The Future of Manufactured Housing with Kevin Day - TLP179

Affordable housing expert Kevin Day joins Ryan to discuss why manufactured housing deserves a second look. They cover the challenges of today's housing market, zoning barriers, financing tools, and how modern manufactured home communities could help create more attainable homeownership.

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https://landdevpodcast.com/podcast/future-of-manufactured-housing-with-kevin-day-tlp179

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

It's still a trickle of what the amount of new places that are being developed. And if you look at the number of homes that are produced by the factories, it's about 110,000 a year. And half of those are going to individuals to put on their own land, right? So that leaves, you know, roughly 50,000. So the other ones are going to, you know, mobile home communities, of which there are four million. And then if you just think about like, you know, these things age out, what's their useful life? If it's 40 years, that's 100,000 a year. Just replacement cycle. But there's only 50,000 being built. But so most of those are going to be going just to replace units that are in existing mobile home parks.

SPEAKER_00 0:57

Hey, what's going on, everybody? Welcome back to the Land Development Podcast. I am your host, Ryan Glick. I'm excited today to be joined by Kevin Day. Kevin's an affordable housing expert based out of New York City. Kevin, thanks for joining me. Yeah, uh excited to be here. Thanks. Thanks for having me on. Yeah, absolutely. Well, let's get into it. I want to start with your background. And uh can you walk us through how you got into real estate and just the development and affordable housing industry?

SPEAKER_01 1:25

Yeah. So, you know, I got a degree in uh urban planning and uh housing development. And uh that was about 30 years ago, I guess, at this point. After graduating from there, I actually went to my my first position after that was to work in for a public housing agency. And uh, you know, that's actually kind of the agency that provides, you know, what people know as the projects that are kind of government run. And uh, I worked for that here in New York City, and they own about a hundred thousand uh units, multifamily units. And uh it's enormous. That's that's the size of a small city, uh, just just that one landlord. You know, and it turns out that the government's not so great at owning and managing real estate. So I did that for a short while and then I got out of it, and that's when I started working in just kind of private sector affordable housing. Basically, that's using the low-income housing tax credit program. And that is a program that's been, it was created in the late 1980s, and that's um private developers and privately financed, privately managed, and has been a really successful program and has a lot of bipartisan support. And uh, and actually, if you look back from like 1990 to today, almost a third of all multifamily units have been built under that program. So it's just, it's um, it's a much larger program than people understand. And you wouldn't actually notice, you know, these projects. So a lot of it is just, you know, garden style, um, suburban development, brand new construction with a swimming pool, gym. You know, it's a program where it's more working class. People are paying, you know, a thousand to twenty five hundred dollars a month, you know, to live there. It's not heavily subsidized. Sometimes it's mixed with market rate as well. And so, you know, a lot of these you drive through and you wouldn't even know that it's affordable housing. Uh, so I got into that um and have been doing that for most of my career, you know, on the on the development side, on the financing side. And, you know, that's uh that's primarily been what I've, you know, what my career has been to now until I've started to work on on the home building side, and we can talk more about that.

SPEAKER_00 3:55

Yeah, well, I yeah, there's several things I want to get into today with you, um, you know, around the financing programs that you were talking about, but also around manufactured housing, which is a topic we haven't really touched on much on this show in the past. And so definitely want to get into that. I think one thing that stood out too, with your background being, you know, public, uh, nonprofit, private, you know, working in all these different areas. How do you feel like that's helped you being on all those different sides of this in the housing industry?

SPEAKER_01 4:27

Yeah. Well, it's really develop it's really interesting, right? The development side is, you know, considerably different from, you know, the financing side. It's all privately financed. So it's primarily banks, insurance companies, other investors who buy these tax credits. So that's how it's all put together is that the federal government has this tax credit program where these investors will give the money up front to get the properties built. Uh, and so it's been very interesting to work on that side. I've and so I've also, you know, worked on the asset management and overseeing operations. So really getting a sense of how that works uh for a multifamily. And, you know, what and and one of the things I've really learned is, you know, real estate is not just pushing numbers around on a spreadsheet. It's it's it's a you know kind of a living, breathing thing. It really matters who the people are, how they're how they're doing their jobs, and you really get a sense of that. And so, you know, that that's that's been an important piece to learn about all of that, you know, and then just getting acceptance for these projects, you know, has been, it's really challenging depending on where you are, and especially initially, you know, when people were trying to get these built, you know, when you have a bunch of examples of, hey, it looks like this, you know, this is what we want to build. And then people are like, oh, that's pretty nice, you know? And um, so, so that has been interesting to see too.

