Interview with Ekaterina Stepanova of M2K Partners

Welcome back to the Passive Mobile Home Park Investing Podcast, hosted by Andrew Keel. On this episode of the Passive Mobile Home Park Investing Podcast, Andrew talks with Ekaterina Stepanova. Ekaterina has over twelve years of experience in operations, project management, advertising, and production. On top of that, she has several years of experience in residential real estate investing, having also worked for Ogilvy, BBDO, Citigroup, and Columbia Artists. She currently is the organizer and leader of the MHP Tribe, a mobile home park investing community and Facebook group. Today Ekaterina is here to talk about the future of the MHP industry and how she got into mobile home park investing. She will also share stories and lessons she's learned on her mobile home park ownership journey.

***Andrew Keel and Keel Team Real Estate Investments (Keel Team, LLC) do not endorse any interviewee. This interview is for informational purposes only and should not be depended upon for investment purposes. ***

Andrew Keel is the owner of Keel Team, LLC, a Top 100 Owner of Manufactured Housing Communities with over 1,500 lots under management. His team currently manages over 20 manufactured housing communities across ten states - AR, GA, IA, IL, IN, MN, NE, OH, PA and TN. His expertise is in turning around under-managed manufactured housing communities by utilizing proven systems to maximize the occupancy while reducing operating costs. He specializes in bringing in homes to fill vacant lots, implementing utility bill back programs, and improving overall management and operating efficiencies, all of which significantly boost the asset value and net operating income of the communities.

Andrew has been featured on some of the Top Podcasts in the manufactured housing space, click here to listen to his most recent interviews: https://www.keelteam.com/podcast-links. In order to successfully implement his management strategy Andrew's team usually moves on location during the first several months of ownership. Find out more about Andrew's story at AndrewKeel.com.

Would you like to see mobile home park projects in progress? If so, follow us on Instagram: @passivemhpinvesting for photos and awesome videos from our recent mobile home park acquisitions.

Talking Points:

00:21 - Welcome to the Passive Mobile Home Park Investing Podcast
01:20 - Ekaterina's background
03:48 - Turnkey rentals in Memphis
06:12 - M2K Partners and managing parks
12:20 - Ekaterina's criteria for deals
14:30 - Managing parks that are far from each other
16:48 - Direct-to-owner Deals
18:40 - Number of deals taken full-cycle and their process for fixing them up
19:50 - Important things passive investors need to look out for
22:10 - Vetting operators
24:00 - Andrew's expansion on a huge tip for LPs
24:34 - Affordable housing and the real estate environment
29:00 - Ekaterina's perfect mobile home park
31:00 - How Ekaterina's team's process for management for new sites
34:22 - The value proposition at M2K Partners and what makes them different
37:00 - The MHP Tribe
39:30 - How to get in touch with Ekaterina
40:04 - Conclusion

Links & Mentions from This Episode:

Quotes:

"We had very specific criteria to our parks. It would have to be a value add. It had to be in a strong economical market. It has to have a good cap rate for us. We just have to buy it at the right price. All those different things had to come together. We need to be able to leverage it, put data on it.." - Ekaterina Stepanova

"We purchased our first park and we're very happy with our purchase. I think this became our staple, so to speak. We purchase really not volume, but very, very selectively (I would say).." - Ekaterina Stepanova

"Affordable housing is needed as much as ever, probably more important than ever in their current state of the economy. I would say that I'm not really worried about not having paying tenants because unfortunately just however life happens is, those residents who are not able to pay will be replaced potentially with the residents who are coming from single-family homes or coming from apartment buildings, they come into communities.." - Ekaterina Stepanova

"A perfect mobile home park deal is the one that we are able to get in and have a lot of upside." - Ekaterina Stepanova