From Eviction to Successful Real Estate Investor, with Adrian Smude | Financial & Tax Series

Intro  

Welcome to another edition of inspired stories where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from their successes, how they’ve overcome adversity, and explore current challenges they’re facing.

Anthony (host): 

Welcome to another edition of the Inspired Stories podcast, where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from their successes, how they’ve overcome adversity and explore current challenges they’re facing. My name is Anthony Cotisbodi and today’s guest is Adrian Smooth, the founder of lifestyle real estate investing. He owns and runs a successful real estate business and is the author of the best selling book how to buy Mobile Homes and travels the country educating others. He has been investing in real estate for over 20 years, though his start was not the most traditional. We’ll hear more about how he actually got evicted from his apartment. And rather than let that trigger a downward spiral, he actually picked himself up and found motivation to purchase his first of what would become many properties. And now he teaches others how to do what he does. Before we get into the good stuff, today’s episode is brought to you by my company, addback benefits agency, where we offer very specific and unique employee benefits that are both great for your team and fiscally optimized for your bottom line. One recent client was able to save over $900 per employee per year by implementing one of our proprietary programs. Another client is going to save over one $200 per employee per year by implementing a patented construct that we offer. Results vary for each company and some organizations may not be eligible. To find out if your company qualifies, contact us today@addbackbenefitsagency.com. Now back to our guest today, the founder of lifestyle real estate investing. Adrian. I appreciate you making time to share your story today.

Adrian (guest): 14:58

Yeah, thanks for having me, Anthony. I’m excited about our conversation.

Anthony (host): 15:01

Me too. Let’s jump into it. Tell us in your own words, what does lifestyle real estate investing do?

Adrian (guest): 15:09

It’s in my education and company and the way that I built my business that I want to help inspire others to do is that my business serves my life versus the way that a lot of society teaches us to do it, that we serve our business. I want my business to serve my life. So that’s what the lifestyle part is. And because I’m a real estate investor and that’s the main topics I talk on. But I do touch on other business topics. But the real estate investor, which commonly confused with the hiking company REI

Anthony (host): 15:43

and. So what does that mean? Have the business support your life.

Adrian (guest): 15:48

I don’t believe that most of us want to work 40, 50, 80 hours a week. A long time ago, a training I was at, they had us fill out our ideal calendar and it could not have business in it. So then we had to fill in the blank spots with business time, and it was such an impactful part. Now, do I work more than 40 hours? Yes, if you consider everything I do business wise, but I don’t consider this work right now. This is exciting to me to jump on here and talk about business and real estate. So, yes, it’s hours, but it’s exciting hours to me. So it’s serving me and it’s helping other people.

Anthony (host): 16:31

So you have a particularly interesting origin story. Tell us how you got started in all of this.

Adrian (guest): 16:39

I got started as a tenant, like most of us do. As soon as we move out from mom and dad and a group of friends and I, we were renting some property, and we were really bad tenants. We had parties. We had spaghetti wrestling parties, mud wrestling parties, pudding wrestling parties, and we even have an eviction notice for parking the motorcycle in the living room. We did not get the eviction notice for having a pool party in the living room because he didn’t find out about that. Essentially, don’t rent to 20 year old Adrian and his friends.

Anthony (host): 17:15

This reminds me of a scene from old school. Is it very similar to that with Will Ferrell?

Adrian (guest): 17:21

Yes. One of my favorite movies. He’s one of my favorite actors. The ironic thing is we actually didn’t really drink at that age. How we had such crazy parties with no alcohol or any substance, I don’t know. We were really creative, but we had fun, crazy parties.

Anthony (host): 17:39

So you go from getting an eviction notice and what happens next

Adrian (guest): 17:45

after our. Second property, being evicted from?

Anthony (host): 17:48

So it wasn’t just one. There were two.

Adrian (guest): 17:50

Oh, yeah,

Anthony (host): 17:51

we

Adrian (guest): 17:52

got evicted, had to move on. Getting evicted again. I am a problem solver at heart. I love doing it, and I realize a lot of business. And in the real estate investing side, if we can solve problems, we can make money. That’s really where a lot of it comes from. And I didn’t know all this at the time. I just know I do like solving problems. So the problem to solve was getting evicted again. I had a family member at the time that was a mortgage broker. He said, well, why don’t you buy a house? This is back when you have a partial heartbeat and you sign paperwork. They gave you houses for free. It felt like, what’s this

Anthony (host): 18:29

time frame? Like? Early 2000s?

Adrian (guest): 18:32

Yes, early 2000s. It would have been almost 21 years ago. I think I’m bad with time frames. So it was. Yes, very early. Two thousand s and bought the house, moved my friends in. I divided my mortgage up amongst my friends, so that I would live for free. So living for free at 20 years old, not with mom and dad, is really cool. But the uncool part is I learned what the landlord was dealing with because all of a sudden I had to deal with all these parties that we were having because we still had parties there. And I slowly slowed them down because I had to deal with it was my property we were destroying. All of a sudden,

Anthony (host): 19:15

no more pudding wrestling parties. Then

Adrian (guest): 19:17

we did not have any more pudding. Like I said. We did mess up the house some. And I started, like I said, learning this was a bad idea. I’m paying this mortgage every month and we’re destroying this place. But living for free, like I said, is really cool. So I said, a few years later, can I do this again? Went back to the bank, they said, yes, you can do it again, but you’re going to lose a little bit every month. And don’t worry. Real estate goes straight up, is what they said. You can refinance in a few years. So a few years later, I go to refinance it and we’re in that great recession and the value is going down at the same time. I had this adjustable rate mortgage that we’ve all read about the newspaper. So my payment actually was going up, which is not what I would have thought would have happened, because values were going down, but the payment was going up. I went from losing a little bit every month to a little bit more. My ego said, you’re right, hold on to this thing. And the pain exceeded my ego at the bottom of the market. So I essentially timed the market opposite. I bought it at the top and sold it at the bottom. I’ve never gone back to the exact day, but it’s close. So I sold it. I think it was at a 48% loss. And obviously a ding to my ego. Again, ding to my credit. But the bigger one was a ding to my integrity. I didn’t do what I said I was going to do. My parents brought me up to have very high integrity, and a short sale is essentially the opposite. You’re not paying what you agreed to pay. So that always stuck with me in the back of my mind and still does today to make sure I set my business up. I’m very conservative with my numbers. People laugh about me saying I’m conservative because I’m in the mobile home space. But when it comes to the numbers, I’m very safe. I’ve run that very safe because I’m never compromising my integrity again.

