Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Speaker A: Welcome to RV Park Boss, a podcast for RV park owners. I'm your host Jason Lafferty. This is a show where we dive deep in the challenges and rewards of park ownership and some funny stories along the way. This podcast is sponsored by RV Park Pros. 78 of all parks are self managed mom and pop operations. So aside from location, strong marketing, guest experience, proactive management, all these are keys to success and profitability for any park. So if you're still trying to keep up with this yourself, there is a better way. RV Park Pros is a park management system that helps you maximize your occupancy and profits while guests by optimizing your guest experience and retention. All without you having to be involved in the day to day. So if you'd like to hear more about how we can streamline your parks operations, go to rvparkpros.com again that's RV parkpros.com today's RV park boss is Cameron Tope. Did I say that right?
[00:00:49] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:00:50] Speaker A: Awesome. Awesome. He's the founder of Emerson Property Management, an award winning property management company serving the greater Houston area.
After serving his career in the oil and gas industry, he turned into real estate investing and was frustrated with the quality property management built a company he wished existed. Today, Cameron owns more than 30 rental properties and leads a team that manages over 300 homes for investors, giving them a unique perspective as both a real estate investor and a property management business owner. Welcome to the show, Cameron. How we doing sir?
[00:01:21] Speaker B: Good, Jason. Thanks for having me on man. Appreciate it.
[00:01:23] Speaker A: Awesome. Yeah, it's good to connect with you. Happy to dig more into into your brain on the property management side of things, see what kind of knowledge we can extract here and have some some more perspective on maybe could be helpful for some folks listening.
[00:01:37] Speaker B: Absolutely man. Open book here. So anything. Yeah that translates from residential side over to RV parks and vice versa. Always good to get cross functional learnings for sure.
[00:01:46] Speaker A: For sure. Yeah. I think some operational side of definitely held perspective, decision making, stuff like that was good but I like to kick it off with one question. So I'm gonna hit you with. At what point did you realize I don't just need a better property manager, I need to build one myself.
[00:02:01] Speaker B: Jason, I would say that would be around the time that I had interviewed probably three or four property managers and either band. I've got somebody who was just a dude driving around in a truck, no license, which great guy, probably knew the market really well but was like yeah, I don't really have a system. This is how I'm gonna, I'm gonna send you red checks and blah, blah, blah.
[00:02:23] Speaker A: I just do a good job because.
[00:02:25] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. So you had that side man, which was the really like unlicensed dude who was probably great. I mean, again, knew every little street, knew the little tools and tricks, but didn't have really any systems and processes. And then I talked to guys who had, or companies that had thousand doors, man, and you know, no offense, but I would talk to a VA from the Philippines or India on the first initial call and I just didn't get really any like specialization or any knowledge. It was like very evident that they were just, you know, they were sitting in New York somewhere or at this huge corporate office. They had doors all the way across the country. And I wasn't really going to get any specialization or any like local Houston knowledge. So dude, after that I was like, okay, that's it, screw it. I've got, I've already got some contractors and some good handymen. I'm here local. And I was full of piss and vinegar, man. I was probably 23, 24 and I was like, I was ready to set the world on fire. So it was, was like, you know, maybe call it dumb or lucky, I don't know, but it was like, screw it, I'm going to do it myself. And, and that's, that's where we're at today. So that was, that was probably 2016, 2017 when I start, I probably started looking when I had like 8, 7, 8, 9, 10 doors somewhere in there. And I was still working for British Petroleum at the time.
And that's when I was like, man, I'm starting to, you know, starting to add up a lot on the, you know, extracurriculars and basically my, my. I worked at 5 o', clock, I get in the office at 5 and I work until 3. And then from 3 to 10 was really pretty much real estate stuff. Yeah, but that, that's the decision.
That's it, man. And so, you know, cost me a relationship, cost me a lot personally. I didn't go to, you know, I kicked weddings down the road. I didn't do a lot of stuff but. But man, I think that's, I mean, I think you got to go through it, you know, I think you've got
[00:04:10] Speaker A: big, your healing for sure.