SPEAKER_00 5:57

So manufactured housing, are you when did you get into that? And uh what's your involvement in that today?

SPEAKER_01 6:04

You know, one of the things that I've noticed uh over the last little while is that, you know, the tax credit program, I I begin to see how some ways in which it doesn't really work so great. And so, you know, a couple of those things is just the cost of it. So the amount of subsidy it requires is is often $500,000 to a million dollars per unit as per apartment, right? And so, you know, I look at that, I'm like, is that the right, you know, solution for like how we want to use our taxpayer dollars? And then also, you know, some of the state agencies are using it more for like, you know, their kind of social engineering purposes and say, hey, you know, we really want to provide it for, you know, homeless families and things that like, you know, I think have changed kind of the character of the program. So, you know, I started to think about like, well, what makes more sense? And then, you know, I started really trying to research that. And there, and I'm like, there's gotta be a better way, right? Of I think affordable housing should be low-cost housing, right? That's how it should be done. And and and and there are ways to get low-cost housing, factory-built housing. Now, like I've seen projects on the multifamily side that that have been modular housing. I mean, you still got to go through all of the design requirements, all the building code requirements. Everyone is like custom made, like you're just not getting the efficiencies. And so it's very different on the manufactured housing side. You have one unit, they're all the same. And I mean, we'll talk about like how they're built, you know, what they look like now, because it's very different from what might people might imagine. Um, but um, I mean, it's efficient and and fairly low cost. You can get good, you know, nice units and you know, and build them. And like the same thing where multifamily, it's like one-third tax credit, affordable housing, a lot of the other stuff is like class A, you know, high cost, because that's how you make the numbers work. On the on this on the single family side, you know, a lot of higher end, big big homes. Jeez, if you look at the size of homes that I've built or, you know, the increase of it over the you know, last few decades. So again, they're like that's that's where the numbers work, that's where the profit margin works. And really just not having that entry-level housing and trying to figure that out. Now, so I started like, so I I've done a deep dive like over the last six to 12 months and learned some really interesting stuff. So if you look at kind of the history of manufactured housing, so these are mobile home parks, right? Most of them were built in the 70s, the 80s, some into the 90s. And eight million units are out there that have been built. So it's pretty significant. And half of those are mobile home parks, and then half of them are just individual owners who put them down on their own land. But you know, what we saw is as those uh places aged and they're pretty low cost, they're they start to get a little run down, the quality of the units wasn't great, and that's so that's where we get these trailer parks. And trailer track and uh you know, MM grew up in one of these. If you watch Eight Mile, right? And so, you know, that's and so municipalities, one after the other after the other, say, we don't want that, we don't want that here, right? So they were they use their zoning code to say it can't be built, right? Minimum lot minimum lot sizes, right? And making single family home areas so that you you just can't build it, right? If if an if a landowner wants to do that, can't do it. And so you saw just like a lot of it just came to a halt after the 1990s. But now, right, there's such a crisis and such a need for housing, homeownership, something that works. And what you've seen recently, and it's only been recently, maybe over the last three years or so. I mean, I I don't know. I'm I I I was able to learn so much in the last, you know, six plus months. But you what I see is that now in the last year or two, more and more states are like tackling this issue. They want to tackle it on the supply side, right? Because that's where a lot of the obstacles are, right? If you're going into an area and you and you want to say, hey, I want a zoning exemption so that I can build this and I can build it either for homeownership or or for rental. You know, people are like, what? You're gonna build a mobile home? You're gonna build a trailer park in my neighborhood? I don't think so. And so I and maybe it's it's it's a good idea to talk about, right, a lot of these, the product now that you can buy, they're pitched roof, they they build them with a porch with a garage. They're small units, but they're efficient. They they don't cost as much, but they look like, you know, kind of a right, a mini suburban development if you if you put them on. But it's fairly, it's fairly dense. And so, I mean, you can build 10, 11 per acre. I mean, I think that's that's probably too much. You know, you probably want to build eight per acre, um, but you can build them, you know, build a community with a pool, you can have a community um building with a gym or whatever. I mean, so people are building some pretty nice places. And so, you know, more states are trying to figure out a way to make this possible.

