MC Fireside Chats – August 19th, 2026

[00:00:45] Brian Searl: Welcome everybody to another episode of MC Fireside Chats. My name is Brian Searl with Insider Perks Modern Campground. I’m excited to be here with you. Got a little bit of a different background today, uh, in British Columbia on Lake Shuswap. I don’t know if you can see the lake, but like it’s a really nice view from here.

Let’s throw it up so you guys can all see that and be jealous for a second. Um, but yeah, excited to be here. Got a couple special guests, um, as my phone does circle the search when I type it, so that’s a new feature on Google Pixel, self-promotional if you wanna do that. Uh welcome Landan Dory, one of our special guests.

Uh, John McMahon’s gonna join us as a new recurring guest on this episode. Excited to have you here, John. Uh, and Jeff Hoffman-

[00:01:20] John McMahon: Good to see you …

[00:01:21] Brian Searl: and we got a few other people who are traveling this week and can’t make the show, but we’re gonna have a good discussion today. We’re gonna talk about, uh, all kinds of different stuff and we’ll see what comes up.

So let’s briefly go around the room and just have everybody introduce themselves real quick. Uh, you wanna start, Jeff? 

[00:01:33] Jeff Hoffman: Sure. My name is Jeff Hoffman, and I’m the, um, uh, partner and founder of Camp Strategy. We, uh, work with RV parks and campgrounds almost exclusively, um, doing valuations, operations, um, pretty much anything to do with the campground industry, um, we report on.

[00:01:57] Brian Searl: Awesome. Thanks for being here as always, Jeff. Landan? 

[00:02:01] Landan Dory: Uh, give me a second. I apologize, my computer’s ringing right when you said my name. There we go. Okay. Sorry about that. That’s okay. Uh, uh, Landan Dory. I am the founder and CEO of North Star Brokerage and Advisory. We’re an outdoor hospitality, uh, focused company.

Brokerage is the name of our game. Advisory is something that we’ve tacked on in recent years to help owners run a more profitable business today that’s worth more tomorrow. Um, we also just started and are working to build up our North Star Owners Collective, which is a community for campground owners across the country.

It’s exclusive to owners and, uh, that keeps the, the sales people and the brokers and that type of thing out, except for myself. So, um, happy to be here, and this is a cool and unique opportunity for me. Thank you. 

[00:02:46] Brian Searl: Awesome. Thanks for being here, man. John? 

[00:02:48] John McMahon: Yeah. Hi, I’m John McMahon. I’m the operations director at Camp Door County in Sister Bay, Wisconsin.

We have a high-end, uh, adventure resort, mountain bike trails, a lot of primitive and RV camping, cottages. Um, and I’m glad to be here. 

[00:03:05] Brian Searl: Yeah. Thanks for being here, John. Excited to learn more about your property and what you have going on down there. Wisconsin’s beautiful. I haven’t… I haven’t spent as much time there as I would like to, uh, but I do go to the WACO Show, well, usually every year.

I don’t think I’ll make it in next year, but that’s too far away. 

[00:03:19] John McMahon: Yeah. 

[00:03:19] Brian Searl: Um, I was there last year. We sponsored and brought a musician with us and everything, so, uh, but I haven’t been f- like as fur- further north than I’d like to be in Wisconsin. I don’t- 

[00:03:27] John McMahon: Yeah, you were in, uh, Stevens Point, I think, when you went to WACO.

[00:03:30] Brian Searl: Yeah, central Wisconsin.

[00:03:31] John McMahon: And we’re, uh, northeast of there about two and a half hours. We’re out on a peninsula that’s surrounded by Lake Michigan from the east and, uh, the Bay of Green Bay from the west. So we have a really unique climate. We have more, um, shoreline than any county in the United States. We have more state and local parks than any, um, county in the United States, and we get 2 million plus visitors a year.

So it’s a very tourist seasonal, um, location to be in. So it fits our model really well.

[00:04:04] Brian Searl: Very nice. Uh, I think the furthest north I’ve been in Wisconsin is, and maybe this is north of central Wisconsin, I don’t know, I’m not looking at a map, but Warrens, Wisconsin. We used to work with a Jellystone up there.

[00:04:14] John McMahon: What’s the name of it? Lawrence? 

[00:04:16] Brian Searl: Warrens. 

[00:04:17] John McMahon: Warrens. Uh, not familiar. 