[00:04:12] Speaker B: And eat, eat the sandwich, you know, you got to do that at some point. Everybody wants to talk about like, oh yeah, you know, you could do this and skip these years and learn this and do you got to scrape your knees, man? And so that was my time. Like that late teens was where I was just grinding. And I would say that probably 2016, 2017 is where I was like, I'm gonna do it myself.
[00:04:30] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, we hear a lot of that. That last piece in the RV park space, there's. They're like, oh, you can buy a park and you're gonna be making $10,000 a month. You could retire and it's gonna be great.
[00:04:38] Speaker B: And I'm like, no.
[00:04:41] Speaker A: The first few years for me and just jumping into a 60 side RV development and then another one and then the acquisition, just like all in myself, it was just one ass kicking after another. And I've had a couple investor friends who were like, I wanted to work with you because I like you and I like what you're doing, but I wanted to see you get your ass kicked for at least 12 to 24 months straight. And then that's when I decided with you the whole time. But I've had several people tell me that I'm like, oh, I mean I like your, this, your logic there, but it still sucks.
[00:05:11] Speaker B: And it does. But you don't learn anything when things go well, dude, when I, I mean, you know they say the worst thing that can happen when you go to Vegas is you win, right? Because you think then, oh yeah, this is what it's supposed to be like. And then you go back and get your ass kicked and it's like, you know, I don't think anybody learns anything from a solid deal. It's like you have to, there has to be somewhere. The tenant has to be a pain in the ass or oh, this utility is weird. And then you start digging, you're like, oh, now I know how this works and I can apply it to the next deal. And you know, I'm not sure really the familiarity with some of the size of RV RV parts, but I know from a single family side, you're usually not going to make everything and become a multimillionaire off one deal. It takes a handful of base hits, usually over five to 10 years. And that's when you really can become successful and build a multimillion dollar portfolio and set yourself up for retirement or retire a spouse or whatever that might be.
[00:06:00] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yes. So. So this space, I think it's important. It doesn't matter if you have a park that's only 10 sites or 300 sites. Is that what a lot of people are missing? The boat on third party property management or ownership is that they all still need that personal Touch, you know, people still need that personal connection. So whether it's you or it's your third party property manager, getting your on site manager, there's it's, it's still very, very, very important that some lot of people are missing the boat on.
[00:06:28] Speaker B: You know, and Jason, it's such an important point. It's like, you know, we have a lot of out of state investors in Houston, people from California and some of these other high cost to live in states that come in, but they don't have any boots on the ground so they hope that they fly in. And we've talked to pretty, a lot of managers like this. While in the teens it was like shooting fish in a barrel, right? It was like you could anybody, you put lipstick on a pig, you had tenants, prices were going up. I mean it was, it was amazing. You didn't have to be that smart. But now after Covid settled down, we have a supply glut at least in the, in the residential side. So when you're used to just putting something on the market or putting it on Zillow or Craigslist and getting a lease like that, that, that's changed. The market has shifted. So now you need to be a little bit more sophisticated. You know, incomes are rising things, you know, the rising tide lifts all ships over the last, you know, from like the, the mid to late teens.
And we're just seeing you need somebody local, whether that's a property manager or somebody who knows the stuff. They know where the snake is in the wood pile, right? They know where, you know, oh hey, I've seen that, I've done that. Or in this municipality it's a little different. You're not going to be able to do it there. And somebody sitting somewhere, super side too.
[00:07:40] Speaker A: Know what people are looking for, know what that pulse is like. Hey, people in this neighborhood, they're looking for this. And here's why I know that you know, not, not everything that you can find is going to be on Zillow is going to be on there. You know, just, just like hey, there's trends like hey, you're going to want to stay away from this neighborhood or for your next purchase and, and different things like that.