SPEAKER_00 12:09

So a couple things there that stand out to me. One of the biggest, it feels like one of the biggest issues is is the perception and the stigma around the you know, mobile home parks or the trailer parks, you know, as uh as people may have experienced with them in the past and what what they looked like in their own communities and they grew up and everything. So I feel like there's two two different groups. Well, there's actually three different groups that we have to think about with this, right? You number one, you have the city leaders, so they could be the ones who are like not in our town. Uh, number two, you have the community themselves. So people who may live around where a project is going to get built who may be opposed to it. But I'm also, those two make sense to me, like as far as like we see that today with a lot of different asset classes, not even just with manufactured housing. But what about consumer perception uh for those who would buy and rent these? Have you seen that from your research and stuff? Have you seen that change over the years?

SPEAKER_01 13:10

Yeah. And you know, maybe we can put a couple links in, you know, in the podcast to examples of what these are. And they've really been kind of rebranded. Uh, and then and one of the terms that people use now too is cross mod homes, so that it it it it doesn't, you know, come across as that. Um, but as some of these communities get built out, people see what it can be, it becomes much easier to sell. But but like you say, I mean, one of the obstacles, one of the huge obstacles is getting buy-in. Now, but sometimes you have a politician, you know, a mayor who says, Yeah, you know, we need affordable housing. This is great. We need some starter homes, you know, let's let's do this. And then they go to their planning department and they're like, Yeah, we nope, it's not allowed. You know, like, yeah, you can get a zoning variance, and then you go through the it's a lengthy process. You got to get the neighbors to buy into it much harder. And that's why some of these changes, some of these legislative changes, where where you can get it as of right, it is a lot, it is an allowed use uh of what you can put on the site makes it a lot easier and eliminates some of those obstacles.

SPEAKER_00 14:26

So we, I feel I can't remember when it was. I know there was an industry news episode we did, and there was an article that we talked about where someone in the government was talking about how these main manufactured housing could be the answer to some of our um entry-level housing. And, you know, we talked about it and then it just kind of came and went. Like nothing, it didn't feel like anything ever came from that. Are you hearing anything? Like, are there conversations about that in like on the political side of like trying to push the manufactured housing as a potential solution?

SPEAKER_01 15:02

Uh a hundred percent. Um, so you know, we're we're talking on July 9th, and tomorrow, the um whatever it's called, the road to housing in the 21st century uh is gonna is gonna pass unless so Trump has had it on his desk for a week and a half. Um, if he vetoes it tomorrow, which passed with huge bipartisan support uh in both chambers, in the House and in the Senate. So, you know, he's it just automatically becomes law unless he vetoes it. He's not gonna veto it. And so in that, in that law are some changes to um to what um those standards are for manufactured housing and and what's required, you know, what the what the requirements are for what they're built. One of the huge um changes is this um it's always had a requirement to be built on a like a steel chassis, uh, which so that could, you know, conceivably you could actually still take it up and move it, you know, because it's a mobile home and that's what how it was defined by HUD for all these years. But more and more, I mean, people are putting it on land, putting it on permanent foundations, but you have this kind of expensive permanent steel chassis that lifts it like three feet off the ground, makes it look more like, you know, a mobile home, and uh, and this this law eliminates that. So it eliminates some costs, it's gonna make it even look even better. And so that's that's one change at the federal level. Uh, but we also see it at the state level. So for instance, you know, the the state of Virginia passed a requirement for every municipality in the state to set aside some of their single family residential zoned area for manufactured housing, which is a huge difference. And we're seeing more of those changes, right? If we want entry-level starter homes that are, you know, affordable, reasonable, you know, for people to actually, you know, pay for and move into a home, like this is a solution. And people, the politicians understand that.

SPEAKER_00 17:27

Why do you think there's not as many developers getting into manufactured housing? And I say that not necessarily knowing what people are doing in the shadows right now. So there could be a lot of developers who are getting ready to get into this asset class and do more development, but just looking at the number of units that have been developed over over time, it's it's a big number, but it's not, I mean, it's a small percentage of the overall number of, you know, homes or housing in the United States. Why do you think more developers haven't got into this asset class?