[00:04:18] Brian Searl: Like it’s a big cranberry festival up there, cranberry something. 

[00:04:21] John McMahon: Oh, that’s in the, uh, that’s on the west side of the state, 

[00:04:24] Brian Searl: yeah. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Uh, I don’t think I’ve ever been to Green Bay either, which is really interesting. I traveled the country for, like, four and a half years.

Anyway, we sh- we’ll digress. We’ll talk about our travel stuff offline sometime. Uh, Jeff, so normally, uh, we turn this tour over to our recurring guest kinda first question of the show. Jeff, you’re the only … Well, John, you’re a new recurring guest so I guess you can weigh in on this too. Uh, is there anything that’s come across to your guys’ desks that you think we should be talking about on this show since we last got together about a month or so ago that you think we need to?

[00:04:51] Jeff Hoffman: Well, yeah. Actually, what I’d like to do, because, uh, Landan, uh, is, um, a new guest, and I’d like to talk to him about the real estate industry and the, uh, in the campground sector, the RV sector, where he sees it going, what he sees with valuations. Because, um, in my research and what I’ve been doing lately, I’m finding, uh, a little bit of a fallback on pricing and, uh, a little bit wanting to get a little bit higher cap rates because everybody’s afraid interest rates are going to go up.

And I tend to agree with them. So I’ll let you start 

[00:05:39] Brian Searl: off, Landan, over to you. 

Well, let’s do this. Can, can we, can we do this for a second before- ‘Cause I, I want Landan to talk about that. Yeah. I said, I said that before the show, right? 

[00:05:45] Jeff Hoffman: Okay. 

[00:05:46] Brian Searl: But can we set the stage for the people who are watching this show, because we have a lot of people who are watching the show who are just campground, obviously campground owners, operators, suppliers, vendors, stuff like that, but I don’t know if any of them are familiar with, like

Like, maybe they’ve never sold their park. Maybe they don’t know how valuations work or how appraisals work or how, how they should be valuing their sites or their properties or if that’s relevant or has changed in 2026. So maybe, like, Jeff or Landan, both of you either are qualified, right, to, to answer this question.

Oh. But maybe we just start there, not in a long exercise that takes 30 minutes, right- … but, like, a brief overview of how you would begin to get started understanding the worth of your campground in 2026, and does the economy impact that or not? Does the demand-

[00:06:25] Jeff Hoffman: Sure …

[00:06:25] Brian Searl: for camping or the type of camping they offer impact that or not?

[00:06:28] Jeff Hoffman: Okay. 

[00:06:29] Brian Searl: And has anything changed since COVID, that kind of thing. 

[00:06:31] Jeff Hoffman: Right. Why don’t we take a look, uh, at, at both ways because I generally, uh, am valuing campgrounds for the buyers and investors, and Landan, I think you probably are on the opposite, not quite opposite side, but generally you’re getting listings and trying to sell them.

So why don’t we approach it from two different sides and I think it’ll make an interesting discussion. 

[00:06:57] Landan Dory: I would agree. Yeah. Why don’t you, why don’t you start us out with how you look at it from the buyer’s perspective and then I’ll hit on what we do, uh, in working with a prospective seller. 

[00:07:07] Jeff Hoffman: Okay. That’ll work.

Um, generally with a buyer It doesn’t matter what you did to your campground, how much capital you put in. Uh, it does matter what the campground looks like because, uh, you know, if I have to put a lot of CapEx, or if I have to spend a lot of capital to get it back up to industry, that means I’m gonna want a higher cap rate because I’m putting more money in, and I also want… will probably ask for a lower offer price because I’m gonna have to put capital in. 

[00:07:45] Brian Searl: Okay, for… Sorry, just to interrupt you. For the people who are totally ignorant, cap rate in 10 seconds. 

[00:07:50] Jeff Hoffman: Okay. The cap rate is the amount of return that I expect to get off of the campground, and it’s gonna, going to be based off of a percentage of your net operating income, which is revenue minus expenses, take out depreciation and interest, or amortization if you have it, but most campgrounds don’t.

And that’s, we end up with the NOI number, and that’s mainly, that’s my area that I work in. Everything is based off the NOI, and that’s kind of where I was headed. Uh, you can have the prettiest park in the world, but if your occu- occupancy is 13%, it’s not pretty to me. Uh, I’m strictly going on your, uh, financials when I’m valuing a park.