[00:07:58] Speaker B: So yeah, and you know, there'll be people who say oh well it's, it's a cheap, it's, this is under a hundred thousand. So oh perfect, I can pick up a property. Well, they're used to seeing half a million, a million dollar property. So they think a hundred thousand dollar or a seventy thousand Dollar property is a good deal, but it's in a shitty area and it's not, you know, it's hard to lease. It's way outside of town. Like there's some stuff that, yeah, like you could pull it up on Google Maps and, and whatnot, but there's some stuff you just. Somebody had to cut their teeth locally. I mean I, I just, I strongly believe whether you hire a property manager or build a team of people, of agents and lenders and stuff like that locally, you just have to have somebody. Jason, I totally agree that with the experience because you're either going to figure it out the hard way or, you know, you can leverage somebody else who's done it, who's been kicked in the teeth, who knows? And then they can, you know, you can basically benefit from their learnings.
[00:08:45] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. So, so do you have a large percentage of, of clients that were like, hey, I'm going to buy some more houses. Where do you think I should buy it? Or, or they usually just dump it on your plate like, hey, I got this house. What do you think? Or is it a mix?
[00:08:59] Speaker B: But yeah, and I would say, Jason, in, in the late teens. Well, I guess we officially, I was doing like for family and friends between 2018, 2019 and then 20, I think end of 20, I officially incorporated and hired my first employee. And we probably had like 40, 50 doors at the time.
And so we really started outsourcing, doing third party in 2020 and then it was really a lot of like investors at the time. In the late teens it was all investors buying because you had the super cheap interest rates. Now after, you know, then a lot of people sold during, right after Covid when you had that huge rush, right. Double digit appreciation in certain markets, it was nuts. But after that. So like 22ish. It's been a lot of accidental landlords. So people who tried to sell and then they couldn't, you know, in the teens again you put lipstick on a pig list. The property boom, it's gone.
Now it's like, well, there's 10 other houses in this subdivision. So you know, I can take my pick or I'm going to offer, you know, buyer. It's great to be a buyer right now. That's what I keep saying. I know interest rates are a little bit higher, but it's a great time to be a buyer because you have all this leverage. So we're getting a lot of clients who are more so, oh, I'm being relocated for work and I can't Sell or I don't want to sell right now or I've got a low interest rate. So we're getting a lot more accidental landlords and intentional investors right now.
[00:10:19] Speaker A: Yeah, I think you touched on a good point too that, I mean, I don't know what asset class in real estate hasn't had this type of COVID wave, you know, short term family, commercial, residential, RV parks, probably self storage too. Just all kinds of stuff is that, you know, during COVID on the management side, you know, all the parks were full. When I built my first park, they ended up getting open 2023. That was right after the COVID rush for parks and before that we were building it, all the parks in the whole area were full. It was kind of a rural area. But since then, you know, the, the, the inflation of, of demand swelled back down and reality came in. So before then all the parks, people just like shoot fish in a barrel. You didn't have to any marketing because all the parks were full. But then now after start squeezing, you know, it's like, oh shit. We need to really tighten up our operations. We need to be more desirable. We need to. Instead of just taking orders, we got to be that tractable character for somebody sees that park and wants to come to you. So it was, it was a dramatic change from 22 to 24 for sure. Same thing.
[00:11:21] Speaker B: Yep. Yeah. Yeah, Jason, it's, it's like. And you know, we actually, it's funny because in our CRM, we actually have people that I talked to a couple years ago and decided to do it themselves, which is fine. And they came back because now the property has been sitting vacant for 60 or 90 days and they've lost 5, 6, 7, $8,000. And they're like, okay, you know, you, you, you know, I come. I. They literally came back through. We have people on a drip campaign and, and various marketing systems. And you know, I think that's, that's a good lesson for whatever market you're in. You know, consistency, you know, set it up. It does not take that much time now to set up some sort of automated email sequence and, and just follow up until either they tell you to F off or they die. And I don't know how many times I've talked to people over the years. They're not ready right now. They want to try it out themselves. Awesome. Do it for sure. We've got a bunch of great resources on our website for people that want to do that. But hey, if you're ready, we're here and man, it's just funny how some that email hits or that mailer hit right when somebody had. I lost.
Yes. And you add value, add value, add value. And then you know, you're just, if you're going to be in this game for a short term at least real estate. And again, I'd assume it's the same with RVs, but it's like you have to, it's time, time is what helps you out. Time, time, time. It's not a get rich quick scheme, it's a get rich slowly scheme. And it's very, very highly likelihood you're going to do that. But it's just, it takes time.