SPEAKER_01 17:57

Yeah, I mean, you're you're absolutely right. It's still a trickle of what, you know, the amount of new places that are being developed. And if you look at the the number of homes that are produced by the by the factories, it's about 110,000 a year. And so, and half of those are going to individuals to put on their own land, right? So that leaves, you know, roughly 50,000. And if you think about, right, so the other ones are going to uh, you know, mobile home communities, of which there are four million. And then if you just think about like, you know, these things age out, what's their useful life? You know, 40, if it's 40 years, that's a hundred thousand a year. Uh just replacement cycle. But there's only 50,000 being built. But so most of those are gonna be going just to replace units that are in existing mobile home parks. My estimate, which is, you know, maybe 10,000 a year, five, you know, somewhere, eight, five, eight, ten thousand a year are being built in new communities. It is a small amount, right? And so, you know, there's about a million ten of multifamily, no, uh, single family starts every year. So it's it's a tiny percentage, and mostly because of these opticals. You can't build it. They're just and it and so it, but if you're gonna go through the process of trying to sell people on it and and get it built, like there, you know, there's a lot of risk. You might not be able to do it. It's gonna take you a long time. So, like, you know, yeah, people have not been doing it.

SPEAKER_00 19:36

Is so is zoning the biggest obstacle, or is it the is it less about zoning and just more about the the municipality themselves and whether they're going to approve a project to be done in their community?

SPEAKER_01 19:48

Zoning, infrastructure, right, and you know, there are places, you know, in like a little further out from, you know, uh, you know, from the town borders where it's allowed, and that's where, you know, you're seeing more of these that that the ones that are that are built. So yeah, I, you know, I think perception, selling the idea of it, and the zoning and the infrastructure costs.

SPEAKER_00 20:17

Well, I want to I want to talk about the the tax, like the TIFF that you know, you had talked about the tax agreement financing and how I think those play a can play a part in this type of housing. Is that true? Could you walk us through what that looks like? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:32

So, you know, if you're and this applies to any, you know, like usually a larger multifamily development. But if you're building, you know, new 100 units, 150 units, um, you know, you're you're developing a large site, you've got a lot of infrastructure costs. You got to put in roads, you got to put in sewer, you gotta, you know, and that's expensive. And sometimes you can get money from from the city or or town, you know, sometimes you can't. Well, you know, they don't have the resources. And so one of one of the ways that you can finance it or get some of the money up front to pay for it is through um tax increment financing. Uh or you'll hear it referred to as TIFFs or a TIFF bond. And so what that allows you to do, you know, the town says they they they recognize we're gonna get a lot more property taxes after this development happens, right? I mean, you're gonna create value. Now, some people are gonna say, well, but hey, you know, we got to pay for additional schools, we got to pay for, you know, different additional police, you know, whatever. And so, like, it's not free, but they're getting a big increase in property taxes. And what this does, it allows you to, you know, basically use those incremental property taxes. That's why it's called that, and to pay those instead of paying them to the town for a certain period of time, you're gonna pay. Of those property taxes for to this bond and pay back the bond. And so you can get, you know, you can get a $3 million bond, say, and and then pay it back over the first 10 years. When that 10 years is up, then your property taxes are going to the town or the school district. Now, that is something where you really have to have town support, um, because they've got to agree to you using those pet property taxes like that for the first 10 years. And I'm saying 10 years, it doesn't have to be that, you know, it's gonna depend. But though, and those bonds are actually gonna be sold to somebody who's gonna lend you the money. And if you are using them to pay for public infrastructure like roads and sewer, they can actually be tax exempt. So maybe you can get a slightly lower um interest rate and you'll get a little bit more um to spend on those.

SPEAKER_00 22:58

So I'm gonna have you dumb this down just a little bit for me. And maybe there's one or two people out there that are in in the same boat as me, just trying to, I want to understand the TIFF financing. And so when you talk about the the bond and the developer paying that back over, you know, over X number of years, when they get approval, so the developer gets approval for this. Can you talk through the bond being issued? And then you mention the lender behind the bond that's lending money to the developer. And so to the developer, what I what I'm wondering is to the developer, are they essentially with this process using the taxpayer money to pay for some of like the infrastructure and everything on their project? So they're not paying that out of their own pocket?

