Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: All right, Rachel, thanks for taking time. Coming out today we're at the. What is it? The ochc. I can always mix it up. Ohio OHCE conference here. Both vendors setting up. Tell us a little bit about your business. What do you guys do and how you help park owners?
[00:00:12] Speaker B: Absolutely. We are a third party management company. We have been in the industry as a third party management company for about 11 years now.
[00:00:20] Speaker A: Oh, nice.
[00:00:21] Speaker B: And we're located in 23 states and we have over 40 parks.
[00:00:26] Speaker A: Nice.
[00:00:27] Speaker B: With more in the pipeline.
[00:00:28] Speaker A: Yeah. So what? So we're a couple years past Covid. You know that roller coaster. So what are some changes you're seeing now for campers? Desires and needs and different things that you guys are seeing.
[00:00:40] Speaker B: This year has been really different. More driven by economic factors. The Canadian quote boycott.
[00:00:46] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:00:47] Speaker B: So this year we're coming off the COVID years. It was a little stable.
And then this year we saw some big shifts in how people are camping, they're booking lead times, meaning how far in advance they book out for their reservations. Those went down significantly for short term people.
[00:01:03] Speaker A: Why do you think that is?
[00:01:05] Speaker B: Money plans. Waiting till the last minute to make sure they can do it. Or the weather's good.
[00:01:11] Speaker A: We're finding shifting in behavior then.
[00:01:12] Speaker B: Yeah. And we're finding they're driving shorter distances to get there. So the stays are a little bit shorter. Last year we were around four days, four and a half days. And this year we're seeing around 2.7 days. Coming from less than 200 miles away.
[00:01:28] Speaker A: Yeah. Because before it was historically, I've heard people will typically drive three or four hours unless they're doing their maiden voyage somewhere far. So 200 miles is two and a half, three and a half hours. A little bit shorter.
[00:01:39] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:01:39] Speaker A: So think you think it's folk are more. Folks are more money conscious. A little bit shorter stays, it's just a quicker little vacation or what's your thoughts on that?
[00:01:46] Speaker B: I think so. And we're seeing that people will take multiple little stays. So instead of one long one that might have been seven to 10 days before, we're now seeing that they'll take two to three, three weekends away. We're also finding that they are more price conscious. So the specials are working more. We're getting more engagement there. And for as much as you can make something all inclusive, it's helping. So if they feel like they're getting more for the money, whether it's if you have a whibbit that you give wristbands for or something like that, Throwing that in as an incentive is driving more people per se. Thank you. A discount.
[00:02:25] Speaker A: Yeah. That makes sense. Because a lot of little park campground type places, they can nickel and dime you to death for this little package. This little package, Just a little add on.
[00:02:34] Speaker B: Yeah. And it also helps you protect your rent. So as the park owner, the most important dollar that you get is the rent dollar.
[00:02:40] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:02:41] Speaker B: And so it's already reduced by electricity, especially in the summers.
[00:02:46] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:02:47] Speaker B: So you're eating into it with just those little parasitic costs to begin with. So if you can leverage out a $10 pass, all that $10 does is
[00:02:56] Speaker A: set off, increases your occupancy. Why not?
[00:02:58] Speaker B: Yeah. It'll offset what you spend in another area, but it's more of a guaranteed for your occupancy. Yeah.
[00:03:03] Speaker A: And you're doing what you got to do. In a perfect world, you would charge extra 10 or whatever. But if it's going to have a direct correlation occupancy, then I'm always a fan. You just do whatever you have to do.
[00:03:12] Speaker B: Yeah. But that's one of my favorite things about this industry is that you have so much flexibility in what you do and how you do it that the only time it doesn't really work is if you don't do it.
[00:03:22] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:03:23] Speaker B: So you can be very flexible in how you offer things.
[00:03:27] Speaker A: Yeah. There's just so many things with RVs. It's one of my favorite things is like the answer is always. It depends because it's just always different. There's different situations, areas, styles of parks and everything. Like the wagon guy, he's got shower houses and it's set up to where it could shower in laundry, set up to where it could just take over an RV spot. So if you have a park you're expanding on, you don't have plans or there's difficult situations to build a whole new clubhouse. You could just take that sucker and put it on RV pad and then bam, you got extra showers and stuff for your guests.
[00:03:55] Speaker B: Which is great for guest events like a family reunion in a private section or a wedding or things like that.
[00:04:02] Speaker A: Yeah. If you have like a wedding venue or something or. And they're like, we Normally only serve 100 people, but this we're going to serve 300 people. Like you need to do other things to make adjustments to have that guest experience everybody happy.
[00:04:15] Speaker B: And it helps with the Department of Health because they're always very enjoyable.
[00:04:19] Speaker A: Fire coded.
[00:04:21] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:04:22] Speaker A: So what are some things you're seeing in parks that are separating the winners and losers? Like the Things that they're doing, hey, this is something I'm consistently seeing. The ones that are winning, they're doing this. The ones that are losing are not doing this, are doing this.
[00:04:31] Speaker B: Being flexible, I think that's my number one thing is, and I tell clients this all the time, you have a 70 by 16 piece of land that the people are using. You can use that any which way. The economy drives it.