You know, we’ll add some for some aesthetics and location because, as you know, in real estate, location is everything. And the potential for out- value add, that’s the other thing that we look at, is how is the park operating now, how can it operate better, and what, through our expertise, can we add to this property that’s going to make it worth more money?

We normally try not to pay for that value add because that’s our equity gain. So in a, in a nutshell, that’s my view of, uh, valuation. 

[00:09:29] Brian Searl: So how do you… What are some examples of value adds for people? Like, is there a fixed list for our industry, or could a value add be, like, John’s great beard or 

[00:09:39] John McMahon: That’s expensive.

[00:09:40] Jeff Hoffman: Yeah. It probably is. That would, that would probably add something if he stays. 

[00:09:44] Brian Searl: Yeah. 

[00:09:44] Jeff Hoffman: But we’ve, we’ve gotta com- we’ve got, got to carve the company’s initials in it 

[00:09:50] Brian Searl: But give people some examples, right? And, and the reason I’m asking this is because you’re, if, if you’re the owner of your campground-

[00:09:56] Jeff Hoffman: Yes …

[00:09:56] Brian Searl: then obviously your value adds, and I know they’re, they’re, we’re not talking about exactly the same thing here, right, w- with what you’re describing.

[00:10:02] Jeff Hoffman: We are. 

[00:10:03] Brian Searl: Your value adds and what your valuations are and how you perceive things and all that is way different than how somebody else comes in and perceives them. And then also is there, is there a value or perceived value of what I could do with this property that maybe the owner’s never done marketing or never had a good website or, right?

Does all that come into play? 

[00:10:22] Jeff Hoffman: Yeah, and that’s what we evaluate when we’re, we’re looking at this to see if there is value add. We look at the marketing, we look at their rates, we compare demand, uh, for the industry as a, you know, we break it down by region, uh, what the demand is, what the demand is for that city or attraction.

Then we take a look at what percentage they’re getting out of that versus everybody else. You know, if they’re getting the standard percentage, then if they’re not marketing and they’re not really qualifying the park- Mm … then there’s a reason to think that we could draw some more demand to that park. We also look at all the rate structures, all the ancillary income, how that might be affected, what it can bring in.

And, you know, on the opposite end, if I was working with a seller We wanna work like a year or two ahead with a seller to get this income onto their books. And the same thing, uh, y- and I preach this to them, if you’re not reporting all of your income, that 10,000 that you might think is, you know, you’re saving 25% on taxes, by taking that out, you’re knocking $100,000 of value or more off of your park.

So my… If you’re going to sell, report all of your income, because if I show up to your park and I can’t prove those numbers, if it didn’t go through a checkbook, it didn’t go through some, a credit card, it doesn’t exist. You can tell me you took some money, but if I can’t prove it, it doesn’t exist. Um, other-

[00:12:16] Brian Searl: Go ahead and finish.

[00:12:16] Jeff Hoffman: Sorry. Go ahead. Okay. Yeah. Other areas that, uh, we can improve on are the marketing. I- And generally, what, w- with the way things are now, we normally recommend they take a look at an actual professional agency to handle marketing, because y- we know most people know just enough to get dangerous, but not how to truly market.

You know, you can break a… Marketing, you can break down now into specific sections, specific people, specific income groups, people that actually own RVs. You don’t do the shotgun approach anymore on marketing, where you’re just firing until you hit something. You know, we’re getting very direct. We’re kind of using a, a rifle scope now instead of just blasting.

[00:13:08] Brian Searl: Which is good, ’cause if you fire im- just in- randomly until you hit things, you’d run out of ammo like the US military is apparently, right? No, sorry, that’s a bad joke. Okay, we shouldn’t dive on. Yeah. Okay. Uh, sorry. All right. So question for you, Jeff. Um, so if, if I’m an owner and you said you wanted to work typic- or if I’m an owner thinking about selling my park, you say you typically wanna work with them a year or two in advance.

How does it impact what they’re, or how you wanna work with them or when, or, or I guess how does it impact them that there’s an economy that is seemingly not headed in the right direction right now? Does that set them back four years potentially, or six years? 

[00:13:48] Jeff Hoffman: Um… 

[00:13:50] Brian Searl: Because it stacks, right? Like you wanna, you wanna look at, you wanna start tackling the problem that you can tackle and have two years to tackle is what you’re saying.