SPEAKER_01 23:49

Uh close. So it's not really to the developer, it's to the project. Okay. And so, right, the money just goes and it pays for like the infrastructure. Now, if it's home ownership, right, each home is gonna have their own property taxes. It's a little bit harder to do with homeownership, but you can think of it, every homeowner is gonna have their property taxes. Instead of paying it to the town, they're paying it to the bond. And so the developer is not once they're once they built it, they're out of the picture. And so that's why it's not going to the developer. It's really going kind of to the project. And so if you can think about it, if it's a big apartment complex or one of these, you know, um uh rental communities that consists of all these kind of um smaller homes, right? Then that then that project as a whole has property taxes that again, instead of paying it to the town, they're gonna pay it to the bond.

SPEAKER_00 24:50

Okay. And then I mean, I'm assuming the the benefit to the project is that the developer that's doing the project is not paying for some of these improvements out of their own pocket. Is that the benefit to them?

SPEAKER_01 25:02

Yep. So if you look at right, sources and uses, right? And so, you know, you're gonna have your construction financing, you know, you're gonna have your equity, and this is gonna be another source, right? So if you get that three million dollar bond, your that money comes in to build the project. And then it gets paid back over time from the property taxes.

SPEAKER_00 25:23

Okay, makes sense. That's that's helpful. It may it kind of I'm on the same page now with you on this. Are there times where you think that this TIFF financing doesn't make sense for a project?

SPEAKER_01 25:33

Like I said, like, you know, for home ownership, it's trickier because like if you have, you know, a hundred homes that are being built, and then everybody buys them, and then the town's got to figure out or the bond issuer has to make sure that they're billing each individual property, right? So in that case, it may not work as well, but it it it it requires the town or the school district or the county, and because like, you know, you can have you're paying taxes to to multiple entities, right? So it could be that you're paying county taxes, you're paying town taxes, you're paying school district taxes, and you're trying to get them to agree, you know, hopefully all of them to agree, hey, you can use this money for the new tax, the new property taxes that are gonna be generated, you can use that money. We're not we're gonna agree that we're not gonna take those property taxes for 10 years.

SPEAKER_00 26:32

So let's go full circle with this. So, you know, we talked about manufactured housing, we've talked about the uh TIFF financing. And if we think about a manufactured housing project that say a city does approve and allows you to go forward with it, whether it's on the edge of town or wherever it's at in the community, and say it's a hundred units or you know, could be a hundred and I don't know, 150 units, or it's a it's a decent size that's being built. And TIFF financing is something in that case that could come into play to help with some of the infrastructure that's going to be needed. Um is that process something that when you're going through the approvals and everything with the city that you're also going through the process with the TIFF financing at the same time?

SPEAKER_01 27:17

Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And right, it's not for everyone, and it's additional brain damage, and you got to get, you know, all of the all the taxing, you know, jurisdictions on board. You also need an issuer, right? So typically there'll be like an economic development authority or an industrial development authority or some sort of um government agency that's going to issue the bonds. It gets a little bit complicated. So there's there's a public issuer, and then they issue the bonds, and then the lender will actually buy the bonds, and the money goes to the project. You know, you can think of it as whatever, let's let's call it Chase, Chase Bank or something like that. Is they're gonna buy the bonds and then they're gonna lend the money at 6% or whatever. And they're they're the owner of the bonds and they're the ones who get repaid. But you have to have that public entity that issues them. So they have to have the authority to issue them, they they have to want to issue them. So this is not for everybody.

SPEAKER_00 28:25

Well, that's a good point that it's not necessarily for everybody. So if if there's a developer out there that's never done this before, but they're looking at a project that this could make sense. Is it best in those situations that they maybe JV with somebody who has done this before and like and basically work with somebody who's been there, done that for their first one? Or or maybe there's a different approach you'd suggest they take?

SPEAKER_01 28:51

You can go through this process on your own. You're gonna want to find like a bond counsel or an attorney who does this and that works with that issuer, that agency to make this happen. And so, you know, one of the first things you can do, you go to your local, you know, economic development agency and you say, Hey, here's the project that I'm interested in. Is this something that you do? Right. And then if they say yes, then you know that it's a possibility. And then then you can ask them for, you know, anybody that they have worked with, you know, with uh with other developers, and you can you can reach out to them and try to kick off that process just to see if it's you know, if it's possible and how it might work.

SPEAKER_00 29:36

What's uh do you have a project that you've worked on over the years that has been one of your favorites or one that um you know stands out in your mind that you could talk about?