Anthony (host): 21:19

So we’re already hearing sort of a couple of ups and downs, right? Two eviction notices and then, wow, this is really cool. I found I can buy a house, charge all of my friends rent, live here for free myself. Now I’m going to do this again. And, oh, darn it, the bottom falls out of the market. So now you’ve cratered again. Where do you go from here? How do you pick yourself up?

Adrian (guest): 21:46

I don’t honestly know what was going through my head to not just spiral down down. My parents are happy and joyful. My friends were, I think. I didn’t have that crowd around me that was like everything’s doomsday, dying. I believe that’s part of it, because I have thought through this, like, why didn’t I spiral down further?

Anthony (host): 22:10

A lot of people do,

Adrian (guest): 22:11

right?

Anthony (host): 22:12

The rugs pulled out from under them, and, man, it’s just hard to get back up again.

Adrian (guest): 22:17

I know part of what I do, at least today, and I think I had some of this mentality in the past, is if I’m right or wrong about being overly positive and optimistic. That’s my only choice. We only hear once. So I can be wrong about being super positive. At least I’m happy on my wrong path. That’s just kind of the mentality I have. So things are going to work out, and then when I look back, they usually do when I have that mentality and even when I have these mistakes, because I still have mistakes, at least I was happy on my way to that mistake instead of doomsdaying, unhappy on my way to the mistake. I went to go buy another house because they had told me two years from that short sale ding to that credit, you can buy another house.

Anthony (host): 23:08

All

Adrian (guest): 23:08

right. Well, two years later, they said they just changed it two weeks prior from me talking to the mortgage broker. It’s now three years again. I’m a problem solver. I always like, all right, well, that’s their rule. How can I get around this problem? Well, my girlfriend at the time, my wife, now, she was perfect for a mortgage company. She didn’t have any debt. She had a good job working in a hospital. I said, well, why don’t you buy the house then? They like you. You’re nice on the books. So I got her to buy a house, and we did that a few times as well. Every time I’ve had a challenge, I look at it, well, how can I solve this problem? There’s a way around the mountain, or some people bull heads right through the mountain and I do that some I’m more of like, all right, this obstacle there. I’m just going to figure a way to get around it.

Anthony (host): 24:03

I wonder if this is true for you as well. One thing I’ve noticed about myself is when I can face a problem from a place of curiosity rather than, to use your word, like doomsday. My mind and my body are just so much more free. Like, oh, okay, here’s a problem. Let’s think of a creative solution to it, as opposed to if I’m all knotted up and I’m worried and I think the end of the world is coming, I’m just not thinking clearly. I’m not coming up with my best ideas. Is it the same for you? Have you found this to be similar for yourself?

Adrian (guest): 24:41

I never completely thought of it in that wording, but, yes, you’re completely right. I am a very curious person. I love asking questions. I annoy certain people because I ask so many, and that’s my curious side. Yeah, that is definitely part of what I’m doing. This is one reason I love these interviews, because I get to learn from your viewpoint on things. Yeah, I’ve definitely been doing that.

Anthony (host): 25:04

So you’ve already mentioned the investing that you’re doing now is in mobile homes. You’ve got a backdrop here behind you. Adrian, please tell me this is not one of your investment properties.

Adrian (guest): 25:17

It is. I actually bought this one on her anniversary. So I joke around that this was my anniversary gift to her.

Anthony (host): 25:26

You’re a true romantic. All right, so teach me. Then I’m going to go back to being curious because I put my eyes on that, and, man, that place looks like a dump. It just looks like a world of trouble. Tell me why you’ve got this as your backdrop, why you’re so proud of this.

Adrian (guest): 25:44

So I got this lead. I think I have a coupon book or something, and the guy kept calling. It was slow conversation, and I could tell over the phone, I don’t want this property because this used to scare me. It’s a 1960s. It comes with most of its siding. It actually had no electrical work. It had lots of problems with it.

Anthony (host): 26:06

There’s no electrical.

Adrian (guest): 26:08

He was in the middle himself of rewiring it, not being an electrician. So I was like, I don’t want this thing. Then I went to class and learned some more techniques and got educated, and I went on this appointment to meet with this seller, not to buy his property, but to practice something I had just learned. And that was my goal. And in hindsight, I learned that. That allowed me to relax some because the goal had nothing to do with him. I could completely fulfill my goal and be a winner just by practicing what I had learned. And that practice was of how to negotiate some owner financing. And then he said yes. And I was like, oh, I don’t really know that I want. What’s going on my head is, I don’t really know I want to do all this work, because at that time, I had never done a rehab on something this scary looking. It’s made us a lot of money. I’m very glad I did, but I went there to practice what I had learned because I am more of the kinesthetic learner. Like, I can learn it and understand everything, but it’s not real to me until I do it.

Anthony (host): 27:23

Got to put it into practice.

Adrian (guest): 27:24

Yeah.

Anthony (host): 27:25

And going back to that idea of being sort of relaxed and curious, you went in there with zero expectations because you were just taking a practice swing.

Adrian (guest): 27:33

Exactly. And that’s happened other times in my life. When I go practice something, I had just learned some certain lines or anything. And we still own this one today to kind of give some people some quick numbers on

Anthony (host): 27:47

it.

Adrian (guest): 27:47

We bought two of these, actually, from the owner, each of them the same exact deal. We paid $7,500. This is from the dirt and the home.

Anthony (host): 27:58

Okay,

Adrian (guest): 27:59

so the home, Atlanta, it was probably worth about that. It’s in bad condition from the outside looking in. $1,000 down, $100 a month, zero interest. That’s the type of interest I like to pay. Sometimes people talk me up, but I always like to start at zero because that’s the least I can pay until paid. So there’s no balloon at the end. And one of the lines I went to practice is to offer it. So he gave me the price, and my reply was, yes, if you’ll accept payments.

Anthony (host): 28:41

The only way I can do that is you give him a yes. There’s emotional reaction that happens there, right? Is that part of the thinking?

Adrian (guest): 28:50

Yes. So giving him his

Anthony (host): 28:53

side,

Adrian (guest): 28:54

if he’ll give me my side. And then the hardest part is to be quiet and let them. If they say no right away, yeah, it’s probably going to be a no. But if there’s silence and it’s awkward, you’re good. You can have a conversation now about it. It’s not like a quick, hard shutdown. And then we talked it through. I already had some rough numbers in my head of what I could pay, and it ended up being better than my rough numbers, and we made a deal.

Anthony (host): 29:21

And so you rent this out for how much a month now?