[00:12:44] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
I think a good question would be for you in your perspective is so if there's an RV park owner here and they're thinking about hiring a third party property management company, what are some things that you could, you know, any real estate class that would be smart questions to ask, you know, from a consumer's lens.
[00:13:07] Speaker B: Yeah, I think the first thing is experience. You know, I thought I knew just owning, having owned, you know, a couple dozen rentals, I thought I knew what I was doing. But let's just say you have, and again, we'll talk in spaces, I guess for you, let's just say you have 10, 20 spaces that might be a pretty decent size or, or smaller park, but you're getting, generating some revenue. How many turnovers are you going to do during that time or how many reps are you getting? So like for me in the single family, I was, I, you know, I had a couple dozen. I thought I knew everything was good, I thought I knew what I was doing, but I didn't have the reps.
So it took me almost, I would say honestly 5 to 10 years for somebody to actually get enough repetitions. Because unfortunately I say this a lot. Real estate has a very long feedback loop, meaning you could put a tenant in, everything could be going very well. You might have made a mistake. It's just you're waiting for that shoe to drop. Where you go in the property in month nine or month 10 before you offer the renewal and there's 20 people living in there, it might be a grow house, you know, it's destroyed. But you thought you made a decision, a good decision for nine months. And so, you know, you have to go through those reps. So the first thing I would ask is what's your experience? Like how much have they done? This a really good indicator. Not a totally necessary, but I do believe strongly in having somebody that's an owner operator and I'm not just saying that for me, but there are things that I'm working at in the management business.
Jason, you were, I were talking about this a little briefly before the recording that it helps me out. I'm still Emerson's largest client so it's like I'm not doing stuff in spite of the owners, I'm doing stuff alongside of the owners. And I think having that mindset set shift is really important because there have been a lot of roll ups, I'm assuming similar in RV parks, but it's like a lot of these big pe backed and money's coming in, especially when it was cheap money. They're coming and they don't know what the hell they're doing and, or they're going to fee you to death. They don't care about any relationships, they don't have local knowledge and they're just going to feed people to death. And that's a lot of feedback we get.
[00:15:08] Speaker A: Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Those are some good points. I like the, the ownership side because, because when you're also managing your own stuff as the owner and providing services for somebody else, you're looking at through that lens. It's like, hey, what are you're always thinking about, what are some things that we can run this more efficiently. And then you're naturally going to be sharing that with the other people or have some insider information or you know, be quicker to, to make any adjustments or anything like that.
[00:15:32] Speaker B: Yeah, referrals are great source. I do not, I don't think asking for, you know, what do they call when you know, not a referral but you know, basically, hey, give me a reference I can, you know, oh, give me. They're only going to give you their, the best ones. I mean nobody's going to give you a bad reference.
But check them out on Google, look for referrals. So tap good people in your network. If you know somebody that does a lot of RV parks, ask them who they know in their network. You know, eagles fly with eagles kind of saying. So it's like ask those folks. That's another great way to find, you know. And then I do believe in education but just don't get stuck. Analysis paralysis. So read, you know, got to be careful on the seminars, man. There are some people down here in Houston that, you know, you would think from stage that they know what the hell they're doing. They know almost next to nothing. They have a very, very crappy business. We get a lot of their clients. I'M not going to name any names, but you would think that they're the creme de la creme. And Jason, they're behind the scenes. They're barely holding it together. And I know people that literally had to sell their company because it's going down. I know people that, yeah, it just, they don't run a good operation, but they put on that show. So check out the reviews, ask your network and, and yeah, if you have an owner operator that somebody that's looking to do a really good job and stay in the market, not look, just to flip it to pen, I think that's very important because you might find yourself in one, two years right after you have a really good relationship going. Oh, damn, they just sold. Now I got to deal with some, you know, SOB in, in, in a suit sitting somewhere that doesn't know.
[00:17:03] Speaker A: So. Yeah, right, right. That's, that's some good points.
So you guys focus on greater Houston area. Just, just stay in that.