SPEAKER_01 29:47

Yeah, well, but I mean, before maybe before we get on to that, I want to talk a little bit about like, you know, how the old mobile homes are different from like the current version. Um just going back to kind of the financing issue because there's a significant difference as to how the old ones were set up. And so, right, and I'm a finance and numbers guy, so I could talk about this all day long, but I I I think this is important. So, you know, originally the way that these were done, these were basically a you know, a vehicle. And so they were treat, you know, a lot and a lot of them still are classified that way. That means that they're personal property or chattel, as the as you know they're called in the in the industry. And so they're not treated as real estate. This is not a home. It's it's much more like like a vehicle. And so then that means you're getting like a car loan, basically, on these. You know, when I talked about how even now half of that hundred thousand of factory-built housing are going to individuals who are putting it down on their own land, a lot of those people are, you know, and these are sold through like local retailers, but who you can kind of think of as like car dealerships or used car dealerships. They're not the greatest place places. I I don't like this model. And then they um are gonna give you your car loan for your home. And these are not these are not great loans, they're the you know, higher interest rate, and so that has been one challenge in the past where they've not been so attractive for homeowners. The other is that in these mobile home parks, you know, they're often they're sitting on land that they don't own. And so they're paying uh a rent to lease the land underneath their home. And if you could think about it, like these mobile homes are not very mobile. And there are there are a lot of people who have moved into this space and said, hey, we can buy these places and you know, we can increase these land leases because what are people gonna do? Are they gonna move it? No, that's expensive, and the thing, you know, some of the old ones might fall apart. So they don't really have a choice. And so people have gone in, raised those land leases. And and I'm talking about like some of these are like some of the big um investment firms. So, like Blackstone uh and some of these other places to make a lot of money, and they have made a lot of money, and there's been some backlash on the legislative side for that to say, hey, you can't do that, or you have to let the residents, you know, um, buy it first. But the great thing is that that has really started to change. And so even among people who take the home and put it on their own land, right, they can talk to a financing firm who can get them a 30-year mortgage, um, who can get them an FHA mortgage where they're putting like, you know, one to three percent down. Uh and so, you know, if they qualify. So but what it requires is it for it to be titled as real estate. Uh, that means it has to be on a permanent foundation, uh, which you can do. You you have to get titled as real estate, which is a process with the state usually. Um, but if you do those steps, like you can get great financing and it's it's actually real estate. Uh and so, you know, that piece too has has really changed the industry.

SPEAKER_00 33:28

Well, I'm glad you talked about that too, because I think there's a part of it as well that goes into the property taxes, because you know, I knew somebody who had, and this isn't necessarily the exact same thing, but they had built this big, they're building this big shed in their backyard. And they chose to put a wood floor in instead of concrete because it didn't increase the value of the, you know, dwelling or whatever on the property. So they didn't increase their property taxes by doing that because it was, it wasn't considered like a permanent structure or whatever on their on their property. I wonder in this scenario, if there's going to be similar things where some of these people are choosing to put them on foundations that are maybe more mobile. And because then when they do that, it doesn't necessarily're still just paying taxes on land and not necessarily on the house itself. Is that something that we have to think about with this? Well, they still get taxed.

SPEAKER_01 34:25

They get you, you know, their personal property taxes, right? I mean, they're the whatever the the value of the home is, you know, whatever gets appraised at is still going to be taxed. So, you know, there's the tax man gets gets what they do, actually.

SPEAKER_00 34:42

They do. Yes. Well, um, I think you know, you've obviously listened to the show many times before. So you knew when I was getting to the project talk that we were starting to head toward the last couple segments of the show. Um, anything else you think that we should dig into before we kind of head into these last couple segments?

SPEAKER_01 34:58

No, I mean, I I would just encourage people to to learn a little bit about, you know, what this new product looks like, um, what these new communities can look like, and to think about, hey, right, is this something that could fit, you know, in in terms of what I want to do? And, you know, because it is changing and it is becoming easier. And when it becomes the and when it becomes as of right, you know, a conforming zone use, then the obstacles are lower, right? I mean, it's still not easy, but you know, that that helps reduce the time and and the obstacles and the ability for no neighbors to say, no, it's um, it's certainly something for people to consider.

SPEAKER_00 35:42

Yeah, and I wonder how that's gonna all play out as well. Um, because, you know, even when it's as of right and you're able to do a project, depending on how loud certain community members are in opposition to the project, how many of them are there are, just because as we've talked about many times on the show before, there's it's just so easy for people to organize on social media and stuff now to oppose different projects and everything. They just messages spread so fast, and then now you've got people to come out there with pitchforks. And uh with some of these projects too, just you know, are people gonna try to sabotage them uh somehow? And maybe not. Maybe they they're just there to try to stop it. And if it goes forward, then they're they go back and look for the next, next thing to to go and go after. Um, do you have any feel for what that might look like?

