Interview with Rhett Trees of Seneca Capital 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 Rhett Trees. Rhett is the founder, chief executive officer, and chief compliance officer at Seneca Capital Partners. He loves and specializes in niche, non-correlated assets in sectors that are not well-understood, not over-capitalized, and in niches that don't fit into pretty little packages and traditional institutional asset classes. Rhett is a seasoned veteran in the mobile home park asset class, having been apart of a mobile home park portfolio exit to Blackstone, circa 2019. Rhett was kind enough to share lessons he has learned along the way in the mobile home park business. Today Andrew and Rhett talk about Rhett's biggest hurdles in the industry, how spirituality has shaped the way he does business, how COVID has affected Seneca's portfolio, his experience with third party managers, and what his perfect mobile home park looks like.

Prior to starting Seneca, Rhett Trees was an equity partner at Caddis Capital Investments, the sponsor of Trico Fund III. In 2012 he was a principal at The True Life Companies, a company that was known to be one of the premier providers of land and lots to American's home builders. He graduated from the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University with a double major in Entrepreneurial Management and Marketing. He completed the Real Estate Executive Program at Harvard Business School and finished off his studies abroad at the University of London in England.

***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.

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Talking Points:

00:21 - Welcome to the Passive Mobile Home Park Investing Podcast
02:35 - Rhett's story and how he got into manufactured housing
04:50 - Lessons learned from Caddis Capital Investments
08:45 - Advice for people just getting into passive investing
13:50 - The biggest hurdle in Rhett's journey
19:42 - How COVID has affected their portfolio
28:39 - What does Rhett's perfect mobile home park look like?
31:00 - Value-prop for Seneca
42:35 - Shapiro and other third party managers
49:48 - Getting a hold of Rhett
51:50 - Conclusion

Links & Mentions from This Episode:

Rhett Trees, phone: 303-888-2826
Rhett Trees, email: [email protected]
Seneca Capital Partners: https://senecacp.com/
Keel Team's official website: https://www.keelteam.com/
Andrew Keel's official website: https://www.andrewkeel.com/
Andrew Keel LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewkeel
Andrew Keel Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/PassiveMHPinvestingPodcast
Andrew Keel Instagram page: https://www.instagram.com/passivemhpinvesting/
Twitter: @MHPinvestors

Quotes:

"I learned a lot about what to do, what not to do. What we do at Seneca is way more sophisticated now, I'll tell you that much in regards to how we model, how we look at assets." - Rhett Trees

"One thing that we're really proud of is if we do raise rents, we provide some type of amenity or benefit to the tenant immediately if not prior to that rent increase." - Rhett Trees

"If the tenant has their home paid off, I'll argue until the end of time that mobile home parks are the best value on the planet with regards to housing." - Rhett Trees

"We look at three things when we buy a mobile home park: population growth, income growth and the dislocation, and ELI index. It's an index provided by HUD. It's a little map of every chattel in the country. It will tell you how many units are available, how many people need affordable housing, how many units are available for that contingent.." - Rhett Trees