Adrian (guest): 29:24

About $700. A little bit more than $700 a month. Obviously, we had to put money into it. We put about 13,000 from my memory into this. So we’ve got a little over $15,000 cash in it and it’s bringing in 700 gross. So that’s, we’ll just say 300, $350 net spendable money because a lot of people like to measure in gross dollars and we can’t eat off of gross dollars. We can only eat off of net dollars. So I’m very hard on what’s the net? What can I actually eat

Anthony (host): 29:59

for somebody. Who’S not familiar with this world? Is this what this place looked like when you first bought it or is this what it looks

Adrian (guest): 30:05

like now? It’s what it looked like when I first bought it. We had to do some repairs to it, get it safe and livable. We did not go in there and put granite or make it this beautiful property. It is in the affordable housing space, so the people that live there cannot afford the top rent. There’s a lot of people that can’t afford it, and I’m here to serve those people. Do we have properties that are in the above the affordable housing space and get a few thousand dollars a month of rent? Yes, but I also like to serve the person that just cannot afford it because of their pay and their income. And they like to stay a long time and they take care of the property.

Anthony (host): 30:46

Yeah, that’s my next question is I’m looking at a place like that and I’m like, you have got to have all kinds of tenant issues.

Adrian (guest): 30:53

So the trailer trash people like to say all mobile homes are trailer trash. I have found, doesn’t matter what the construction is, if you buy a bad home in a bad area and you fix it up, not great. Who are you going to attract into that property? A not so great tenant resident. Opposite is true. You buy a good home in a good area and you fix it up nice, who are you going to attract? Probably a much higher quality resident tenant. It doesn’t matter what it’s made out of. Those matter more than the construction. So this home is not in the best area, but it’s where someone wants to live, not has to live. And we did not do a massive rehab on it because, well, it can’t afford granite and a really high end rehab. So we made it safe and livable, which attracted a handyman, handy woman that doesn’t mind doing a little bit of work to make it their home. And I have found over my years that handyman, handy woman, the blue collar world stay longer. They take pride in their home. Even if it’s just a rental, they’re not buying it. They take pride in it. And I like that someone is going to take pride in their home. That’s not everyone that we get. We have some white collar working from home straight out of college, it making seventy five k a year. We have some of those people living. We have all different types of people, but we are more geared to the blue collar handyman, handy woman.

Anthony (host): 32:33

So are all of your properties in the mobile home space?

Adrian (guest): 32:37

Yes. So we don’t own anything that does not or did not have wheels on it at some point. We have some houses that are built there on site, construction walls that are concrete, nice and strong buildings that we rent from the owner long term with the rights to sublet it out. We call it a master lease. So we have a few of those, a handful of those, and we manage those the exact same way. Now, I don’t own anything in an area that people have to live. I don’t own anything in an area that I don’t feel safe sitting my wife on a Friday night at 06:00 alone. That’s kind of my parameter. So you can’t really just go to a crime map and see that you can get an idea. That’s my filter. Have I bought properties in those bad areas because of greed? Because I saw the numbers? Yes. I’m not the manager for that. I have friends that are very hard and a lot of times it’s ex military, ex cops that they just have a better mindset for handling that. It doesn’t fit my personality.

Anthony (host): 33:44

So are these properties that when you’re going in to buy them, are they all owner financed or are there opportunities where the banks have an appetite to support this kind of a transaction?

Adrian (guest): 33:55

It’s a great question. Let’s split mobile homes up into two eras, the 1960s and 1970s and then the 1990s and newer. The 1980s are kind of a transition decade. I call it the quality got better. There’s still a lot of things you have to do to get the bank financing. The older ones in 1960s and 70s. Essentially it’s either private money, a friend or family that knows, likes and trusts me, and they want to be the bank. They want some diversification from their stock portfolio or they want to be thrills of real estate without actually having to do all the work that comes along with it. So they want some exposure and then owner financing. So that’s how we finance those. And it’s really your only option. There is a magic year in the mobile home space. It’s June 15, 1976. The federal government stepped in HuD and said we need to have a standard of how these things are built. Before that, there was no standard. I call it the Wild, Wild west. They all made them a little differently. Different states made them differently, so they upgraded. That made a standard. It was a really good move by the federal government. I know we don’t all agree with what the government does. This is a time that it was a very good thing that they did. And we’ve had some upgrades since then, but that’s a really big year older than that. You are not getting bank financing. It is not possible. If you ever find a bank that says it, an actual legitimate bank, not a human, let me know, because it’s not possible. So you can get the financing then that means on the upper 70s. But the requirement to get it up to the code that they want is not easy.

Anthony (host): 35:41

So

Adrian (guest): 35:41

that’s why we really don’t even look at it there. In the 80s, there’s starting to be more possibilities. It starts becoming worth it to put the money into it. So then you have the newer. You can get some banks to finance it, really. If you’re going to go a bank, look for a community bank and a credit union. They usually have more of an appetite for the exposure to mobile homes. You just have to keep asking over and over. Personally, no matter what business I’m doing, I look for a community bank and a credit union because there’s just more of a relationship. I have some community bank accounts that in today’s world I actually have the bank manager’s cell phone number that I can text. It’s crazy. You’re never getting that at a chase or bank of America or just I’m a relationship person. If you’re going to go the fix and flip route or you want the bank financing community banks, you get newer, you can get some of the bigger banks. I just like dealing with smaller banks because they actually know who I am. I’m not just a number on their

Anthony (host): 36:41

spreadsheet. And these are traditionally banks that are located in the same geography

Adrian (guest): 36:45

as

Anthony (host): 36:46

where you’re acquiring the property.

Adrian (guest): 36:48

Yes. Great clarification. Yeah. Now me personally, I run my business bank free since April of 22. I don’t have any bank debt. I just get it more of an emotional value of writing the check to someone. I know their story and where the money is going. It feels a little bit better than writing a check to a bank. Of America. Now that feels like a bill and it’s easier. You get three or four deals at one time. It’s sent out a few emails and texts and have some conversation and it’s funded that week. It’s a relationship thing. It takes a longer time to build that. But in all business I’ve seen that relationship is a longest term way to do business.

Anthony (host): 37:34

So you’ve moved away from bank financing personally. But for those people who are still using it or when you were using it, you like to use local banks, community banks, credit unions. And I understand sort of the timeline of they want something that was after 76, probably even like in the 90s because it more likely up to code. Are there other restrictions like the size of the mobile home has to be particular square footage. Do they want it somehow anchored down to the property so your tenant can’t run off with it? I don’t know. What other kinds of

Adrian (guest): 38:12

qualifications

Anthony (host): 38:13

are there?