[00:04:46] Speaker A: Yeah. So affordable housing, short term, whatever you need to.
[00:04:49] Speaker B: Yeah. But a lot of people will have it in their minds that they're a long term park or a short term park or they don't want one type of guest over the other. But in a market like we have now, where it's changing based on economic factors and very unpredictable, you have to be able to pivot and pivot quickly. We're very fortunate as a company because we have a ton of data.
And so with the amount of parks we have and the amount of information that we've had over the years, we can, I don't want to say completely forecast, but trends coming. And so we pivoted very quickly to reduce our short term stays and increase our long term stays. So our occupancy this year actually went up by 11% and our revenues went up by 9%.
[00:05:32] Speaker A: Nice.
[00:05:33] Speaker B: But it's because we were able to do that early where a lot of people wait until the season hits and they're like, oh no, it's Memorial Day. I don't have great occupancy.
[00:05:41] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:05:41] Speaker B: Maybe open up.
[00:05:42] Speaker A: Being proactive versus reactive.
[00:05:43] Speaker B: Yeah. But the flexibility of not taking maybe what you think you want and what the market is telling you.
[00:05:50] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:05:50] Speaker B: It needs.
[00:05:51] Speaker A: I hear that a lot. Because they're like, I would like this type of park or I'd like this type of park. Well, a. If you're going to be your destination, either it is geographically a destination or you have to create your own destination. You can't, you don't get to choose unless you create it yourself. But if it's a community type, a monthly type park, that's just what it is. That's the economic factors that you have to tell somebody to drive a few hours out of the way to turn it into a short term park.
[00:06:14] Speaker B: Yeah. And too many people try and fight the market.
[00:06:16] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:06:17] Speaker B: Like they have this idea that they'll be the only short term park in a long term area.
But when you have 10 other parks that are long term, like the market might be telling you that's the need.
[00:06:28] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. There's your indicator.
[00:06:30] Speaker B: Yeah. So Test it and see.
[00:06:33] Speaker A: Yeah, that's pretty interesting. I definitely being able to shift and like you said, pivot. One thing I'm working on a couple of my parks is just, it's. They're monthly and I just feel like there's a big need for rent to own. So it has. You can rent one park. I build a little cabin. We have a couple RVs to rent because there's a lot of windmill maintenance guys there. But I just saw that adding in that factor, they can pay that little bit higher rent and then in 24 months, they'll own it. So he's going to be buying seven $8,000 campers. Sell to them for 11 and 20 months. They'll pay it off. They have to keep that park for them. So just do whatever you have to do to get the occupancy up.
[00:07:07] Speaker B: Yeah, that's creative. That really is a good approach to it if there's a need for it.
[00:07:11] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:07:12] Speaker B: And are you finding any trouble with people paying?
[00:07:15] Speaker A: No, just because I was treating it. I got some wise words from a friend that was in the auto leasing business, but he just said treat it like a lease with an option to buy for $1 when the lease is up. Because if it's a rent to own contract and they're not paying, it could be a little bit tougher to evict them. But if it's a lease, it's your property. They're not paying. File the eviction process. They got to get out.
[00:07:35] Speaker B: Oh, that's interesting.
[00:07:36] Speaker A: So I was like, all right, I'm going to change this contract real quick because it's all devils in the detail, so.
[00:07:40] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
[00:07:41] Speaker A: So that makes a lot of sense.
[00:07:42] Speaker B: But yeah, the laws in this industry are very challenging. And I just had a conversation with a large group downstairs. We work with Christine Taylor from Goldberg and Segala, who, if you don't know who she is, you should. She's amazing.
She helps us in every state that we're in with different legal scenarios.
[00:08:02] Speaker A: What does she do?
[00:08:03] Speaker B: She's an attorney in the campground industry. So she owns a park with her mom in upstate New York. And then she's also an attorney where she used to.
She actually started a firm in New York with a campground division and then recently switched over to a nationwide firm also starting.
[00:08:21] Speaker A: That was my next question.
Yes.
[00:08:24] Speaker B: Which is, to me, music to my ears because we're in 23 different states. So when we get into the eviction laws or the tenancy laws, things like that, or even raising rents, it can be a nightmare sometimes to figure out how to do it, what you're allowed to do.
[00:08:40] Speaker A: Yeah. Having professional help is always the way to go too.
[00:08:43] Speaker B: Yeah. But it's little things like you mentioned just that slight little language like she in her seminar today mentioned if you have a work camper and the site is part of their employment using an employee use of site agreement instead of contract.
[00:08:59] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:09:00] Speaker B: Because then it gives them the right to the site afterwards if their employment ends but if they have a use
[00:09:06] Speaker A: of it if you have bad experience you need to part ways so.
[00:09:08] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:09:08] Speaker A: Yeah that's a big one.
[00:09:10] Speaker B: Yeah because people can dig their heels in and stay.
[00:09:12] Speaker A: Yeah. School. Yeah. You thought you had a friend and an onsite person and quickly got ugly. Yeah.
It happens. It's business.
[00:09:20] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:09:21] Speaker A: So I think that's a good point to wrap it up. So I appreciate your time coming out here.
[00:09:25] Speaker B: Absolutely.