SPEAKER_01 36:29

Yeah. So, right, if um if you're going in and say, hey, I want to do this, but there's no there's no place, you know, that the that the city or town has designated that you know it could be done, right? So then you're like, okay, well, I need a special exception. I need a zoning variance. And for that, right, you got to go to the planning board. They've got to, they've got to okay it. You got to go to the town council, they've got to okay it. And that's where people, if they make a big stink about it, town council is not gonna vote for it. They're not gonna be okay with it. Now, it's so if it's a conforming use, that helps a lot. Now, there's still like the environmental review opens up some possibilities for people to protest it, but it can be a much smoother process with less ability for people to just stop it. And that, like I said, that's changing, you know. And one example I mentioned was Virginia, where they're saying, hey, everybody's gotta create part of their single family residential to allow this.

SPEAKER_00 37:36

Yeah. And I think, you know, we talked about this throughout the conversation, but I think there's a I think the developers or whoever's developing these and who's gonna manage them going forward. I think there's a responsibility there to develop these like they would a big community, as far as like thinking about the things that the residents want and need in these communities, even if they're smaller units. And to your point earlier, you talked about how these, you know, man, the manufactured housing is being built different these days than maybe it was in the past, where they are looking like real homes. They're smaller, but they're still, you know, you have your porch and you have it looking like a real home, which may, you know, when you're able to show that to the community at these uh, you know, approval meetings, or if you're having a meeting with the community ahead of time to get some community buy-in and you're able to show them what this is gonna look like. And to them, it's like it looks just like any other neighborhood. They're just smaller units. I feel like you're gonna get a lot more buy-in versus if you show them, you know, your traditional trailer park and what those units look that look like there.

SPEAKER_01 38:38

Hugely important. You gotta have visuals, you've got to have examples that have been done elsewhere. You know, um, if you can get people to go visit other communities so they see what it's really like, that helps a lot, right? People are gonna have their own, you know, image unless you can give them something new. They will look like a denser neighborhood, but I I think of it uh as like, you know, a kind of a mini suburban, you know, subdivision.

SPEAKER_00 39:09

Uh they're just smaller. Well, let's let's shift into the project talk then, because uh I am curious if you have any of these types of projects or other projects you've done over the years that uh has been your favorite or one that you could talk about.

SPEAKER_01 39:21

Yeah. So you you know, like I mentioned, there are places where it has been able, you know, uh people have been able to do it within the existing zoning and and and requirements the way that they are. One place uh that is is Texas. There's a developer called Robertson that has built some really nice communities. We can put some links to that. There's a place in New Bronze Bronzefells, which is in between San Antonio and Austin. You know, it was built by Yes Communities, which is the largest owner of mobile home parks, which is a good example. They mostly bought their communities, and you know, they they upgraded communities as they bought them, right? So they're replacing some of the more run-down units, um, they're adding amenities, um, you know, definitely cleaning them up and making them a lot more attractive, which, you know, which is appreciated by the communities. But, you know, they did build a new development. I'm not sure how much more they're gonna do that, but you know, that that's a that's a good example of one that has been done recently. Now that's done as a as a rental, because that's their model, that's what they do. But, you know, they're there are people who are also doing them as as homeownership.

SPEAKER_00 40:41

Well, that's a good point, too, because it's not, I guess it's this is not just net new, right? It's not just finding land and building out new communities of this type. There's obviously, well, what you said, you know, eight million units across the country, half of them being in mobile home parks. And so those, you know, four million units that are out there are probably in some way, shape, or form in need of some uh some improvements, and maybe there's opportunities for people to go and actually acquire some of those and do some improvements and then maybe add on to it if there's adjoining land or anything like that.

SPEAKER_01 41:18

Yes. So definitely if you know of a local place, you know, you definitely want to acquire, uh, inquire about it, um, see if you can figure out who knows it. It has been, you know, it was it it was largely just kind of mom and pop businesses over the years. Now, there has been uh a really significant move towards this kind of institutional ownership uh where they're buying up these. And so, you know, it's gotten more competitive as that has happened. There, there are probably fewer opportunities than there used to be.

