RV Resorts Investing - With Don Spafford

Don is with Beyonder Holdings. His company buys and operates RV campgrounds, resorts, and marinas in an effort to provide their investors with double digit returns. In this episode, we'll learn how it all works from funding to sourcing, how to find the deals, what are the returns to the investors and what are the tax benefits to the limited partners or passive investors.

Connect with Don at:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/don-spafford-5887867/
don@beyondercamp.com
www.beyondercamp.com

Connect with Enrique at:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/enrique-hernandez-b298a4159
enrique@foxtrot-capital.com
https://foxtrot-capital.com/

Transcript

Enrique 0:00

Hello and welcome to the Property and Wealth Podcast. I am your host Enrique Hernandez. This podcast is brought to you by Foxtrot Capital, a real estate investment firm with a focus on the acquisition and management of value-add multifamily properties. Our guest today is Don Spafford. Don is with Beyonder Holdings. His company buys and operates RV campgrounds, resorts, and marinas to provide their investors with double digit returns. Today, we'll learn how it all works from funding to sourcing, how to find the deals, what are the returns to the investors and what are the tax benefits to the limited partners or passive investors? Always remember that the views and opinions expressed in this podcast are for informational purposes only, and should not be construed as an offer to buy or sell any securities or to make any investment decisions. Always consult with your financial advisor. With all said, let's jump right in. Don, how are you? How's your day going?

Don Spafford 0:56

Going great. Yeah. Thanks. Thanks for having me on here.

Enrique 0:58

Thank you for being with us today and for the listeners, that have not had the pleasure of meeting you yet Can you give us a little bit about your background? How did how did Beyonder Holdings come about?

Don Spafford 1:11

a little bit about me. Currently I live in Idaho Falls, Idaho and for most people You've probably never heard of that. It's not Boise. We're on the opposite side of state. So eastern idaho Not too far from yellowstone park we moved here in Idaho in 2015 grew up most of my life around Omaha, Nebraska. That's kind of where I, went to high school, went to college, graduated there right next to Warren Buffett's house. So kind of grew up around him and following, you know, everything about investing. So I naturally pursued a career in investing and in in stocks, of course graduated with four majors in finance, banking, investment science, portfolio management, and accounting. the intent was to pursue that career and become a financial advisor or at least a portfolio manager or something involved with you know, managing money and in, in stocks, of course. The fortunate thing is as I was. You know, raising my family at the same time, I was going to school part time. So by the time I finally finished it was the spring of 2008. And as most people that are, you know, probably at least over I guess is that around that time is, is when the, the economy just kind of collapsed. It was like the worst time to have a degree in finance and try to find a job where most of them were being laid off or going out of business. So so lo and behold, I just decided at that time, I at least had a job working in that industry. So I just stayed there or at least had some job security. And, you know, I just got through it, I guess, but, but that, that experience made me realize that going into that field, becoming a financial planner or whatever, working with people's money, I was like, you know, I have zero control over what happens as much as I can try to help direct people into what I believe are good investments, something like that could happen. Totally when you wipe out people's you know, full of retirement or, or whatever, and and you know, blame me for that and like, well, you know, totally out of my control, you know? So, so I, I've kind of felt like I didn't want to really do that anymore. I wasn't sure what to do actually. So. For a while, that's actually when I went back and got the accounting degree on top of that and say, well, all the jobs that were available, anything related to finance for all accountants, like, well, maybe just go back and become a CPA instead. So I, I kind of started with down that path, but this whole time, of course, during the crash and everything As most people would have saw all these housing prices came down like crazy and I was like, man, this would be an amazing opportunity to buy, you know, properties right now and hang on to them for later when they do recover. But I knew zero about real estate investing. I didn't have any money to go and buy properties. But around that time, you know, 2011, 2012, somewhere there, my wife became a realtor. And so some of her very first clients were investors buying properties in cash. Essentially doing the, the, what's now known as the BRRR strategy where they buy it you know, rehab it, get it rented out and refinance to get their money back. And for me, that was just like mind blowing. I was like, wow, you could, you could do that. How's that possible? You know? So I was wanting to learn, but again, I didn't have resources to go and buy a property in cash or anything, and I didn't know anybody that could do a private lending or anything like that. So I just started out to at least learn. So I started reading some books and by the time we were ready to at least give it a try and start investing in something is when we decided we needed to move actually from Omaha to Idaho. So I put all that on hold and figured I'd wait, because I did not want to have any long distance properties or, or, you know, and whatnot. So so yeah, so I just waited on that, moved here to Idaho in 2015. And then Took about a year or so to get settled in and kind of got back into it and started learning more and went to a a I guess we would refer to as a guru type of seminar that came through town trying to sell their so their programs and things, you know, so that got me more I guess excited but same time but maybe I'm depressed because you know for those programs were You know, tens of thousands of dollars, which I didn't have to do either and wasn't going to put on a credit card to take that kind of risk to put myself that much debt. So I was like, well, at least the, you know, at least I'll, I'll keep trying to learn and get motivated. And, you know, the good thing from that event that I went to those that I met a guy who mentioned bigger pockets, which I had never heard of before that point. You know, came home and said, what's this BiggerPockets? You know? So I got on there and started you know, listening to some of their webinars and podcasts and played with their calculator and was like, wow, this is pretty cool. So so I decided to, to sign up for their program membership at that point. so that was like near the end of 2000 16 I guess would've been. And basically, so at that point you know, again, is we, we moved from Omaha to, to Idaho. I, I was able to work from home for that same company as with that's allowed me to work remotely. So I was working from home this whole time. And so as I then discovered bigger pockets, I started listening to the podcast during the day as I'd be working. So prior to that, I'd usually just listen to music or something. So now I'm like, Hey, I'm gonna play this podcast so I can at least learn while I'm working and doing my job. Exactly. It's something more productive to do than just listen to music, right? So so I was listening to podcasts all day long as I was, you know, do my job. And then that kind of helped build up that confidence and motivation to, to make something happen. And I started searching for properties and you know, now analyzing properties, usually, you know, probably about a hundred properties a week. I was just going through and running the numbers and And eventually that's why I found the first property we bought was a fourplex I found it in March of 2017, closed in June and so that was our first property, you know, fourplex, I wanted to go multifamily, I knew I needed more doors but I,, I didn't have the resources to buy a commercial property, you know, again, didn't know anybody, anything, doing that anyway. But what worked to my advantage for the four plex is that it can still be bought in a residential loan. And in my area, there are, there's some lenders will use that can do a 10 percent down payment on a investment property. So usually for even a fourplex, you know, most lenders are going to require 25 percent down. So at 10 percent made that first of all, achievable. And on top of that I learned again through, through the bigger pockets forums that Someone could actually also borrow from their 401K. So I still didn't have, the amount in savings needed for a 10% down payment, but I realized I had access to that money in my 401K. So I took a loan for my 401K for most of that amount and purchased that fourplex in 2017. And that's kinda really what. Got everything started, got the bowl ball rolling, I should say. And, I, I still own that property now, six years later, and I've been able to refinance it, and pull out you know, six figures on that so much more than I put down to begin with to keep that money, you know, reinvesting and growing and doing more while it's still cash flowing just as well as it did before I refinanced it. So yeah, so, so that's kind of what, what everything got started. And then you, you asked, I guess, how did I get to Beyonder? So skipping ahead a few years as, as I got into different things and just, you know, opportunities came up, but I started networking and learning more. I got to the point where I was ready to get into commercial stuff. I wanted to get into these big multifamily properties. This was you know, in early 2021. The problem was that As I was researching and doing my analysis, running some numbers I was not finding anything that would hit the kinds of targets I was looking for, for cashflow. Cashflow was always my number one priority. yeah, you can, you can double or triple your money on, on a flip or a rehab or whatever, but, but you might not, you know, things could happen, but if it cash flows, then, you're usually are okay to have it keep cash flowing without, any problems. So. I needed good cashflow. I was looking for at least double digit cash flows. those first fourplexes I bought, you know, I was getting very high cash on cash, obviously with the low down payment, I was getting like 40 percent plus, cash on cash and things are obviously now infinite returns, but, but so trying to find a multifamily that could at least get double digit, I was not seeing it, you know and so I got a little bit depressed, at this point I started networking, I was being more active on social media on LinkedIn and meetups and things. And so I was meeting other syndicators, learning about their deals, seeing more opportunities to invest in syndications. But I was, I guess, sort of a bit surprised, maybe shocked to learn that most of them were still very low cash flows. They were, you know, typically in the first year, at least you'd get maybe. You know, 2 to 4 percent cash on cash and then average over a period of time, maybe 6 to 7 percent cash on cash, typically just from the actual cash flow, right? Not counting the equity. so I was like, that's not that great, you know? so I was like, what do I do, there's gotta be something better out there. One day on the podcast, I heard somebody talk about RV campgrounds and the kind of returns they were seeing and you know, multiple income streams for one property. That kind of got my attention. I was like, Hey, you know what? That's, that sounds like something I'm looking for. I didn't know anything about campgrounds, but I'm in a big camping area. most of my neighbors have RVs and go camping all the time. And so I was like, I want to learn more. So I started just following that rabbit hole, I guess you'd say, and, go into different webinars and, Meetups and things that were people that are in that niche talking about it and doing it. And so I started to learn more and kind of offer myself to be a boots on the ground if someone wanted to buy in my area out here near, you know, near Yellowstone. And just, you know, commenting here and there on different social media platforms. I eventually came across a couple of guys that had just bought their first property and, they actually reached out to me, I guess, from a comment I made. And we got on a call and, kind of talked about where they were heading with their vision of what, what this was, what they were seeing, what's going to happen in this industry. And, of course talk about my goals and what I was looking for, for investments and, and even like a partnership, to get involved with something. at that time, when things all seem to align they actually invited me to come join with them and I said yeah, let's go for it. You know, I've got nothing to lose, right? Wait, what am I gonna lose? Right? I didn't want to look back, a few years later and regret not taking that chance. Cause again, for what I was seeing in the multifamily space, not to knock anybody who's in multifamily. I know lots of people are in there, but for me, it was just not meeting my goals and what I wanted to do. And so I was like, right now here is this opportunity right now that does get the real returns I'm looking for in something different, let's go for it and give it a try. And so that's kind of how it all came about. That was, near the end of 2021. So about a year and a half ago, so yeah, so I jumped on board and started learning as much as I could and got involved and, helped, I guess, raise awareness for this niche and got myself out there going on podcasts, you know, being active on social media, talking about investing in campgrounds and, teach many other people just like myself that never heard of it before, didn't know you could invest in campgrounds and didn't realize that it was something that you could invest in. So I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So then, come to find out if I've talked to now, hundreds of different investors. There are many who felt the same way I did at the time that, I want better cash flows. I'm not seeing great cash flows. So now I can show them, Hey, we can hit double digit cash on cash that gets people's attention. And, they were like, Hey, I want to learn more. I want to invest. And so it's, it's been a fun experience in that regard that, you know, I get to be the one now helping people to, to realize that they're. Financial dreams are achievable maybe faster than they thought they'd be, cause they can, you know, get those higher returns with less money out of pocket than, you know, instead of investing in 10 deals to get where you need to, maybe you can invest in you know, four deals or something, you know? So anyway, so it's just it's been fun for me and, and a great. I love enjoy talking to people about it. You have a long winded introduction here. So,