Adrian (guest): 38:14

Yes to all of that. I always advise people to ask the community bank or the credit union their qualifications because they get to make the rules a little bit different and it’ll change between the banks. But in general, you’re right, they’re going to want the tie downs. So mobile homes are not that mobile. They cost a lot to move, but they still are. So there’s literally some metal straps that wrap around the trailer, piece of it and anchor in the ground to physically hold it down. I’m in central Florida, so we have these things called hurricanes. So they hold it down so the hurricane doesn’t blow it

Anthony (host): 38:52

away.

Adrian (guest): 38:53

There’s some newer methods with the newer ones where it literally runs through the walls, runs through the roof and then back down the other side. So much stronger. But there’s different.

Anthony (host): 39:02

This is some sort of a metal cable

Adrian (guest): 39:04

essentially, yeah. And it runs in the wall that’s built from the factory that way. They build these now that can withstand 165 miles per hour

Anthony (host): 39:13

wind.

Adrian (guest): 39:14

So that’s a serious hurricane. I don’t have any of those because they don’t cash flow as well. And my risk tolerance allows me to buy the ones behind me. So I think investing in any business, we need to invest in what allows us to sleep. There’s no reason to be financially free if you’re up worrying about your business all night. That doesn’t make sense to me. So everyone has a little bit different of a business model there, building that relationship, asking them what they want. They’re going to want the skirting. Sometimes they have a different size holes. Usually it’s around a quarter. So finding a quarter. And they don’t want any holes bigger than that. They have different requirements of what they want. So it’s really asking them before you buy and get it under contract, what are your requirements so you can build a proper scope of work to know your numbers, even if you’re fix and flipping, because who’s going to fund the fix and flip the bank? So now we need to know what it is. So you rehab the right way.

Anthony (host): 40:17

So in addition to having your own real estate investing business, you have a mastermind where you’re teaching people how to do this. You wrote a book where you teach people how to do this. The name of the book again? Oh, sorry. No, I was going to say it’s 14. There we go. How to buy mobile homes. So what does somebody learn from reading the book? What does somebody learn from being part of the mastermind? What are they getting for that?

Adrian (guest): 40:43

So the book is my story going a little bit more detail than we’ve had time today. And through my story, I’m teaching about how to buy mobile homes. And since the topic of the podcast is inspiration, I was in remedial classes all through school and writing my book, I learned I’m dyslexic. So the old saying, if I can do it, so can you. If a dyslexic guy can write a book and a dyslexic guy can buy mobile homes, so can you. And it’s meant to be an inspirational, not poking at people. And I’m not saying it was easy. It was difficult to write it and actually more difficult to read it because I did the audio. But I found every time I do something that’s hard, other things seem easier and not as complex. I like doing hard things now because it makes everyday life feel better and easier. And then it prepares me for when the hard thing comes that I don’t get the choice to do or not. So that’s the book. My mastermind is for high level real estate investors. It’s not geared only to mobile homes. It’s people that are living off of their real estate just to get around a group of people that are like minded, that want to go to the next level that’s mine. Elite level mastermind. I’m in other masterminds, so they’re not all, I would say that high, high level, but any type of mastermind, I think is super important, that fits your personality. I look at them as a board of advisors. We go in there and we say it’s a closed, safe room. That information is not going to get out to the rest of the public so that you feel vulnerable, that you can share. This is what I’m struggling with right now. Could be business, could be relationships, and then everyone gets to feed into them and say, oh, yeah, I had that problem. Here’s what I did. Because our problems aren’t that special. Everyone’s had in a room of closed room, almost always someone in that room has had the same problem or has a friend that had that same problem. And for me, it just helps me feel like, oh, I’m not the only person in the world with this challenge. And then everyone feeds into me and I have some actual actionable items to go back and say, okay, well, this is how I’m going to solve the problem. And it keeps that inspiration, like you said, that curiousness to keep you from going down. It’s like, oh, yeah, this is simple. Let’s fix it.

Anthony (host): 43:10

I’ve heard this so many times from other business owners and lived it. Experienced it myself as well. People look at you from the outside and they think, this guy’s got it all together. He was born this way. They don’t know what’s going on behind the curtain. They don’t know the things that you’re struggling with. And as a business owner, as a business leader, lots of times you feel like you don’t have a safe place to share that and to vent and to process and to ask for help and advice. And so when you can find that community, like these masterminds that you’re describing, that you can open up and share about what you’re struggling with, and there’s a whole room full of people who can say, been there, done that. Here’s how I came through

Adrian (guest): 43:57

1. Let

Anthony (host): 43:58

me help you out. It’s so powerful, and it takes a weight off of your shoulders because you no longer have to feel embarrassed or ashamed about it. Right. It’s like there’s other people in here who are operating at levels that I want to aspire to, and they’ve walked the same path.

Adrian (guest): 44:18

Yeah, I completely agree. I think it was David Goggins that recently I heard. So I listen to a lot of inspiration. That’s one way I keep myself from going down, is I listen to inspirational stuff, sometimes a few hours a day. It’s not often that I go a few days without anything, but I believe it was David Goggins that recently said, we wouldn’t feel like alone in our problem if in society, we just talked about our problems. Because your neighbor has problems. You just don’t know that they have the same problem as it just. I heard it the right way last few days of hearing that. Yeah. I need to talk about my challenges openly, which is scary as a leader. Super scary. But if I don’t, I’m not serving people and being the right leader, because now they think, as you said, I have all my stuff together, and I don’t. I make mistakes on an ongoing basis.

Anthony (host): 45:14

So you said something really interesting, talking about the book. It was through the process of writing the book that you discovered that you had dyslexia.

Adrian (guest): 45:22

Yes.

Anthony (host): 45:23

And so how old are you at this point, when you make this discovery?

Adrian (guest): 45:29

So I was 38.

Anthony (host): 45:31

38 years old. You had gone through your entire life. You’d gone through grade school, high school. I don’t know if there was college or not, but your whole working life, and no idea that this was something that you were struggling with, that you were dealing with.

Adrian (guest): 45:48

Exactly. So I’m very fortunate. I actually still know some of my elementary school teachers, and I texted my remedial class at that time. They called it SLD, which is slow learning disability. And I texted her, I’m like, any chance I’m dyslexic? And she said, oh, yeah, why didn’t I know that? She’s like, well, back then, we really didn’t know. We just had this big box we put people

Anthony (host): 46:10

in.