SPEAKER_00 41:54

Well, we're at uh a little over 40 minutes here, so we should probably shift into the last segment, which is a lightning round. So I've got five questions for you related to your experience in the industry. Uh, first one for you, and some of these I've found lately that a lot of these end up there is a little bit of overlap versus, you know, compared to some of the things we've talked about. We'll we'll still roll with it here. Uh first one, what's one thing people get wrong about manufactured housing?

SPEAKER_01 42:18

Oh, I mean, it's just the old image. If you remember that commercial, you're probably too too young, right? This is not your grandfather's old Oldsmobile, right? That that was that was one of their ad campaigns for a while because everybody thought, like, and I mean, it's a terrible name anyway, Oldsmobile. True. But uh, right. It's just kind of this like old outdated thing. And then they were trying to, you know, build this new sleeker thing. But I whatever. It's a great slogan, I think. So yeah, this is not your grandfather's trailer park. It's way, way different. But like I said, it's still just a trickle of new developments. But you can see online, you can find places and be like, oh, now I understand what Kevin is talking about. He's not crazy.

SPEAKER_00 43:01

All right. Second one, are you more optimistic or pessimistic about housing over the next 10 years? Yeah, it's really interesting.

SPEAKER_01 43:10

If you look at new housing starts um or uh e inventory, you know, the um the prices uh of what's being built today has actually started to come down some. So, which is very interesting. And in some ways, I think they've the builders have kind of overbuilt the more upscaled homes. And so now they're trying to figure out how to make it work. I think that's fantastic. Now, if you look too at some of the inventory that's out there, there are a number of markets that are kind of overbuilt. And so, you know, we'll we'll see how that, you know, eventually that'll be digested. But there's, you know, home builders are given a lot of incentives, some price discounts, right? Just they build a lot of homes on spec. They weren't pre-sold. So it'll be interesting to see how that plays out. That I mean, that's true in the multifamily world too. Rents have actually come down in places like Austin and Denver. And so, right, there's near-term supply issues, but yeah, there's, you know, everybody needs a place to live.

SPEAKER_00 44:14

All right, third one. If you could solve one problem in real estate overnight, what would it be? I mean, to me, it's zoning, right? And the obstacles.

SPEAKER_01 44:23

And so zoning and environmental review. Because that's another thing where you know, you can get you can get hung up um because people make a fuss over, you know, what it it it requires an additional public review process. And so that's yeah, I I I think those two things.

SPEAKER_00 44:42

All right, fourth one. What's one piece of advice you'd give to someone just getting into development? Just learn. Make lots of mistakes. Whoever makes the most mistakes wins. As long as you only make them once, right? Yeah, don't make the same mistake over and over.

SPEAKER_01 44:58

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 44:59

All right, last one. If you weren't in real estate, what do you think you'd be doing instead? Jeez, I mean, when I was a kid, I always thought that I was gonna be a scientist.

SPEAKER_01 45:07

I didn't even know what that meant, but like that was my idea. So I don't know. Uh if I if I was smart, I probably would have gone into like making chips or something.

SPEAKER_00 45:18

Yeah, there you go.

SPEAKER_01 45:19

Semiconductors.

SPEAKER_00 45:20

Yes, yes. Well, awesome. What's the best way for people listening in to connect with you and uh yeah, and just and reach out?

SPEAKER_01 45:29

Yeah. So hey, I I'm I'm on LinkedIn, you know, the company that I've been working for, R4 Capital, you know, we'll put a link there. You see my profile, a little bit more about me. That's that's the best place to reach me.

SPEAKER_00 45:43

Perfect. So as we just talked about here, if you guys look down in the description for this episode, you'll see a link there to the show notes page. On the show notes page will be several links from what we talked about. Kevin, really appreciate you joining me and talking through a topic that we've touched on very little in the show's history. So uh super interesting stuff. Yeah. Well, hey, appreciate it. Thanks for having me on. Yes, absolutely. All right, guys, that's all for this episode. If you're not already subscribed, please click that button. We'd love to have you back for the next one. And one more ask for all of you out there. Uh, we also have a small community that we have built around the podcast. If you head over to land at devpodcast.com, you'll see over there you can create a free account and join some of us. We've got some community features and everything that's going to be going live there very soon. So love to see all of you guys over there. Otherwise, with that said, we'll talk to you all next week.