Enrique 11:35

no, thank you. Thank you. I appreciate all that. it gives me I should say enough to ask you a lot of questions. So. Would you say that if your wife wasn't a realtor, you would be where you are right now?

Don Spafford 11:49

That's a great question. I don't know. Honestly, I don't know. Because, you know, part of what what caused all that to happen is when she became a realtor her, her broker suggested that she read the book Millionaire Real Estate Agent. And so as I was searching for that book to help buy it for her to get it, I came across the other one, the companion book, The Millionaire Real Estate Investor. And I was like, Hmm, that sounds interesting. So, so I bought both books at that time, you know, got the agent one for her and the investor one for me. So I'd go with her to go show houses and, and I would sit in the car and just be reading that book. So, so yeah, so maybe if she would not have been a realtor and not have worked with investors and I would have not bought that book. I don't know. It's a great question. I've never really thought about that. You know?

Enrique 12:29

And you mentioned now your first acquisition was a fourplex, right? This I'm assuming you self managed this, how was that experience? And, and then how were you able to source it and fund it?

Don Spafford 12:43

So yeah, so I, when I, when I bought it, I intentionally said I'm going to self manage it because I wanted to learn that process as well. I wanted to get familiar with the, the, the building, the tenants and everything involved with it. Because if I were just hire out a property manager, how am I going to know if they're doing a good job or not? You know, I need to at least understand how that works, first of all. In the end, I still self manage it today just because I, I couldn't find someone I felt comfortable with to manage it for me. But but yeah, so how I funded it, we kind of talked about this is, you know, I found a, well, first of all, how I found it, I actually found it listed on Craigslist of all places, it was a for sale by owner they had apparently they, they had, they did list it with an agent, like the, the winter before, like, you know, so in 2016, I guess it would have been like, you know, late 2016, they listed it, didn't sell, so he decided just to List himself for sale by owner on Craigslist. That's where I found it. At the time it met the 1 percent rule, which if those listings don't know, that's basically 1 percent of the purchase price is basically what you get in, in the gross rents. So, so I was like, okay, it's, it's meeting that minimum requirement. That was, you know, a big deal at that time today. That's hard to find. But but that time I was like. Cool. That was a good, good thing to check off the box. And then I also knew that it was under market rent, so I could definitely get it up higher to get better cash flows. And then so financing it again, I I, I used a local lender that did a 10 percent down payment option. They have a portfolio loan available on their, their, their bank. And yes. And then, and then I borrowed most of that from my 401k. I took a loan for my 401k. So I didn't do a withdrawal or no taxes or fees, just a loan for my 401k, which I then paid back And basically from those cash flows, but but yeah, that's how I was able to do it. Basically I bought it with 26, 000 down 20,000 of that for my 401k. The other 6,000, basically just get lucky. I didn't really have any savings. You know, this was really taking a big risk for me at time, but, but you know, my wife had just sold the property. So she got a small portion for that. And we just got our income tax returns back right at that same time. So I kind of combined all that together and bought this with 26,000. And then and that's, you know, that's what got it going. Interesting.

