Ash Patel:
Awesome, Derek, what's the best ever way you like to give back?
Derek Vickers:
I've always just loved to give back to other entrepreneurs and people that are actually putting in effort to do things themselves. I love the guy who comes to me and is like, hey, I need advice on this. And then they'll come back to me a week later and hey, I did what you did. This is what happened. They actually take the advice because some people ask for advice and they don't even do it. So I love helping those kind of people. Look, my family, they come from a small town in Virginia. They're still blue collar workers. None of my family's rich by any means. So helping people come out of that think that they can't do that and seeing them succeed, I love that. I really thoroughly enjoy that. And I love giving back and teaching people about this real estate game that they don't teach you about in school. And that if I would have listened to me when I was working my nine to five jobs and manual labor job. I would have never figured out what a cash out refi is. It almost sounds like it's a spiritual thing. Like really? Like you can do that. And I don't have to pay taxes on it. Yeah, I know. It's like, really? It's funny for years, we'd go to our accountant and ask, what can we do to reduce our tax burden? And he would just grumble. And if you make it, you got to pay it. It's like, come on, man. Really? Like there's gotta be a better way.
Ash Patel:
Derek, again, thank you for your time today. You've got a podcast, you've got a coaching program. If you would give the Best Ever listeners some information on that and how they can reach out to you.
Derek Vickers:
You can find me, Derek Vickers on every social media platform, Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok, all of them, LinkedIn, whatever one you want to reach out to me on. We've also got the MHP show podcast. You can find that on iTunes and Spotify. We're also on YouTube. I interview other operators in the mobile home park space. We talk about anything and everything mobile home parks. And we also have the park investing pro coaching program. I also have a free ebook. Now, if you go to free.park investing pro.com, it's an ebook on how I structured my first deals and how I actually found the money for those deals. And a little secret, if you do get the ebook, you can actually scroll down and get access to my webinar where I talked about the basics of mobile home park investing and how to underwrite a deal and how to tell if a deal is good or not. So we've got all kinds of stuff going on. So we'd love to hear from you again.
Ash Patel:
Derek, congrats on your success. You pivoted from being an insurance business, COVID hit, and you found mobile home parks. You've done an incredible job scaling that. And thank you for sharing a lot of that advice with us today.
Derek Vickers:
For sure. Thanks, Ash.
Ash Patel:
Best Ever listeners, thank you for joining us. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a five star review. Share this podcast with someone you think can benefit from it. Also follow, subscribe and have a best ever day. Hi, best ever listeners, Joe Ferris here again. One last thing before you go, would you like to receive a short weekly email with proven tips from experienced investors, free tools and resources and a roundup of the week's most relevant news and best ever content? Well, if so, Join the community of nearly 15,000 commercial real estate passive and active investors who receive the Best Ever newsletter. Just go to bestevercre.com forward slash access and you'll get the very next one. I hope you enjoyed this episode and as always, thank you for listening and have a best ever day.
