yego.me
💡 Stop wasting time. Read Youtube instead of watch. Download Chrome Extension

The Mobile Home Economics | Explorer


2m read
·Nov 11, 2024

[music playing]

  • Frank Rolfe?
  • Yes.
  • Billy Mintz.
  • Hi, Billy. How are you?

BILLY MINTZ (VOICEOVER): Frank Rolfe's company is the fifth largest owner of mobile home parks in the United States.

BILLY MINTZ: Beautiful place.

FRANK ROLFE: Thank you very much.

BILLY MINTZ: Wow. Show you in here. Our motto is kind of we provide a clean, safe, affordable place to live, just like it is here. Micro-housing is hot. You just have a whole lot of people who just can't afford to buy a house today. It's almost impossible for people. So we're like, by far, the least expensive form of detached dwelling there is. I mean, some homes you'll see are like $2,000 for the entire home.

BILLY MINTZ (VOICEOVER): Here's how Frank's business works. He buys old mobile home parks, makes basic repairs, gives them a fresh coat of paint, and then puts homes on the market. Basically, you're repositioning properties, bringing them back to life. And everybody's happy.

BILLY MINTZ (VOICEOVER): He owns the land, so whether he rents out the homes or sells them, residents pay a lot fee of around $250 to $375 per month, providing Frank with a steady stream of revenue.

So this is a unit for sale?

It's for sale or rent. Renting this is $550 a month. But if you want to buy it, we'll sell it you for $500.

OK, so hold on a second. To rent it, it's $550.

Right. But to buy it, it's less.

Yes. Then how does it work for you financially, though?

Well, on paper, it looks pretty stupid, right? Because I've poured thousands of dollars into the house and I'm going to take a loss on this house of probably $3,000 or $4,000. But just to have someone on this lot, this lot is worth probably $30,000 with someone in it and it's worth nothing with somebody not in it. Our big focus is we want to be in the land business.

Right. So we're willing to take hefty losses on the homes just to be in the land business.

BILLY MINTZ (VOICEOVER): It's not much different from how the mobile home business started.

[music playing]

During World War II, a slapdash prototype of mobile homes housed soldiers and factory workers. After the war ended, small mom and pop shops set out to make the rickety World War II model a more permanent, affordable housing alternative, buying cheap land, installing homes, and then charging lot fees to the residents.

But the difference was that these mostly family-owned parks usually didn't raise rents. But after 2007, the demand for cheap housing skyrocketed and people like Frank saw an opportunity.

Our industry has been a contrarian bet on a poorer America, and that bet's been paying off really big the last eight years, right? Whereas our customers are the $10 to $50 per hour folks, there's no other options out there for those people.

More Articles

View All
Fur Seals Overcome Extinction On ‘Resurrection Island’ – Ep. 1 | Wildlife: Resurrection Island
If you’re a first-year pup living on the northern shores of the island of South Georgia, make sure you enjoy yourself because cuteness doesn’t last long. If you happen to be an adult male here, you’re down to just three options: give in, give up, or give …
Lord of the Rings Mythology Explained
The Lord of the Rings has lots of different kinds of people: Elven people, dwarvin people, tree people, half-sized people, even people people. There’s, like, a million pages of background explaining this world that goes much deeper than the books or the m…
Warren Buffett: What Most Investors Don't Understand About Risk
Can you please elaborate your views on risk? You clearly aren’t a fan of relying on statistical probabilities, and you highlight the need for 20 billion dollars in cash to feel comfortable. Why is that the magic number, and has it changed over time? Yeah…
Business cycles and the production possibilities curve | APⓇ Macroeconomics | Khan Academy
What we have here are two different visualizations of a country’s output at different points in time. You might recognize that here on the left, we have a production possibilities curve for this country. It’s a very simple country that either produces for…
Fishing Tips: How to Rig a Harpoon | Wicked Tuna: Outer Banks
[Applause] [Music] Captain TJ out of the Hot Tuna, and today I’m going to show you how we like to rig our harpoons and board the Hot Tuna. So what we have here is an 8ft scourge of the sea harpoon, our Lily dart on the end here. What I like to do is tak…
Launching a German Glider - Smarter Every Day 75
Hey, it’s me, Destin. Welcome back to Smarter Every Day. So, in fifth grade, I used to make paper airplanes with my best friend Tim. Now, we took two different approaches. You see, I would read books and try to figure out the best way to make a paper airp…