Enrique 14:45

A lot of people don't know they can borrow from an IRA or a 401k, right? Would you mind explaining how that process went in a, in a nutshell?

Don Spafford 14:55

Yeah. Well, it was pretty simple, actually. I mean, it all depends on your custodian, I guess, who holds it. But this is through my employer 401k. And so just, you know, basically for me in this case, we just go online go through the process to to take a loan. Of course, they have lots of warnings say. You know, you understand if you're taking this out and you're, you're, you know, take your money out of the market and you're not, getting gains or whatever, which I'm like, yeah, I understand that I'm not buying a boat. I'm buying an investment property that's going to give me probably a higher gain. Right. So anyway, so, so I did that and it gives you the option To pay it back for up to five years you can also borrow from your 401k to purchase your primary residence. If you do that, you can actually take out in a 30 year loan, I guess. But in this case, I had up to five years. So I'm like, well, I want to take that maximum up to five years just to keep my payments lower to return that because again, that's basically come out of my paycheck to pay that back as a loan. But but basically, you know, there's an interest on there, but then interest goes back to myself as well. So basically I'm just paying myself the interest. so yeah, but that's basically how I set it up to just do that and, and pay it back over time. I was actually able to pay it back sooner. I paid it back in I think less than four years. And then but, but yeah, that's, that's pretty much how it was. It was pretty simple. You know, again, this was. So this is very different than somebody that wants to say invest in the syndication with their self directed IRA or something This is not that this is actually taking a loan from my 401k so therefore it takes, you know, it takes it out of the market so you're not getting any gains on that but you know again for me in hindsight, I was like I knew I needed to get started. I had to get involved. I had to find a way to invest. And this was my only option at that time. At least the way I saw it. I didn't have connections to anything else. This is all my own. I had to get the ball rolling to, to make a change. Otherwise. You know, we were probably headed towards you know, bankruptcy or, or, or worse. I don't know that just, you know, we were in some tough times and I didn't want to go and, you know, get a second job or third job and work, you know, a hundred hours a week. So I was like, it's either this or, or, or, you know, I don't know what else. So I was like, we got to take the risk, give it a try and go. Of course, I felt confident in my numbers for my analysis. I was like, this is a great property. It's going to be even better. But of course that doesn't take away the fear. I was still scared. You know, I, I literally the day before closing, I was telling the wife that maybe we should just back out and walk away, you know, lose it, lose our earnest money to not take the risk. But, but yeah, look at those numbers. I was like, you know what, this is probably cash flows. It's going to do good. And you know, we've got to give it a try. We've got to go for it. So kind of get. Push myself past that fear trusted in the process, trusted in, you know, everything I've heard on this podcast and learned from people that, you know, just even even a bad deal can turn into a good deal over time. Cause you know, the, just for the appreciation and things. So, so I was like, you know what, let's, let's go for it. And it's my, my, my biggest fear for me was that if something major were to happen, some, some big problem, you don't have to, you know, replace all of the the. Oh, the, the water heaters or the roof or something in too soon. Something big, major expense come up. Right. I was like, I didn't have, I didn't have any savings for that. Yeah. So so my, my backup was to take another loan for my 401k, but, but but you know, I was like, I was like, you know, let's go for it. Let's do this. And like I said, then. Within a few years, I mean, the value of that property had shot up so much that the the equity in that property built up to be worth more than what my entire 401k was anyway. So it definitely was a good investment for me. And above all, that's really what got, just like I said, got that ball moving. If I would not have even started then, you know, I don't know when I would have started and, and I definitely would not be where I'm at today. It was just all that point of, you know, getting involved and getting active in that space to, to then learn more and make more connections and, and things start to happen.

Enrique 18:27

Yeah. And I mean, you had a very strong, why you had a very strong, why, where not even fear was going to stop you. You were like, I'm, I'm not going bankrupt. I'm going to figure this out. And then you went from a fourplex straight into a syndication for an RV campground. Is that correct?

Don Spafford 18:43

Well, not straight into another. It was a couple years after that, but so, so after that, that first fourplex took about a year and a half, I bought two more fourplexes, actually, this time out of state. And then and then after that I got involved with a development project and then I got involved with another larger development project to build to rent syndication. And then I got into the campground stuff. Things

Enrique 19:03

2017 fourplex. Yeah, exactly. That's awesome. That's great. So, so your first major deal and I guess in a syndication, was it for an RV campground or was it for, for apartments?

Don Spafford 19:18

It was, it was a build to rent multifamily project. Yeah. Like an 800 unit development project. Okay. That's, that was my first development. Yeah.

Enrique 19:26

What did you learn between that one and what you do now, which is RV campgrounds? What is what are the major differences among those two?