[00:13:56] Jeff Hoffman: Yeah. Right. What’s changing in the economy? You know, we are having a bit of a flat, maybe down year in the camping industry. But what I’ve studied over time, in a 10-year period, we have two great years, we have two horrible years, and then we have six flat years generally. So if you’re improving and improving, you’re, you’re going above the average.

Um, so I w- I would tell them, “We’re gonna look at the average of what you’ve done over X amount of years. We project into the future what demand might be.” Because we’re not, I mean, we’re not gonna have 425 gas forever, at least we hope not. Uh, we’re gonna have inflation unless they do something. So what’s gonna hurt his sale is if we raise interest rates.

That means I have to be further away from the interest rate on my cap rate. ‘Cause what, what a cap rate is is a spread rate between what you’re paying in interest and what you wanna receive. So if I can put my… Right now, I can put my money in the Fed at four point, I think it’s now up to 4.56. 

[00:15:23] Brian Searl: It was 4.68 this morning.

[00:15:27] Jeff Hoffman: Was it? Okay. 

[00:15:28] Brian Searl: And then the treasury started buying back bonds again. 

[00:15:30] Jeff Hoffman: Right. But I don’t ha- You know, I can earn that 4.68 without doing anything. I get a check. I don’t worry because it’s backed by the US government and my taxes hopefully. Uh, so I wanna get a spread for that, um, risk that I’m taking, and it depends on how comfortable you are with risk.

Some companies that can buy at a lower cap rate are well-funded and have lots of revenue streams coming in, so they can go down lower on a cap rate because they know in five years they’re gonna grow that cap rate up to 1520 through just raising revenues. But your average, you know, average mom and pop, if they’re taking their money out of a 401where you know the average is gonna be 8% without you doing anything.

You definitely wanna get 9 to 10% because you’re gonna be working this property. It’s not gonna be a passive income unless it’s huge 

[00:16:45] Brian Searl: All right. I wanna come back to the rates and the 5 and 10-year thing, but I, like, we could talk and then I, I wanna make sure Landan and John have time. So Landan, what do you think?

[00:16:52] Jeff Hoffman: Right. You know I can talk about this forever, so yeah. 

[00:16:54] Brian Searl: I wanna, I wanna talk about the 5 to 10-year thing later specifically really as it relates to the big groups, ’cause I don’t know if that holds up long term. And, and, and also the raising rates versus inflation prices, is that really making more money?

So we’ll come back to that. Don’t let me forget, Jeff. You’re young and I’m old, and you’ll remember. But Landan, go. What you, what do you think about it? 

[00:17:13] Jeff Hoffman: You always gotta get that old thing in there, don’t ya? 

[00:17:15] Brian Searl: I said I was old, man. What are you talking about? 

[00:17:18] Jeff Hoffman: Yeah. 

[00:17:18] Brian Searl: Look at my gray hair. You see that? I’m bald, too.

I have nothing. All right. Sorry, Landan. Go ahead. 

[00:17:24] Landan Dory: No, you’re good. Um, first and foremost, Jeff’s spot on with everything that he’s saying. Um, these properties are not valued based on how much money you spent on them, or how much you love it, or what you think it should be worth. It’s based off of what somebody can actually walk into a bank and get financing for.

And whether it’s an SBA loan or a conventional loan or some other type of debt, you’re capped at a certain point because banks require a couple different things. There’s LTV requirements, that’s loan-to-value. There’s a debt service coverage ratio that’s a requirement. And if you’re not within the realm of where a bank needs you to be, then even if you like the property as a buyer, you want to own it, you put a contract on it, and you, you start down that track, the bank’s gonna come in, look at it, and veto it if the cashflow coming in off the property is not enough to cover the debt service on the property.

So that’s a very critical thing, and that’s the things that a lot of people miss, especially when they’ve dumped a lot of money into their property to improve it, but those improvements were on maybe non-revenue producing things like infrastructure that just doesn’t produce, you know, any cashflow for the business.

[00:18:30] Brian Searl: I know you’re just getting started, but tell me, like, I, I’m just curious for the people out there. Is the line moving because of this economy? Is, are the banks moving the line at all? And does that, how does that impact the market? 

[00:18:40] Landan Dory: The banks, from what I can tell, and I talk to a lot of banks, banks are becoming more skittish of this asset class.