Adrian (guest): 46:11

And so I don’t use it as an excuse that, oh, I can’t read or I can’t do these things. I now know how to use it as the right tools I need to figure out how to do, and there’s some benefits to me. So some ways I have learned to work with it is you send me a long email. I’m not reading it. I copy it into a reader because it’s the best use of my time. I’ve taken speed reading courses. I do want to dive down into the dyslexic world a little bit more, so I’m not on the severe end of it. I think there’s kind of, like, this spectrum, but my wife gets frustrated with me at times because she’s like, well, I already told you that. Or that the numbers are usually where. And I’m good at, better at math than reading. But the numbers getting on a plane, I’ll check my seat, and I forget it by the time I get to the seat.

Anthony (host): 47:06

So when you say dyslexia, what I understand dyslexia to be is, like, letters and numbers are sort of backwards,

Adrian (guest): 47:14

or

Anthony (host): 47:15

the positioning is jumbled up, like, you have trouble sort of making sense of what you’re seeing. Is that

Adrian (guest): 47:20

accurate? There’s a lot of that. And I was listening to Mel Robbins. She’s one of the ones that got me down the path that maybe I’m dyslexic. And she had a guy she was interviewing. The long story short is she was starting to rattle off some stats of why people that are dyslexic are really profitable. And I think it’s like 20% of big CEOs are dyslexic. And what I took from her conversation of it is school really sucked for us. And we got that grind, that grit. Those are the common popular terms today. We had to do our schoolwork after school, and we didn’t get to go and play as much. So we learned that hard push through, push through, push through. That then goes into. I mean, as a business owner, no one’s telling you to do it. You have to just do it and go through those hard grind times. So I look back and I’m grateful for it. Yeah, it sucked in the moment. And there are times. That’s why I said reading my book was more difficult because I had to read it. And I purposely left some grammar errors in it because I want it to be acceptable and okay to not be perfect. And I’m commonly misspelling stuff on social media, and I get texts and stuff from friends. And I had a hurtful one correct me at one point on some grammar on a comment. And this is where the big mindset shift. And I already had like 80 some reactions to it. And normally that would have crushed me. I would have deleted the post and everything, but it was a big win of where I had spoken years ago. And I replied to him, well, I guess you don’t need to know how to spell to be mobile home buyer successfully, something like that. And it ripped the power away from his comment. And so now I want to spread that and just make it okay. So some people have done that for me. Like I said, some lamel Robbins stories. Bill cook his rant one day when he was talking about his dyslexia and what was going through his mind. I was like, that’s what happens to me. I didn’t know how to describe. And so now I use it as a power

Anthony (host): 49:30

instead

Adrian (guest): 49:31

of it pulling me down, which it used to do.

Anthony (host): 49:33

Interesting to hear the stat that you mentioned about such a high percentage of CEOs being dyslexic. I have a good friend who dyslexic didn’t find out until later. In life. But he also looks at it in a similar way to you. It helped to shape some of the superpowers that he has now. Right. Because writing and reading were really challenging for him growing up, and so his mind kind of evolved and adapted to be able to retain a lot more information without, like, me, I’m taking notes all the time. I’m reading from notes that I’ve made, make sure I’ve got questions here I want to ask you. Him, he can just show up and it’s all sort of cataloged in his brain already. And that was an adaptation

Adrian (guest): 50:26

that,

Anthony (host): 50:27

without even realizing it, that he had to make growing up so that he could keep up in his own way.

Adrian (guest): 50:34

Interesting. I’m going to do some thinking on myself because I think I do a little bit of that without realizing, because in my certain areas of business, I can tell you all the stuff about that property from eight years ago. But then you were asking about some time frame stuff that is difficult. And I believe it has something to do with the way my brain stores stuff. And a lot of times I have my wife around me and I kind of look over to her. She corrects me. I’m like, sweet.

Anthony (host): 51:07

I

Adrian (guest): 51:08

don’t need it. She compliments me. She picks up where I slack. She’s a great speller. We compliment each other with our strengths instead of. So she doesn’t do it to poke fun of me. And it used to hurt, but now I understand. Okay, well, this is just how I’m built. I have strengths other places that I lean into.

Anthony (host): 51:29

So what was that specific moment of Discovery through the book writing process where you’re like, oh, dyslexia, how did you get to that? So

Adrian (guest): 51:39

I mentioned the Mel Robbins. I heard her talk about it, and I related a lot there. Bill Cook, one of my real estate mentors, and then speaking mentors, he went on a rant. And when he was explaining, I was like, that’s what happens in my brain. And all this is while I was writing. And one reason I wanted to write the book is I thought that was like the last thing anyone would think I would do, actually. I even asked a different teacher that I mentioned earlier, my fourth grade teacher, I think she was. So I go to yoga, and she’s there multiple days a week. Whenever I go, and I ask, I’d mentioned to her, I’m writing a book. I’m probably your last student you’d ever think would write a book. She stayed silent, so I did not ask a second

Anthony (host): 52:20

time.

Adrian (guest): 52:21

But I like to do things that people don’t think I would do. Proving people wrong, that’s probably a little bit of an insecurity, is really what I’m trying to feed there. It was a combination of all of those and the difficulty of the writing. So I did hire a coach to write for my book, and they described, you cannot edit anything while you’re writing. It’s two different pieces or parts of the brain. All you can do is write. And I’ve actually even heard since I wrote my book, people would turn their screen all the way black so they can’t see all the red squiggly lines. But that gave me permission to just let it flow. And then you go back and edit it. So it was just a combination of all these different things. And then I got curious and started asking some questions. And the other confirmation, I will say, because I never actually went and took a test to give me something written in writing. My office manager at the time, she was going through her second grader, they found out, is dyslexic, and she was starting to point out all the commonalities that I have, that he has. And she was on this massive growth of learning about it to get him the right schooling, and she was saying, oh, yeah, you have this, you have that. A lot of times we’re a little bit better with mechanic ideas, and our brain works that way. So now I’m like, oh, well, that makes sense. I’ve rebuilt an engine before, and all I did is got on YouTube and went out there and made a lot of mistakes, and there’s a little bit of commonality. A lot of times we have some ADHD, which I never got tested. I’m like, yeah, you can see I have a little bit of that squirrel in me more than the common person.

Anthony (host): 54:12

What advice

Adrian (guest): 54:13

would you that allows me to be an imagineer and come up with new creative things, because I get to go into that ADHD side of it, but then I need to write or something super focused. For me, that’s early morning with caffeine. I cannot go and write very well after now. After recording this, I’m too excited. My brain goes too many different directions. So I either take a nap or really, I like to schedule all that early morning.