Don Spafford 19:33

Well, so, so fun fact, I guess, is I I'm still involved with those built rent multifamilies. So that is something I do outside of beyonders beyond holdings with RV campgrounds is kind of, I'll say my main gig, because we do so many deals. We have a large deal flow. So we've got multiple closings per year. The build to rent projects, they're very large to be, you know, 600 to 800 or so units. So these you know, are not something that happened, you know, every few months. These are, you know, once every few years. So I'm still involved with both of those. But what I like about that is as I talked to investors, the main thing, you know, I'm, I'm never here trying to sell anybody anything, you know, I'm definitely not a salesman type. I'm not a pushy, right. I just like to show people here's what's available. Here's what I can offer you and help you with. You know, if you're, if you want to do that, great. If not, that's fine too. I can help you find something else. I know lots of people. But but as I talk to people, I, I, you know, I find out what's their main goal. If they're looking for cash flows, like their, their main goal is cash flows. They want to get themselves or a spouse out of their job or, you know, or whatever, build up more passive income. I'm like, great. These RV campgrounds are perfect for that. You know, you can hit, you know, 12 to 15 percent average cash on cash. Get great, great income right now, right away. If they are in a position where they don't need more cashflow, they don't want more cashflow. They're, they're very well financed already. They just want a place where they can grow their wealth over time. You know, like a generational wealth type investment. They're like, Hey, well, perfect. These built rent projects are exactly that. There's no cashflow for the first few years as they get. You know, built up and leased out. But then with those types of, of of syndications, the way we have them structured is that the, we, they are very long term holds. So it's not like you're in and out in five years or so. These are, you know, about that five or six year time, we do a cash out refi. It basically gets you your, your, your return of capital back, but you still hold equity in that property for the next 25 or so years. So basically you're now in there for infinite cashflow returns, but also, easily 20 X plus your investment over that period of time, just from, appreciation factors working in. So so basically, yeah, that's the two things I offer people. Hey, great cash flows now, still great return of, you know equity multiples in a five year hold period. But if you're looking for something bigger longer term hold, then these built to rent projects are fantastic for that as well. So, there's the, the two big differences in those, obviously is going to be the, the, the timing of cash flow now or cash flow later. double, triple your money in a few years or 20X money in you know, in 25 years. And so, so that's kind of the, the, the big differences, I guess. And then also with, with the the campgrounds that we can get very high depreciation back. So if somebody needs like depreciation right now to offset some of their gains RV campgrounds typically, I'd say get much higher depreciation than you'll see in other asset classes. Those, if, you know, just a minute ago, I mentioned I bought two more four plexes after that first one. Right. Those two four plexes I bought were in Arkansas. I sold those last year, 2022. They were not performing as I had hoped they would. Never really gave great cash flows. Again, gave more headaches than anything else. So I decided just to sell those off. Take, you know, any gains I got from that plus my initial investment. All that money I took back. I did not do a 1031 exchange. I instead invested it right into our RV campground fund meaning to get, first of all, great cash flows. I can actually get cash flows. I wasn't getting from those other properties, but also the depreciation, you know, instead of trying to work out this 1031 and go through all the problems with that, I was like, I can invest in these campgrounds. And I was expecting to get, you know, at least decent enough depreciation to offset those gains. Turns out the property we purchased in December of last year gave back to all of the investors on their K1s, a 222 percent depreciation. So kind of like an insane number you do, you don't see anywhere else. And so I was like, yeah, well, that, that helps that totally offsets those gains and more. Right. So so that's, I was very happy with that. And so, yeah, I tell people when people ask me what kind of depreciation to expect, I'm going to say, well, it's got very bad property, but, you know, typically I'd say average, you know, somewhere between, you know, 70 to maybe 100 percent is, you know, normal. There are cases where like this, where you can get well over 100%, you know, I've seen other ones that have, you know, been 150%. I was never expecting to see over 200%. So that definitely gave me now something I can talk about that. Yeah. I can firsthand show you here's, here's that, you know, 200 percent plus depreciation that you can get. It is possible. So, so yeah, that's another great benefit of somebody needs depreciation right now. You know, invest with us in our campgrounds.

Enrique 23:54

And for our listeners that are not familiar with depreciation, how are your limited partners or your investors benefiting from depreciation? Yeah,

Don Spafford 24:04

well. I'm not a tax advisor or anything. So talk to your CPA or tax advisor to how it specifically affects you and your circumstances. Cause everybody's different, how it, how it can actually work to benefit you. But thank you for that disclaimer, Don. But yeah, but typically what we'll say is that. You, any other passive income gains that you have, or if you or a spouse are a a real estate professional then those, those that depreciation can be used to offset either your, your passive income or possibly even your earned income and certain situations, right? Again, you have to talk to your, your tax advisor CPA to know how it affects you directly, but, but effectively, it can reduce their, your. What you would pay in taxes based on your income. So if you had, you know, say you earn 200,000 a year and you're, you'll get taxed at, you know, I'm just making up numbers here, it'll say you're, you're taxed at 30,000 in taxes, you know, potentially you could reduce that to, to nothing or or at least a much smaller amount to pay taxes to kind of save you that tax expense.

Enrique 25:04

how often this happens every year, this this depreciation is passed through to the investors every year or?

Don Spafford 25:12

Sure. Well, anytime there's a new purchase, so if somebody were to invest in a property we close on this year for example, you would get what's right now, we have what's called an accelerated depreciation. So, so you're, you're year one. You can depreciate a much larger amount right away. So that initial year you get a big chunk taken back, cost, segregation, whatever, through cost segregation. Yes. Then, then whatever's left over, then it gets depreciated over you know, the, the going forward years you could get for our grounds. It could be you know, 30 years going forward, you'll get some additional depreciation every single year after that. Not, not as much that first year, but, but still something in each year. Next. But then. Of course, if you invest in another property the next year that we close on, then that'd be another big depreciation for that next year and so on. So, so the more you invest in, in, in, you know, as new closings happen, then the more big depreciation you get each and every year. Which, which again, going back to if you're, if you're paying, you know, 30 to 50,000 a year in taxes anyways, if you were to take that same amount and just invest it, then you're most likely going to offset that completely, but not only that, you're now obviously creating more income. And then also over time will grow your wealth as well as that, as that multiplies each time these properties come full cycle and return your capital plus the equity. So instead of paying uncle Sam, you're, you're paying yourself.

Enrique 26:30

And you're keeping more of your money, which is the only way to build wealth, right? That's right. And you were mentioning earlier about the Beyonder Holdings Fund. Is that the name you gave it? What's the name of your fund? And can you give us a little bit about it?

Don Spafford 26:46

Sure, it's actually called the Outdoor Hospitality Sun and Fund. So that's a bit long name, but that's what we gave this fund. So, so prior to this year, every deal that we've done, we've purchased as an individual property individual capital raise. Typically it's a 506B, meaning they're open for anybody who can invest in them. We launched the fund near the end of last year, and it's going to close in November of this year. It is a 506C fund, which means it's for accredited investors only. But so the idea of this fund is it's going to hold multiple properties in the fund. Again, this one we closed in last December was the first one to go into it. That, you know, the one that gave back the 200 percent plus depreciation. We closed another one actually just a week ago. Here we are in, you know, mid September. Last, last week we closed on another one outside of Huntsville, Alabama. So that will be in the fund. Hopefully we'll, we'll close another one here before the end of the year to get at least one more in there. But but once this fund closes going into next year, we will likely go back to doing individual properties, one off, you know, one off capital raises per deal likely as a 506B, maybe a 506B and a C, because we now have the option to start as a B and then switch to a C later. So we may do that on some properties to give more. Opportunities for the non equate investors to invest with us as well.

Enrique 27:57

Awesome. Thank you. So I know you're not a financial advisor. You're not a CPA, so, but I have questions about the fund of funds. how is it different from a normal capital raise?

Don Spafford 28:10

Sure. So our fund is, is technically referred to as a blind fund. Meaning that, you know, you, you invest in the fund, not knowing what else will come into it later. Obviously in our case is that. You know, yes, it's technically a blind fund. You know, we obviously still present our deals to our investors before we close on them. We don't just go out and buy whatever. And every deal we do bring to our investors, of course, has to meet our strict buy criteria anyway. So, so I'd say, you know, in that sense, you should have confidence that if you like the first deal or the second deal has gone to the fund. Any others that come later will be very similar, if not identical, or probably better than those. Anyway, so again, we still follow our strict buying criteria, but the way the fund works is that, instead of an individual property you have, you know, you get under contract and you have a set closing date, we'll say, December 15th, we need to close this property. So you have a limited period of time to raise money for that deal before you can close on it. If you don't raise enough, then you can't close on it, obviously. But. Being in a fund we have the option. Now this fund is open the entire year, basically. So you can invest in it today, tomorrow, next week, next month. You can, so therefore we use this, the opportunity to raise capital before we even have a deal ready to go. So by the time we have a new opportunity to to, to make an offer on or to close on, we already have. You know, at least all or most of that money raised already, therefore now present it and, you know, get, get more awareness out there to get the rest of the capital needed to close it making it much easier for us to, to raise and closing those deals rather than to try to scramble and say, we need to get, you know, 3 million next week, you know we've got, we've got some time to kind of build it up and, and hopefully get all that in there well ahead of time. And which, if it works the way it's supposed to, obviously then you get a large amount there ready way ahead of time that, for sure. You can even make better offers. Hey, we've got the money. We can close cash if we have to, just to, to get it, you know, get a better deal and then refinance later and, you know, whatever. But but it gives you more, more flexibility and less, a little bit less stress preferably to to be able to raise money the entire time, even before you have a deal ready to go.