[00:17:13] Speaker B: Yeah. You know, and that's the thing, like, I firmly believe in, you know, a tight operation. I think that leads to great marketing. Obviously, I'm out doing more of these type of podcast and things and, and getting, trying to get our name out there, but we, you know, we're Houston only and that's the only. We go without about an hour of downtown. And yeah, we could go to Austin, we could go to Fort Worth, we could go to Dallas. They're, you know, same state, similar lease agreement, but just like what we were talking about. It's like we know Houston really, really, really well. And I was.
[00:17:41] Speaker A: That doesn't even cover all of Houston.
[00:17:43] Speaker B: No, no. Yeah, you could go down big.
[00:17:46] Speaker A: It's taking two hours to get across that city sometimes.
[00:17:48] Speaker B: Oh, dude, at five o', clock, you're not getting hardly a quarter of the way.
Yeah, it's just, it's one of those that I, I, you know, I just don't think you can do. I'm very much, you know, focused on operations and a. And, you know, not as much marketing and maybe to my detriment, but. Yeah, I just don't think, I think you got to be wise about when you expand or when you go to a new asset class. That's another thing I, I didn't mention. So, you know, ask this person if you're going to go out and hire a third party. You know, is there experience in RV parks? Is it in, is it in residential? Is it in, you know, Airbnb? We turn away a lot of business from Airbnb and Furnished, because it's a different business model. It sounds similar, but it's not. And same thing with RV parks. If you're like, if there's a manager, oh, I'm going to give you a discount. You know, I'm a couple of years in, but, you know, I'm used to doing residential or maybe larger commercial, but I'll do an RV park. I would run away as a newer investor, especially because you don't know what you don't know. You're relying on that person, that person's experience to help you get where you're trying to go. And if you go to somebody who doesn't have any experience, well, that's two of you in the same boat. You need somebody to captain the ship, right? So, yeah, I'm big, big, big firm believer on that, especially in the first few years. Do not get somebody who's new. And listen, I am tickled to death. People hired me when I first started out. I was full of piss and vinegar and I was ready to rock and roll.
[00:19:04] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:19:05] Speaker B: But I didn't know much. But I would make stuff right. I would work my ass off. And I just think for newer investors in the climate it is today where things are very difficult or much different than they were in the late teens, you've got to leverage somebody's experience who knows what the hell they're doing.
[00:19:20] Speaker A: Yeah, for sure, for sure. I think we align with that. For sure. That's good insight. So Houston area, if somebody wanted to reach out to you about their property, what's, what's a good way to do that?
[00:19:30] Speaker B: Yeah, just go to EmersonPropertyManagement.com or, or Google Cameron Tope. You'll. You'll find us on there. And, you know, we got a lot of free resources. I've been doing YouTube videos and, and we put out guides and return on investment calculators and all this stuff on the website.
Yeah, and, and that's it, man. And, you know, a lot of people, you know, use that stuff, and I hope it, it just builds a better community versus somebody who you go to some other, you know, foul player and they kind of pull the wool over your eyes. Oh, yeah, yeah, this is a great area. Or whatever. And then they, or a Realtor tries to sell you in a house. Listen, you have to be licensed, but there's some agents that want you to, to buy. And then they wash their hands of it and they're done. They're not thinking about the next piece. So, you know, we give you all that. The guides and information that you can use and never hire us. You can look at our screening qualifications for tenants, all sorts of stuff just it builds a better community and lifts everybody up.
[00:20:22] Speaker A: Yeah, that's awesome. It's awesome. Well I think it's a good stopping point. Enjoyed talking with you. I think our brains align so look forward to connecting with you on LinkedIn and staying in touch in the future as well. See if we cross paths again. But thanks again for being here. Enjoy talking with you.
I think we got your LinkedIn and one other social media handles. They'll be in the notes when this comes out. So.
So yeah man, enjoyed it.
[00:20:46] Speaker B: No, I appreciate you having me on man. And yeah the audience it was an rfee park. It's a lot different but hope you guys were able to glean some insights from this. So appreciate it. Jason.
[00:20:55] Speaker A: Yes sir. Take care.