Anthony (host): 54:45

What advice would you have for either somebody later in life who’s thinking about or maybe discovering that they have not adhd specifically, I want to stick on dyslexia here, or like your friend that you were just describing. They have a child that they’ve just discovered. As you think back to what that was like for you and how difficult that was. You’re glad you went through it, but you probably don’t want anybody else to have to experience it quite the same way that you did. What would be some adaptations, some things that you could tell to people like, hey, do a little bit of this. This kind of thing would help.

Adrian (guest): 55:27

I have learned to value hard times and pain because I’m a better person from going through it, which I think is a lot of times why we don’t listen to our parents. They’re almost always right, but we know better. And then we go and touch the hot stove and after burning ourselves, that’s the analogy of life, of all these different things. We go and make our own mistake and then we learn it and then we’re like, oh, you were right. So I think about this question a lot and I don’t have a great answer because I think I want my kids to go through the hard mistakes, but I want to teach them how to have the mindset to get through it. The curiosity that you mentioned of how to not spiral down, that’s what I want to teach them. Not put a pillow everywhere they go to fall. I believe that is going to me when we have kids, probably pretty soon. That’s what I want to do. But I’m also aware when I’m a parent that all may go out the window because I think that’s probably the most difficult part. So I really will say that to find the value out of the hard, to find the value out of the suck, there’s something that is making you a better person for being dyslexic. I have some strengths that other people don’t. The grit. So leaning into that versus focusing on. I’m not a good speller. Actually, in today’s world, I don’t need to be. We have so much technology yet I still find a way to make a mistake. But we have so much technology to correct what I do. I’m learning chat, TBT and all the AI to help me edit know I’m learning these different tools. So that’s my answer without fully answering it, but I’m on the journey right now.

Anthony (host): 57:23

You mentioned Bill Cook as mentor, somebody you’ve learned a lot. Who else?

Adrian (guest): 57:30

Oh, I have a whole long list in my real estate space. Bill Cook, Pete Fortunato, David Tilney. I never actually got to meet, but Jack Miller. So that’s kind of this older school. Let’s sit down and talk about your problem. That’s like their style of solving problems for the real, uh, what I would argue is the more important side is the mindset. Hal Elrod is probably my absolute favorite person in the mindset space. He’s a miracle morning. It sets your day right. And he has an amazing story. Tony Robbins, zig Ziglar. Kathy Newbauer. She’s my relationship coach with my spouse, my friends, myself. I know I’m forgetting other people just jumping on YouTube. Oh, Ed Milette. I’m a very big fan of him. Jay Shetty. With relationship stuff. Again, those are people I’m diving into. David Goggins. And that’s more whenever I’m just tired. And if you haven’t ever listened to David Goggins, you have to be okay with some colorful language, because he is very colorful in his language, but he tells it straight. And it just makes me realize, like, man, I don’t have problems. If I listen to him, I don’t have any problems. And those are my quick thoughts. But miracle morning, when people ask me my number one book, it’s usually the last book I read because that’s the book I needed the most right then. But my most impactful book is the miracle Morning by Hal Elrod because it set me up to utilize everything else I’ve read. To utilize everything else I read because it sets the tone of my day and it’s allowing me to read more.

Anthony (host): 59:20

Is there a lot of competition in what you’re doing in the mobile home space? People are turned off by it. Right. They don’t want to be associated with it. They don’t want to deal with what they perceive to be the problems. And so people that you’re trying to. Get these from,

Adrian (guest): 59:37

yeah, I mean, this is not a sexy Instagram post. People want to put some big sexy thing and great. Their Instagram looks good. My bank account looks good. I went back to the gross dollars or net dollars. I like to measure that and then I get to serve a population that is underserved, that has these for sale. So, yes, the competition is really low, and that means I have to work less and making money without working as much. That’s in my vision of life.

Anthony (host): 1:00:09

How does this compare to say, like, the tiny home space?

Adrian (guest): 1:00:16

There have been some people that have converted mobile home parks over to tiny home communities. I have not gotten into the tiny home space. I like it. I think it’s interesting to me. It hasn’t left the fad stage. So there’s some unknowns there. And it’s serving a traveling person, so the person wants to go stay in it for the weekend, which that can turn off. COVID turned that off. And then it’s serving the people that, the single person that wants something very small to live in. I like a larger amount of people interested in my product than those two markets. I’m not saying it doesn’t work. It’s just I want a longer history of a product with a wider net as my main business. That doesn’t mean I don’t go into something like that, but as my main business, I want it to be as boring as possible and as long data as possible. And that’s why I stuck with the single unit mobile homes.

Anthony (host): 1:01:23

And so the mobile homes that you’re involved with, there’s typically more square footage than what people traditionally think of as a tiny home. And so this allows you to have a bigger market of people to rent to because they’re not a single person, they’re a family with some kids.

Adrian (guest): 1:01:41

Yeah, we have owned. Somebody’s going to probably go to correct me here, because I don’t know the exact number of what a tiny home square footage

Anthony (host): 1:01:51

is.

Adrian (guest): 1:01:52

I think it’s 500 square foot, and we have owned some properties at 400 and some change square foot. So I would joke around that I had the original tiny home. It still rents. Yes, it rents for less, but it has still rented and made some money. I know there’s a little bit less of demand in that, but it was in the right area and the numbers worked. I had to be more conservative because I have less demand for it. A lot of people in the real estate world talk about a three bedroom, two bath has to be that. I probably buy more two bedroom, one baths because there’s not as much demand for it, which means I have to buy at a lower dollar because of that. But there’s still people out there looking for a two bedroom, one bath.

Anthony (host): 1:02:39

You’re talking about specifically the trailer home space. A lot of people say you need three bedrooms, two bath, but you’re okay. Going two bedroom, one

Adrian (guest): 1:02:46

bath in all of real estate. A lot of people want, because that’s what your typical family is looking for, a three bedroom, two bath, which is the largest net of people out there. So we want the largest amount of people to come in so that there’s more demand, the supply demand world of it. But I have found there’s a lot of people in a two bedroom. We do have a single mom with, I believe it’s three kids in a two bedroom, one bath home. Personally, I don’t really want to raise my kids in such a tiny area, but she’s now able to afford something and have her kids in a safe spot. So it’s not my decision to say no. This is too small of an area for you and your kids, and she’s doing well. If she was in something bigger, maybe she couldn’t afford to even pay rent versus giving them food and everything. So it’s not always our decision for that. I like a wider net in general, though, of whatever product I have. My product is the mobile home space.