Enrique 30:05

Understood. Now with this fund, what are the, the benefits of this fund for your investors? Sure. I don't want to say the wrong word. And then SEC picks us up.

Don Spafford 30:17

Yeah, I think you're okay. Yeah, so the, you know, versus investing in an individual property the benefits of the fund is that you have, first of all, more diversification. So that's in several factors for that, you know, more diversification means you're now in several properties being that that's, for example. If one property gets, you know, maybe only 80 percent depreciation for you property B, maybe it gets that 200 percent depreciation, you know, property three, maybe it gets 125 percent depreciation, you know, so now you have that combination of more opportunities to get the higher depreciation than just being in one property, maybe only gets that, you know, 70 or 80 percent depreciation. So, so it gives you a better chance to get more depreciation. It also gives you Much better chances of getting a higher cash flows in the sense that, for example, if one property that you're in gets hit by a hurricane or tornado or flood or something that occurs that could damage that property and make it non functioning for a period of time, the other properties in the fund are still operating. You know, presumably and then they are therefore still producing cash flow to make sure you still get your, your expected depreciation, your expected distributions on time while the other one goes through, you know, the insurance process and gets repaired or whatever. So you have more, more protection there for your income. And then you know, it also gives you. A bit more I guess the one thing we didn't talk about before, I guess, is the benefit of investing these kinds of properties that you can actually go there yourself and enjoy it. You invest in a multifamily or storage or something, you're probably not going to go live there or use it. But our campgrounds you actually can go to and go have fun and create experiences. Kind of where I use this tagline, invest where you play. It gives you the chance to go out there and have fun and get some real experience and memories with your family, with your investment and, and something to talk about with your friends. If you're hanging out with your friends and talk about, Hey, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, an owner in this property. You know, they're like, what, what are you talking about? So it gives you a place to talk and discuss your investing and and teach your kids maybe about it. And so that's that, you know, being in there for the fun gives you more properties. You can go visit that you are technically invested in. And then You know, there's the added benefit is that also when we do the the liquidations of these properties, you know, it's not like you're in one and you're out when it closes, you know, you're now in several that will have like a rolling close period. So as we, you know, each property is closed at different times down the road, you know, each of those will, you know, be liquidated around that year five points. So there'll be, you know, probably one we get liquidated in you know, say 2027, then the next property in 2028, 2029 or something like that kind of rolling close. So you've got the constant return of capital plus new equity over that period of time where again, just one time you're in and out. So it gives you more, more, I guess, flexibility there with your money of what to do with it and how to receive it and and all that. Man, I don't know, there's, there's probably some more I can't think of right now, but, but those are probably the big ones. It's that, that protection from diversification, but also a greater chance of income from diversification.

Enrique 33:08

Thank you, Don. You mentioned invest where you play. And you allow the investors, the passive investors to come visit the properties, stay there. This is free of charge. how do they get out there?

Don Spafford 33:23

Well, first of all, obviously our campgrounds open to anybody. So anybody can go there at any time. You make the reservation, which that's, first of all, the part of the harder part is getting the reservations. That's what I'm getting at. Because they do, they do fill up. And just to explain, I guess we didn't talk about this earlier, is the campgrounds we buy, so people get the right thing in the way you think about these, because most people who think of an RV park will say you're probably imagining more like a mobile home park in a sense, but with RVs. That's not what we buy. These are, I prefer to use the term RV resorts or RV campground resorts, you know, kind of thing. So it's, it's more like a place where people go to, to have a great time and they go home. Nope, nope. So people are not living there typically year round. And you know, they come stay for a weekend or a couple of weeks, you know, some of our, our, you know, full time RV people may be more seasonal. So they'll go someplace for a full winter or summer. And, but so, but they're not living there year round. And so so with that a lot of these places, you know, you make your reservations six months to a year in advance because they do fill up you know, people like to go and have fun. So sometimes it's hard to get in there. So with our investors, what we do offer our investors is a one week free stay per year. At any of our properties. So for example, you can use a couple days here, a couple days there, or you can go stay a full week for free at at any one property but then beyond that, we also give a 20 percent discount throughout the rest of the year, you know, so again, if you're a person that loves outdoors already, you already go camping, you're already doing it, why not first of all, invest in that. You know, get invested where you play, something you're already doing, so why not make money from it, but that also gives that added perk, we'll say, of having a place you can go for free for a bit or discounted throughout the whole year, which of course you can use with your friends and family and and enjoy it. So yeah, but we definitely encourage our investors to go there. A lot of, a lot of our investors have probably never set foot on a campground before. You know, they just come invest with us because the, the great returns, but it's, it's a much better, I guess, understanding when they can actually have that experience, go there firsthand and, and be there and see it and understand it. I even, you know, often when I talk to investors, I'll tell them even before they invested with us, I was like, if you've never been to one, you still don't quite understand what it is. I was like, just, you know, Google in your area, find, look for RV campgrounds near you, you know, like a family friendly one that has activities and things. Just go there on a weekend, drive there on a Saturday, don't even have to make a reservation, don't stay there if you don't want to, just drive in there, park, and look around. Get familiar. Yeah, see what's going on, see all the people having fun, see the people enjoying themselves and how busy and packed it is, then you'll get maybe an idea of what exactly it is and how these make so much money. But like the one we just closed on this last week it's a perfect Example of that. It's a big property. It's got a big lake shore area on the Tennessee River and so big water area. People go, you know, jet skiing, boating, all that kind of stuff. We'll be adding in an aqua park and things there, but it's also got the big ropes course, you know, so people get up there and traverse the ropes and doing a zip line down and beach volleyball concert venues. people can rent, go karts or golf carts maybe e bikes, that kind of stuff, just being outdoors, you know, this place has, horseback riding trails and stuff. So lots of stuff you can just go there as a family and go have you don't have an RV, they're still, you know, on our properties, we have, Cabins or tiny homes or glamping options that you can go and stay at. Some of our properties have hotels on them as well. So there's plenty of room to people to go and stay. If you don't have an RV, it's don't feel like you don't have it ever. You can't go. That's that's not at all. We still want you to come there, Oftentimes you might just go there for the concert. Let's say, let's go see this concert, go play in the Lake for a day. Then you feel like, you know, you're, you're talking about wanting to stay. Let's see, let's go rent a cabin and just stay here overnight, so there's plenty of options available and all those things are now multiple income streams, you know, some, some may not be a direct thing that you pay for, but it's just a many that's there, but something that brings you there in the first place. So it's still like an indirect income stream to get you there. And then while you're there, you'll you're to spend money on, you know, food and other activities and, you know, all kinds of stuff. So so yeah, so it's a big it's a big thing, which provides multiple income streams per property.