You know, this was a darling asset class in the 20-teens leading up to 2020. A lot of private equity money moving into the space, a lot of new owners wanting to be in the space, a lot of new developers trying to get into this space. And everybody had this theory and this business model and this pro forma of what they thought was going to happen with the space, and then COVID hits.

And then everybody’s theories got proven right. Every single park, I mean every single … The majority of parks had some of their best years between 2020 and the first half of 2022. Um, more people were traveling, the cost of capital was extremely low, and that means that more people started building these things, more people started buying these things.

And especially for the people that were buying them, if you bought with 4% interest and you bought maybe a 6% cap rate park, you’re finding yourself in a tough spot right now because- Especially right now in 2026. So 2021, a lot of people paid a lot for these types of properties. Fast-forward five years, a lot of people are facing their, uh-

the bank maturity dates, and now they’re having to play the pretend and extend game with the bank, and they either need to refinance at rates that are probably depe- depending on your park, 6.5 on the very low end, up to 7.25 on the higher end. And if you are making less money than you were before, which is pretty common in the space right now, that’s a very difficult payment to make, especially if the payment goes up.

So if you can’t refinance, what are your options? To sell. Well- In, in our analysis and our research, the market’s been pretty down and to the right in terms of sales prices for these since 2022, 2023. Um, matter of fact, last year we, we underwrote and analyzed 78 parks just in Texas, and 68% of those parks saw both a simultaneous decrease in revenue and increase in expenses.

So that profit margin for a lot of owners is getting squeezed in a really tough manner. So now we’re in 2026, a lot of people are facing those refinances. There are plenty of people in the marketplace, many of them are our clients, who they can’t refinance because there’s not enough equity in the property for the bank to loan on again, and if they sell, they owe the bank money ’cause they can’t get the cash out of the sale.

So banks that are very familiar with this space, um, have a much better lens into what the risk level is right now, and we’re starting to see a little bit of pullback and a little bit more scrutiny in the underwriting. Um, and then the, the banks that are not very well known in the space, or they don’t have a, a large allocation or exposure to the outdoor hospitality space, um, those guys are getting hammered just as hard, but they don’t have as much data to compare it to to see if this is anomaly on a, on a single park basis, or if this is a more widespread problem that a lot of people are facing.

And the reality is, especially down here in Texas where we’re located, it’s, it’s affecting a lot of people. And the thing that augments this and makes this a lot harder is the sheer overdevelopment that we’ve seen in the space, both in terms of people who’ve expanded their campgrounds and then people that have built them from the ground up.

And there’s a really interesting study that was done in 2018, I believe it was Horizon that put out the report for Texas. It was tracking, I wanna say 2,100 RV parks in the state of Texas. Well, we’ve got an internal tool that we’re using to track the market as well, and we’re tracking at least 3,800 operational RV parks in Texas right now.

It’s a 70% increase in about a six-year time span. So there’s a lot of things that are making camp ownership today way more difficult, and it’s the reason why, it’s the reason why we started our advisory practice. We didn’t wanna be advisors, ’cause again, I’m not an operator, I just see a lot of businesses.

But what Jeff said is exactly correct. If somebody comes to me today and says, “Landan, sell my park,” I say, “Sure, absolutely I will.” And then I open… I pop the hood on their business, I start to look under it, and I see what’s going on, and Oftentimes there’s a lot of things that can be fixed and changed with just a little bit more time and a little bit more intention.

And if you don’t have that time, you can’t just solve those problems in a six-month time span because most of these things, these opportunities in your business for improvement, most of those things take time to implement, and then it takes time for that to be reflected on your trailing 12-month profit and loss.

So it does take time to get to that point. Jeff hit the nail on the head there. Um, and which is why, you know, this is a very much an operator’s game. This is not an apartment complex. This is not a retail property. This is an operating business, and that’s a double-edged sword, right? Because it, it means that you have the potential for very high, high highs and low lows.

A good operator can come into a bad property and significantly outperform everybody else ’cause he’s got a better toolkit, he’s got more experience, and he knows how to run better than a previous operator. And, um, I, I encourage every owner out there, really, really take seriously your operations, really take seriously how you’re running your business, and be a little bit com- comforted by the fact that even at the highest level, the institutional level for the owners that have these types of properties, even those guys have some pretty gaping holes in their business models, and just a little bit more attention and a little bit more knowledge can help fill that.