Anthony (host): 1:03:56

Is

Adrian (guest): 1:03:56

there such a

Anthony (host): 1:03:56

thing as a. Three bedroom, two bath mobile home? Does that

Adrian (guest): 1:04:00

exist? We have some. We have some four bedrooms.

Anthony (host): 1:04:02

Okay,

Adrian (guest): 1:04:03

we have different stuff, but I’m a little contradicting there because I say I want a wider net, but I also like a very niche spot where other people aren’t. So where I can find the most overlap of those two is really what I have done in this mobile home niche. I did not know that going into it. That is being a Monday morning quarterback. Looking back, what did I do right? Because I’m always analyzing what did I do right?

Anthony (host): 1:04:30

And what part of the country are. Most of your mobile homes

Adrian (guest): 1:04:33

within 30 minutes of plant City, Florida, the winter strawberry capital of the world. That is in between Tampa and Orlando. So if you fly into Tampa, you’re going to drive over to Mickey Mouse and Disney. About a third of the way there, you’re going to pass plant City.

Anthony (host): 1:04:46

Okay.

Adrian (guest): 1:04:47

I keep within 30 minutes of there because I can. There’s enough deals right in that tight little area, and it made it simpler.

Anthony (host): 1:04:56

Now, somebody who’s listening to this saying, this guy, what he’s talking about sounds kind of intriguing, but man, I don’t want to have to chase rent. Is that an issue for you?

Adrian (guest): 1:05:07

No, we have a management system that gets people that want to pay their rent, not the entitlement mentality that they want someone else to pay it. We are fortunate that we do not have to accept section eight housing. It’s needed for some people, our whole just system, to get people in. They want to live there, they want to pay their rent, they want to stay a really long time. We haven’t found that to be true. And we manage everything the same. If it’s a house, concrete walls built in place, or if it’s a mobile home that comes in

Anthony (host): 1:05:48

and people are. Paying with a credit card or like the bank account, auto deposit, are they sending you a check each month, slipping some cash under your

Adrian (guest): 1:05:58

have? Our current system, we are in the middle of moving away from it is we have these deposit only cards at bank of America and they go to the ATM and they make a deposit. I will tell you it’s mostly cash that gets deposited. I actually have to pay bank of America a fee because we deposit too much cash a month, which I don’t like, but that’s a different topic. But we are switching over to an AcH system, which we are going to pull out of their account. I suspect we’ll only have a small number of people that have a problem with that. A decade ago, we had a lot of people that had no bank accounts, a lot of people with that. That is not as true today. I think our society is moving away from no bank account at all. So we do not accept credit cards. Our new system is going to give them the option. I’m not a big fan of it because I don’t believe it sets them up right because it puts them in debt. But if it’s their choice, I don’t want to take that away from them. I don’t want someone to pay on a regular basis because for one, they have to pay some fees. And I just know that most people don’t pay their credit cards off right away. We want to set our residents up for success, and I don’t believe in general, a credit card payment allows that.

Anthony (host): 1:07:29

What about passions or interests outside of your company? What things do you

Adrian (guest): 1:07:35

like?

Anthony (host): 1:07:36

I

Adrian (guest): 1:07:36

love the speaking and teaching, but that’s inside the company. Absolutely. Love traveling. Love traveling. Love meditation and yoga. My goal this year is actually to really deepen my yoga practice. So I go in. My goal is over once a day, so sometimes I go to two classes a day. I have found I’m a calmer person. I enjoy the moment a little bit more, and I’m very big into nature, so nature. I get a lot of that, too. Traveling to new cultures, new experiences. A lot of our travel is paired with nature. So we get to go hiking. We’re actually going to Guatemala to see a volcano erupt in a few weeks. That is like a little childhood dream I remember learning in elementary school, and then we went to Hawai, and on the way there I learned that it doesn’t erupt anymore, the volcano. And I was so disappointed and crushed, and now I’m like a little kid.

Anthony (host): 1:08:39

So there’s one actively

Adrian (guest): 1:08:40

volcano erupt.

Anthony (host): 1:08:41

Erupting right now in Guatemala.

Adrian (guest): 1:08:43

Apparently it’s been for a really long time. Every 20 to 30 minutes, it erupts.

Anthony (host): 1:08:49

Faithful.

Adrian (guest): 1:08:50

Yeah. One of our friends went and I saw the videos. I was like, we have to do this. Let’s book it right now.

Anthony (host): 1:08:59

That’s pretty cool. What’s the best place you’ve been to so far? Best trip you’ve taken?

Adrian (guest): 1:09:05

I can’t even answer that because everywhere has had its own thing. I personally didn’t love little Rock, Arkansas. I’m going to give it another shot. Before I was full time investing, I worked for a marketing company and doing experiential marketing. So when you see a ten x ten tent giving something away for free for a big company, Fortune 500 style company, I represented them. So I traveled the US. I think our first year we went to 25 states, 53,000 miles, something huge like that, driving around. So I’ve seen the country. I’ve only have two states not on there. And I’ve been all over the world. Everywhere has brought a different uniqueness. That’s my looking always for the positive. It’s just something that I just value and I get to learn from. May not be where I want to live or I want at all the time, but yeah.

Anthony (host): 1:10:07

Now, when you’re traveling, do you have employees working for you back home that are sort of minding the shop, or is it really just you and your wife?

Adrian (guest): 1:10:17

First, let’s touch on her. I have worked her out of the business because she doesn’t get emotionally fulfilled. She likes to help me and she likes the income from it. But having the income allowed her to go and find her passion within the nursing world. She’s an RN registered nurse, and that allowed her the freedom to say yes or no there in 2019. I made it a goal to go on twelve vacations in twelve months. And that was a big goal because, well, I had to make more money to be able to go on twelve vacations. But it also, every time I went, I was like, oh, man, I don’t have that file. I called my brother up, hey, can you go to my desk? Can you go? I got home, I fixed it, and by the end of it, I didn’t have any challenges. I call it geographically free. I did have a part time office manager at that time. She was kind of in transition to that. And my last two vacations, I asked her, did you know I was gone? And she said no. So I was like, all right. I did things right. She’s no longer with me. She actually got a fantastic opportunity with another company, so I got to be part of her journey. It was sad to see her leave, but way better for her and her family. So now I have another office manager, and she’s the right spot for my growth of where I’m at now, but I don’t live in Florida anymore. I unofficially moved to Colorado three months ago and there was no change in the business because I had already set this up to be geographically free if I didn’t have someone on the ground there. Because there’s some things you still need to go take pictures, you still need to inspect. Yes, I would have to spend a little bit more money and hire people one off for it, but that’s a money problem. And a money problem just means you have to make a little bit more money to better solve the problem. It runs pretty well. Now. We are not a massive amount of deals a year. Actually, we look to do four, maybe six deals a year. So it’s not like we’re doing hundreds of them. That’s going to create a bigger team.