Enrique 37:11

You sold me on it. now I'm considering maybe I should look into an RV, right? Because before you said it, I was thinking, well, I don't have an RV, so I'm not cool like the other guys. So yeah, awesome. So. So I'm familiar with the apartment syndication, multifamily syndication and keeping occupancy at a certain percentage value add strategies. Do any of these things apply to RV campgrounds?

Don Spafford 37:39

Yeah, so well, first of all, let's discuss occupancy. So, so again, typically for, for multifamily, you're looking at. You know, what's my vacancy, right? You want to have a you know, stayed 90 percent plus occupied. Typically for, for RV campgrounds, at least the transient campgrounds like we do get where people come and go we don't look at that number. We look at, you know, the occupancy numbers we look for. For, for it will say an average standard campground is a good, a good campground is about 30 to 35 percent occupancy and that takes to count the entire year. So, so, so keep in mind, you know, a lot of these properties may close down during winter. You're busier weekends than you are on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, usually slower days of the week. Weekends are always packed. So, so taking that into account over the entire year, where they may only be open 8 months out of the year. You know, 35 percent occupancy is still a great property still going to cash flow very well. If we, of course, can can add on additional amenities or things that will bring people there to get that higher than even even better. Like this one, again, it's one we just closed on in outside of Huntsville. It's on Wheeler Lake. It that one, just because of all those activities that are, that get people to come there, their occupancy is, is well above normal. they were, when we purchased it around like a 70, 75 percent occupancy, so almost double what your traditional numbers would be for that for this industry. But. Again, we have plans to make it even better and drive those numbers up, hopefully. But for value add, like you were talking about, you know, we are still buying value add campgrounds. These could very easily be just turnkey. We hold them, no problem. But we want to make them better and improve the value for investors, improve cash flow for investors. And by doing that, the, the value adds that we do are typically going to include expansion is number one. So we want to add on more RV spaces, more cabins, more glamping options, things to get more people in there. And then additionally to that is more amenities, you know, more features and things that people want to see. You know, we'll add on. For example, this, this 1 just talked about here. It's on a big lake. All they really have that they have a kind of roped off area for swimming and all the boating stuff is outside of that. But in the middle of that big swimming area, all they have is like a little. Floating raft area. Kind of boring. You know, we're going to be bringing in a big aqua park thing. It's like big, you know, big inflatable thing. They call it Wibbit. So, you know, this big, huge attraction is going to get everybody out there to go have fun and play in the water. That's, an easy thing you can add in there that's going to get people out there and they'll pay, like a, you know,$5 pass to go use it, or, rent or, whatever, and provide the life jackets and things obviously, but something as simple as that just to get people in there. You know, find other attractions, things that get people to come, right? So you can talk about concert venues, some of our properties that we have added a concert venue to, get people to come come put on these shows and things we'll add on in some cases, just simply cleaning up the existing, public bath areas. we have showers and things, you know, that are available so we can make those nicer and cleaner for people to come and want to use. Something that we provide that some other campgrounds don't provide is we provide free Wi Fi, you know, so lots of people that are now working remotely, work from home work, you know, work traveling, I guess full time RVers and whatnot, they need good Wi Fi to, to be able to work and, and do the things they do. So we provide that as, as an additional amenity to get you to come and stay at our campground versus another one. Thank you. And then boy, so again, it's on top of that. It's just all these, sometimes it's just the little things, the little things that make a place just feel nice and comfortable good clean beds and, and the comfortable amenities and things like that. Food options is a big thing. If, if if we have space, we'll, we'll have a potentially a building that we use for a restaurant. We don't run the restaurant. Typically, we're just going to rent the building to a local restaurant. They want to come out there and serve the people. Some of our places might have a small like bar and grill thing where we can serve simple stuff, but a full on restaurant, we don't manage that, but we do rent them out to, to others Again, for water areas, again, like this big lake and river and stuff, we can add on marinas. Again, this one doesn't have a marina. We're going to be adding on a big boat dock there with multiple boat slips somewhere. We have another property in Missouri. It's on the Truman Reservoir. It had a very large boat marina already, but we expanded it because there was a big waiting list of people that wanted to be right there on those boat slips. So we expanded it out, can now rent out more boat slips to people and bring more people in there for obviously when they're pulling for the docks, they can step off and come and enjoy some amenities there as well. So so lots of different, these little things that can really just, just drive up the value of adding on, you know, adding up all this multiple income streams as your bottom line of the NOI. Therefore, it drives up the value of the property.

Enrique 42:03

Interesting. So you mentioned 30 to 35 percent occupancy, right? About average. Now, a 30 to 35 percent, so I'm trying to compare it to apartment syndication, so it makes more sense for me, right? So 30 to 35 percent on a multifamily syndication, you're like, oh my God, What's going on right now,

Don Spafford 42:23

but you'd be going bankrupt. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Enrique 42:27

Now, with that said, how, how do you structure your, your debt for this RV campgrounds now? Because if I go to Fannie Mae for a loan at a 30 to 35 percent occupancy, we're going to have some issues, right? So how, how is this different in the debt structure from an apartment syndication?

Don Spafford 42:50

Not, not too much different. We still use bank loans. We, we, Fannie Freddie do not lend yet to campgrounds. Hopefully that'll be changing in the near future, but but for right now we, we do use some national lenders that, that do lend on campgrounds. So we still get, you know, typically a 75 percent LTC getting, getting, including our CapEx in, in the loan where we can. And then and then we raise the rest through, through you know, private equities and for our investors. But yeah, we still get loans. The big difference is going to be is typically we do not have non-recourse loans are not available right in, in campgrounds space yet. So all of our loans are recourse only that, you know, our, our deal sponsors, you know, we have no problem signing those loans basically puts us personally responsible for them. But but you know, again, knowing that. These properties cash flow so well there's really no concern there. You know, typically when we, the, here's, here's something that might be a bit mind blowing for some people typically on your, like, so your multifamily loan, for example. You're looking at that debt service coverage ratio. That's what the banks want. It's typically like a 1. 3 or so is about 1. 25, 1. 25 is probably like the minimum being a 1. 3 is a little bit better, but, but, but that's kind of what, you know, most people are typically buying right around that, that spot, right there for, for their income on the property. Yeah. That, that basically means that you're, you're, you're barely covering your, your debt and have a little bit left over. So for us, typically on an average property, we're closer to a 2 percent DSCR. So basically almost double what's needed for, for the debt service. So, so very great, you know, high numbers to, to basically make the banks feel comfortable and confident lending. You know, again, I think just because of that transient nature of it, you know, is why we don't yet have like Fannie and Freddie type loans available yet. But again, I think in the near future, that will probably start changing as they become, they start becoming a bit more mainstream and and common, I guess especially in the institutional space. And we're, I guess, still in a relatively new or. Early phase for, for institutional level investing in, in campgrounds. It's historically always been mom and pop type stuff. You know, I'd say the same goes for you know, if you look back, I guess in time, like self storage or mobile home parks, you know, six to 10 years ago, where they're pretty much, you know, mom and pop types of things, you know, a few investors here and there buying them, but, but relatively unknown, but then all of a sudden, maybe about five years ago, they kind of exploded and became a common. Institutional type of investment that you can now syndicate and do all kinds of things with. And so we're, we're kind of that early phase right now where this is starting to become a bit more mainstream and, and other people are starting to get involved. So I think the next few years, you're going to see a lot more people buying campgrounds, syndicating campgrounds because of people are looking for those higher returns. And right now this is where it's at. So people are going to move to this area. It's still those are things, you know, as they, as they come up, but, but make a big shift towards where the money's at right now. And so it's gonna become much more mainstream in the next few years, I think and at which point Hopefully, you know Fannie and Freedie those guys will will take notice. like, hey, you know what we need to we'd offer more options for Those types of properties. And and we'll see what happens, you know, but but as we continue ourselves to, to grow and do more, I mean, we have plans to to purchase many more properties, you know, and, and also start doing some development of ground up, you know, brand new campgrounds. And so yeah, we'll, we'll see how, how things change in their future.