And that’s everything from the financial literacy side, that’s everything from the operational side. Marketing and revenue generation is obviously key. Infrastructure, you can’t ignore that. And all of that, at least in our practice, leads up to exit readiness. All of those things are decisions you make in your business today to run a more profitable business, but those are the same things that will yield you a higher exit value when you actually go to sell.

So thinking about a sale, it’s not something that’s way off in the distance. No, you need to start making those decisions today, even if you’re planning on owning and operating your park for the next 20 years. Install these practices in your business today because not only are they gonna help you run a more profitable business today, but it’s gonna yield you a higher valuation when you do go and exit.

[00:24:49] Brian Searl: I don’t wanna take this in a negative direction, but I have one specific question, and then we’ll kind of flip back to the positive. Uh-

[00:24:54] Landan Dory: Okay …

[00:24:54] Brian Searl: with related to what you just said about the overbuilding in Texas and the cheap money for a while. Is it possible, and Jeff, maybe you wanna weigh in on, on this too-

[00:25:02] Jeff Hoffman: Mm

[00:25:03] Brian Searl: uh, is it possible that because of the cheap money and because of the overbuild aspect of certainly not every area but Texas and a few other places, is it possible that COVID is going to drive our own mini version of the subprime mortgage crisis in 2008 in RV parks? 

[00:25:21] Landan Dory: It’s an interesting way to look at it.

Uh, I, I, I don’t know if I would say yes or no on that ’cause I don’t have the crystal ball. But what I can confidently say is that valuations have been down year over year. And I think that this year and the next probably 18 months are gonna be pretty defining for property valuations because of that debt maturity is affecting a significant portion, you know, small comparative to the total sample size, but a significant portion of parks have refinances that they’re having to deal with right now.

[00:25:48] Jeff Hoffman: Yeah. 

[00:25:49] Landan Dory: And if those parks sell, they’re selling on an NOI margin that’s been squeezed harder over the last four years than ever before in history. Every time one of those properties sells, it puts a, it puts a pin on the map right there for what value is, either on a cap rate basis or a price per pad basis.

And then everybody after that who’s going to value a park, be it a broker, a buyer, a lender, is gonna look back at that comparable sale and say, “Well, that’s a comp. I’m gonna use that comp for your valuation.” And comps are comps. I mean, these businesses are all so different that putting any of them in too tight of a box is kind of a fool’s errand.

Uh- Mm-hmm … and it’s, it’s just likewise. So you have to take every single, every single valuation, you put it in its own silo. What is this property? How is it producing revenue? What type of revenue is it? Is it recurring revenue? Is it one-time revenue? Is it cost of goods sold type revenue? You know, what is it?

And then you look at it on an individual basis then. But no matter what you do, you always get to the point where no seller, no owner, or no broker sets the price for a property. Something is only worth what somebody else is willing to pay, and somebody else can only pay up to what a bank can lend them unless they’re using seller financing, some other creative structure, or paying cash, which is just the dream buyer.

But, uh, those are few and far between. 

[00:27:08] Brian Searl: And as those parks come to market at potentially lower or higher rates, but lower in this direction that we’re talking about, that in some ways artificially can set a cap. Is that what you’re saying? Uh, obviously you still evaluate it individually and it could exceed that on a micro level, but on a macro 

[00:27:25] Landan Dory: It, it puts a lot of data against you is what it does.

Because you don’t have to go back too far. 2021, go look at the comparable sales. Some of the properties that sold just make absolutely no financial and economical sense. But they were- 

[00:27:38] Brian Searl: Yeah, it’s like the Cleveland Brown- It’s like the Cleveland Browns giving Deshaun Watson all the guaranteed money they did.

[00:27:42] Landan Dory: Oh, oh. 

[00:27:44] Jeff Hoffman: It’s like that. God. Right? It’s- Good God, leave me alone. 

[00:27:46] Landan Dory: It’s exactly like that. Okay, 

[00:27:48] Brian Searl: sorry. 

[00:27:49] Jeff Hoffman: We 

[00:27:49] Landan Dory: still 

[00:27:50] Jeff Hoffman: gotta suffer with him. Leave me alone. 

[00:27:52] Landan Dory: People between two, b- basically running up to the teens and then 2020 to 2021, the trend was hot up and to the right, okay? And a lot of people made purchase, uh, decisions based on the belief that that trend was gonna continue.