Anthony (host): 1:12:33

I have one more question for you, Adrian, but before I do, I want to share with people how to get in touch with you. I’m sharing my screen here. You set up a page just for our listeners, which is really kind of you. Lifestylere cominspired and tell people what they get here.

Adrian (guest): 1:12:53

It’s a PDF that you get to download. You put your name and email in there and you’ll get it. It is to debunk the 14 myths about mobile homes. So we’ve talked about the biggest one is the trailer trash and we touched on some financing, but it goes into the different myths that I have found from talking to so many people. What it’s really doing is to help upgrade your mindset when it comes to mobile homes so that you just don’t push them to aside. If you’re a real estate investor, you don’t leave money on the table. But in general, so we don’t look down on them and think lesser of people that live in them and people that invest in them.

Anthony (host): 1:13:33

Thank you for that. Lifestyle rei.com Slash okay, last question for you, Adrian. Where do you see the mobile home industry going in the next five to ten years?

Adrian (guest): 1:13:48

My crystal ball. Let me get that out. I don’t always look forward. I look at today it has to make money. Today I am not a well, if everything goes right, I’m going to make money. And today I’m a little more conservative than I was five years ago because we’re longer into this appreciating market that we’ve been, my opinion falsely propping up. So I am more conservative because I think we’re going to come down some. But to give you the answer, because people always this is a popular thing. We talk about it a lot. Where are we going? I have seen in the last few years that interest rates have gone up. So a lot of the housing market and businesses have flattened or maybe even dipped. Well, we haven’t because no matter what business you’re in, a lot of times we buy payments. So we buy a house on payments. We fund our business with an SBA loan on payments. What can the business afford to pay? Well, mobile homes have been undervalued. And the payment side of it, people are able to afford it if they’re going to buy and live in it. So that goes back to the supply and demand thing, that there’s been more demand in our space. The investors are starving for yield and they’re looking for it. And I joke around that they finally came down to my level into the trailer world. And then people that are wanting to live in it, maybe before, they’re like, I don’t really think I want a mobile home, but I really want an acre of land with a home to call our own in this area. Well, rates went up, so now you can no longer buy the house. And they’re like, you know what? We will buy the mobile home, which has caused the supply and demand to go up. That’s what’s been happening now. I think that’s going to continue for a bit. How long, I don’t know. Personally, I would really like to see a small recession because when I played in the stock market for years, my mentor, he described cycles as a rubber band. The longer you stretch this rubber band, the harder it snaps down. And it has always stuck to me. So I think it’s healthy if we can get a small recession and it’s going to help the most amount of people, because then we’re not going to have this terrible, the great recession we had. A small one is healthy. It maybe washes out some people that are not very serious about their business before they have a bunch of properties that are improper leverage. I’m fortunate I only had one that I lost as a short sale. What if I continued that path and I had six or eight? So it kind of spanks us when we’re smaller. I think a little bit. A healthy recession that’s smaller and it gives time for opportunity. So I’m hopeful for that to happen. And I hope it’s small and healthy and we don’t keep fake propping it up, which, my personal opinion, we’ve been doing a little bit of that and I just hope we don’t continue that. But I’m going to be conservative no matter what business venture I go into, not every. I have a small amount that I put in risk, but it’s a small percentage of my overall businesses, and I’m going to keep pivoting. Was it the concept or book who moved the cheese? I think it’s called as it changes. I’m not going to just be the blockbuster that, no, we’re not going to go online. We’re going to keep the cassettes and the DVDs going out. We’re never going to change. And we know how that worked out. Anyone that’s too young to remember blockbuster has to go and research it. But they didn’t want to change, and it was too late. When they finally built the kiosk, that was it Netflix or whoever built the first kiosk that they won because they pivoted. No matter where our crystal ball brings us, we have to watch it and pivot as it changes.

Anthony (host): 1:17:44

Now, you mentioned before that one of the reasons you like being in this space is because other people don’t want to touch it. You don’t have as much competition. But it sounds like you said some of the bigger investors now are starting to see the opportunity here. So is it

Adrian (guest): 1:17:57

starting

Anthony (host): 1:17:58

to get a little bit more attention, get a little bit more crowded?

Adrian (guest): 1:18:01

Yes, we’re definitely getting more attention. There’s still a lot of people that I don’t have a nicer way to say it, that are lazy and they don’t want to build a long term relationship to get private money from friends and family to beat that hurdle. They want to just click a button and have an auto dialer send out thousands of phone calls. They want all the done for you stuff. Well, it doesn’t work as well in the mobile home space. So the people that are not willing to grind or do a little bit of work, they haven’t become competition because I don’t have a nicer way to say I think they’re lazy.

Anthony (host): 1:18:39

So how do you go about finding your places? I know I said one more question, but now we’ve kind of pulled another interesting thread here.

Adrian (guest): 1:18:46

I’m a networker. I tell everyone what I do all the time. If I’m in my buying area, I wear a t shirt. It’s still neon yellow that says, my wife buys mobile homes. I’m not seen in public without this shirt on. I go to meetings, networking meetings. It doesn’t have to only be a real estate meeting all the time. I buy mobile homes. I buy mobile homes and I’m here to help. And people bring me deals and I’ve been doing that now for so long, which takes a lot of time if a mobile home comes up in the area and I’m not there. So it’s a little harder to network. People are still like, call Adrian, because I built the name for that. And it’s a long term with investors, with non real estate people, and then with realtors. And I’m a give, give, give, give. Realtors, I go and teach them about mobile homes because they don’t really know them either. What is that doing? It’s building rapport and credibility, and every once in a while, they’re just like, Adrian, will you just buy this home? Of course I will.

Anthony (host): 1:19:49

That’s great, Adrian. Our Internet connection has become a little bit unstable here, which maybe is the universe telling us that we’ve covered enough great ground today. So I want to thank you so much for sharing your story with us today.

Adrian (guest): 1:20:04

Thank you for having me. I really love this interview,

Anthony (host): 1:20:08

folks. That’s a wrap on another episode of the Inspired Stories podcast. Thanks for learning with me today.