Enrique 45:53

Don, how do you find these campgrounds? Is it through brokers? Is it networking right through? How do you find them?

Don Spafford 46:01

Yeah, so luckily we, we have a great acquisitions team. Our, our guys that are on the phones for all day, every day making calls and, and sending out offers. But typically we do not go through brokers, you know, we, we have maybe bought a couple through brokers, but most of the the listed properties we find are just too overpriced. The, the, the numbers won't work for the kind of returns we're looking for, for our investors. We want to give our investors the very best returns. And unfortunately broker listings are to a price point where they don't make sense. So typically our, our team, we call up the campgrounds directly. We you know, there's, there's several places where you can find campgrounds listed, you know, the same places people go to if you're, if you're a camper, want to go know where to go, there's certain directories available. You can go and search those to say, hey, what's what campgrounds are near this city or that city. And so we do that same thing. We call the campgrounds and doing that again, majority of these properties are mom and pop owned. Most likely those mom and pops, you know, live there on site and they're the ones answering the phones, making the reservations and all that stuff. So, it's fairly easy to get ahold of the owners and then talk about their property and if they would ever consider selling. And then the ones that are considering it or are ready to sell, hey, great, let's, let's let's work out a deal. That's kind of how we, we source most of our leads or directly like that off market direct to seller type, type of leads. And that's what helps us to find properties where we can get well under market value. And typically we're, we're buying around like a 10 cap is our average purchase price cap right now. Which then of course, like I said, it helps deliver back those high returns back to investors. And and several times we were able to work out a seller financing deal as well.

Enrique 47:38

Have you ever had one of those sellers just become one of your investors at the same time?

Don Spafford 47:43

Well, yes. So the few funny stories with that. Sometimes that was sometimes the plan we learned very early on. One property we were planning to purchase this is now, I guess, a couple years ago. Very great big property in Florida. The owner was going to invest a large sum back with us. So we had to say, Hey, we cover a big chunk of what we need to raise. Then he, he, he saw our plans and what are we put the value at this property at when, after we do things and he kind of decided to change his mind and took backed out of his investment would not give us an extension to, to have more time to raise capital. So we ended up having to walk away from that property. He then turned around like, a week later. Relisted it on the open market for like double what we had it under contract for and so from that point, we learned, if the investor, the, the, the seller wants to invest with us, great! We'd love to just, we won't let them see our, our, our plans and our things. Yeah, we won't let them to our investor portal until after we've closed to kind of help avoid that type of situation. So this, well, I won't give it too much information. so yeah, but we do have some, some of our, recent, properties that we've closed on that the investors want or the sellers have plans to come back and invest with us. One, again, go back to that depreciation, offset their gains from that sale to put money in there to get some of that depreciation, but also then to still get some some great income without having to now manage a property. They can still be involved in the campgrounds, but not manage it and still get great cash flows and still build their wealth. So, so yes, that is always an option that they can do that with us as well.

Enrique 49:13

Now you mentioned management Don. Is it a typical management company, or is it you? How is a campground, an RV campground managed?

Don Spafford 49:24

Sure. Well, it's not me, but but yeah, we do have our own campground management company. So the same time when when this company was formed which actually, you know, initially was called Happy Camper Capital. We also formed a... Campground management company alongside that called Beyonder Camp. And so really just the beginning of this year, 2023, is where we kind of combined both those now into one of that Beyonder name. So we got rid of the Happy Camper Capital for an outward facing name. And we adopted that Beyonder name from the Beyonder Camp for the campground management. Because anytime we purchase a property, it goes under the Beyonder name. It's a Beyonder Gateway at you know, Rising Sun, Beyonder Marine at Starr Creek, you know, whatever. So the Beyonder name is, is that brand we're trying to build. So we, so therefore we, you know, that's one of the reasons we combined both of those companies into one under Beyonder Holdings. But yes, so we do manage our own properties. We have our own management company for that, that manages all the, the, the high level oversights of you know, the systems and software that hiring and training of, of the, the general managers of the properties, that's at a high level. Of course we have a regional manager that can help us also oversee all the properties, but then at each, each property level, we have, you know, an individual general manager who manages that property with, of course, all the, the, the staff that's necessary to operate it. You know, we are not just this is not just a building. You can get a property manager to put people in and then check on them once in a while. These are you're dealing with guests that come and go every single day. So we make sure that have a great guest experience to have a great proper number amount of staff to oversee all that to see to their needs and all that thing. So, so there's definitely a lot, a lot of oversight for the management of these properties goes into that. Yeah. And so with that management company as well, though, we also do offer third party management to other campgrounds. So we do manage other campgrounds that we don't own. But that puts us in a great position to later when that that owner is ready to sell. We could easily just step it in and purchase it because we're already managing it, you know? So so that's kind of how we, we operate that.

Enrique 51:14

Yeah, you know the tenants, you know the ins and outs, right? Because you've been managing, well, not you, but the company. Don, would you mind telling me a little bit about how is insurance for an RV campground? I know now nationwide, even though I'm hearing towards the Midwest insurance, it's not as crazy. But for an RV campground, how is insurance premium being handled?

Don Spafford 51:44

So for us insurance is is a pretty important thing. You know for for all of our expenses, insurance and payroll are two biggest expenses. I know. I know many we'll say property like multifamily or other rental real estate. Owners who tried to get the cheapest insurance they can get just to keep their costs low. For us, it's kind of the opposite. We want the best coverage we can get because, you know, for the most part, people's lives are at stake, I guess. You know, there is again, going back to where we're on a lake, people could easily drown or get hit by a boat, some other kind of accident, get run over by an RV, you know, all these things could happen that could seriously injure or kill somebody and also provide a lawsuit or other types of problems. So we have a very great coverage to cover all those things, you know, liability, loss of income. You know but several different things that kind of covers of the insurance. Right? So so what that is, it's a very high price, obviously, but, but it's kind of what's needed to, to ensure all the things from not only those, those liability coverages, but also you know, damage again, talking about hurricanes or tornadoes or all kinds of storms that could cause some damage. We'll make sure we're covered for loss of income so we can pay our investors still. But so yeah, so insurance is, is, is is a necessity. Obviously, you can't get away with it. You can't get around it. You have to have it. But for us, it's, it's it's a high, high expense. So I'd say probably an average property where you're looking at probably at least a hundred thousand a year on an insurance. You know, possibly more or maybe less depending on the property and what's all involved with it. But that's kind of where we're at with that. Again, no, no problem getting insurance, but we want to make sure we are well covered and not just trying to skim by the nickel and dime and save some money.

Enrique 53:14

All right, Don, I appreciate your time, but before you go, I need to ask two questions. First, I need a back background story on the mascot behind you. And then I heard through a little birdie that you may or may not know some Spanish. I don't know if you noticed my name on the screen, but there's some Spanish.

Don Spafford 53:33

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, couldn't help notice that. Yeah. So yeah, so, so yeah, this mascot screen for those that are, that can see us on video, I guess. So this is, this is Boomer. Boomer's the Beyonder raccoon. We earlier this year on Memorial Day, we launched Boomer as our mascot at our campgrounds. And the idea behind that is there are Some will say competing campgrounds that have some mascots that they use that are very. Very profitable for them. They draw in the kids, they draw in the crowds, and people want to see them. So we decided we wanted to incorporate a mascot into our properties again, we're after that family friendly type of campground. So we want the families and kids involved. So we put out a survey early in the year. First of all, after we decided what animal we wanted to use, tried to not copy what other places are using with other types of animals. We started on a raccoon. We put out a survey to all of our investors to help us choose the name. And the winning name was Boomer. So, so we have Boomer the Beyonder Raccoon. And again, he's been a great hit ever since. We watched him on Memorial Day, he made his first appearances at all of our campgrounds. Got, you know, immediately pictures out there with all the, the kids and the parents and their animals even, you know, people with their dogs. So so, so everyone loves Boomer. And he's been a great hit. You'll, you'll, if you come to some you know, conferences where we'll be at, you'll probably see Boomer there with us as well. And you know, we have, we have a lot of plans for him in the future. we're planning on potentially some some children's books to come out with Boomer. And eventually maybe have some family join him as well. So there could be more, more raccoons running our campgrounds in the near future, but, but yeah, he's been, he's been a great hit. He's been getting out there in the community, going to, you know, parades, getting involved with stuff. He's, he was actually on the news on one of our properties. That was doing a 5k run in the area. They got him on the news in there as well. It was pretty cool. And then Wait, wait, wait,

Enrique 55:15

wait. He was not doing the 5k run. He was just standing there.

Don Spafford 55:18

No, he ran for part of it. I don't know if he did the full 5k. I don't know. But, but but he was in there, you know, running with the runners for a bit. And, and you know, being there while they were. Well, that is people were interviewing that the managers of the property was standing there, you know, saying hi. So, so he's getting out there and he'll be in the, you know, getting out there at local community events for maybe parades or, or you know, back to school kind of activities, fundraisers, whatnot, you know, he's, he's he's a member of our team. So he's, he's going to be involved in the community to have people see him and recognize him and obviously get the kids to say, Hey, let's go, let's go to the campground and go see Boomer, you know? So so, so yeah, he's, he's a great help for us. That's awesome. Yeah, and then and then, yeah, I do speak Spanish. I actually lived in Argentina for two years. My wife is from Paraguay, so we speak Spanish at home. And I actually, many, many years ago I actually had a translation business where I would do translating for English and Spanish, so.

Enrique 56:06

Wait, so you speak better Spanish than me, then? Cause I barely know English and Spanish is kind of forgetting it a little bit. So, yeah,

Don Spafford 56:14

well, maybe, I don't know. I've, I've definitely, I've definitely lost some that I had many years ago. When I, when I first came back from Argentina, I was, you know, a hundred percent fluent, had the full on accent, you know, and everything. And yeah, I actually. I took, you know, as my college courses, of course, I took some Spanish classes. You know, why not? I was able to, you know, skip past the first however many that, you know, just based off that you can test out of it. But then as I went into my Spanish classes, half the class were, you know, Hispanic people, but but yeah, I, I did get the, the better grades on everything in the class compared to the natural native speakers, but even my professor himself as a native speaker was, quite impressed he'd often, every time we do a test. He would use somebody's test as like the example to kinda show what the correct answers were. Yeah. He always, of course wants the one that has the least wrong to have things to, to to show. And so he, he use mine you know, so so yeah. But yeah, I, I, I've, I've, you,

Enrique 57:04

you were that student we didn't like in school then know Yeah, probably but but no, yeah, I, I, of course being, being speaking at home, I, I keep it up, but I, I've definitely gotten lazy over the years and I, I don't quite pronunciate the words correctly. even in English, I talk fast, I kind of mumble. So I do the same in Spanish now. And but I still read and speak, you know, somewhat fluently. I'd say once in a while I forget some words. I have to try to remember how to say something here and there. we we went to Paraguay last year for a few weeks to go to my wife's family. And hopefully we'll go again next year. But, but yeah, we, we Speak. We speak. Alright, so we're gonna start this whole conversation over, but we're gonna try to do it in Spanish now. Ready?

Don Spafford 57:39

We, we can do it. Actually, I did a podcast in Spanish a bit ago. My wife was, did it also a few weeks ago in that same podcast in Spanish.

Enrique 57:45

So I'm gonna look that up. Yeah, I am gonna look that up. I'll love to hear Speak Spanish. Ah, I like it. Told you my spanish was good, but not that good. My english is worse. So yeah, no problem don Thank you very much for your time for allowing me to pick your brain right and and providing so much insight so much valuable information My pleasure. How can people learn more about your projects about you? Are you in social media linkedin?

Don Spafford 58:19

Yeah. Yeah. I'm i'm actually very active on linkedin. I guess on facebook you know a whole nother story that we won't get to now, but I used to not be active on social media But I I became so i'm i'm very active on linkedin. You can see me posting pretty much every day there At least Monday through Friday. I don't do weekends, but i'm active there You can reach me there to i'll you know, if you send me a message i'll respond it's not it's not a VA or a bot. It's actually me. I create my own posts. So you get to find me there. You can also, you know, reach me by email don@beyondercamp.com. You can go to our website. So beyondercamp.com is technically our, our management website. So you can see all of our properties, you know, book a reservation there. But you also get to our, our investment site, you know, through a button there, or you can go directly to beyonderholdings.com is our investment website to, to register there, to get access to our investor portal, kind of see our deals. And, and when you're ready, I guess you can invest with us as well, but you can also schedule time to talk with me. I'm always open and happy to talk and discuss your, your investment goals and how we can help you.

Enrique 59:13

Awesome. Thank you very much, Don. Have a great one. Yeah. My pleasure. All right. Take care.