And then what happens in 2022? COVID’s basically over. Down here in Texas, it was definitely over, so people stopped traveling as much because they got back to their day-to-day lives. And then what happened in Q2 of 2022, or, or basically second, first, end of sec- end of first half of 2022, the rates jumped up for the first time.

So now you have fewer people traveling, that’s fewer revenue for parks, or less revenue for parks, and then you have, um, all the new competition and interest rates go up. So that’s just taken a hammer to what these things are realistically worth. So a lot of people, what they did is they just didn’t transact if they didn’t have to.

They, there’s a belief this is a blip, or next year will be better, or they say, “Gosh darn, I really need to focus on my operations or my marketing because this year was way worse than last year.” But that’s been the song that’s been sung since 2022, and I think that 2026 is a defining year. I think that if there’s a floor, we’re very close to it, if we’re not sitting on it right now.

Um, and I, I’m very interested to pick Jeff’s brain on his belief on that six-year timeline of flatness. I hope it’s not flat for that long. But, uh- Well that, 

[00:29:08] Brian Searl: so let’s do that, and then, and then I wanna get to John. But, so my last question for you though is I don’t know if that’s a floor. Maybe this is more of a statement than a question, but we’ll see where it goes.

I don’t know if it’s a floor, because I, I see the, when I, when I talked about subprime, I see a perfect storm here coming for campgrounds, some, right? But let’s say you’re in a position where your five year is renewing and you have to, you’re faced with higher interest rates and you’re also faced with lower demand in 2026, higher diesel prices.

The trend seems to be heading that way for 2027 if everything, if I step back and look factually at the economy with my emotion out of it, right? So I, I think you’re headed toward a perfect storm of like, I don’t know that 2026 is the floor. I, I think it might get worse in, on a macro level, not on a micro level.

[00:29:51] Landan Dory: It, it… That’s a good distinction to make. A- and it very easily could. My hope is that it doesn’t. Um, but that’s why I tell people this is an operator’s game. You can out-operate your competitor right down the road, even if they have an identical park, because this is such a dynamic business. So what everyone needs to be focusing on right now is just running the best possible business that they can, because that’s what’s gonna affect your cash flow today.

Your value only really matters when you go to transact or when you go to do something, some sort of capital event like a refi. But today, just focus on running the best business you can. Get really tight on who your customer profile is and how you acquire them. Get really tight on how you run your staff and run your teams and run, run the operations of your business.

Really think, think critically about your, your infrastructure. You know, there’s infrastructure decisions you have to make as a, as an owner. Do you make the infrastructure decision that’s gonna generate revenue? Like in Texas, it’s hot. Site covers are one of the h- highest ROI things we see people do. Up in you guys’ neck of the wood, it’s less valuable because it’s not as, as brutally hot down there.

Or do you make the revenue decisions that’s gonna give you a lower operating cost for the next five to 10 years? Better roads, better infrastructure, higher quality materials when you do installs. Those are decisions that owners are having to make, and you really make that with whatever your end goal is in mind.

If you’re wanting to sell in two to three years, you need to be making improvements that are gonna generate revenue now. If you’re planning on a 20-year hold, you need to be thinking about durability long term, and that’s a, it’s a different business model, but it all falls under the same umbrella of just running the best possible business that you can run in your individual park or your portfolio.

[00:31:24] Brian Searl: Yeah, I know I said I was gonna go to you, but I think that’s a perfect transition actually to John to talk about operations, because-

[00:31:29] John McMahon: Yes …

[00:31:29] Brian Searl: i, I think we, and we’ve talked on this show many times before about how yes, that there is, the world is wide open for RV park campground camp resort owners to actually focus on operations.

Because on a macro level, there are certainly lots of micro operators, but on a macro level, I’m of the opinion, and so are very smart people that I talk to, not all of them, but some of them that, uh, we’ve been basically building parking lots since 1960 in the RV industry, and I think there’s a ton of room for doing unique things.

So John, take that from there. 

[00:32:00] John McMahon: Yeah, thank. Well, first of all, it’s, it’s been a fascinating conversation because I’ve actually been in another market that had similar, um, circumstances with like the RV market, except it went on a lot longer. So when I retired in 2012, uh, my family and I, we built two breweries, and that’s when the craft beer market was on this side of the curve.

And we, um, the, when we started out in 2014, when we first opened our doors, it was all about expansion. It was about being distributed in all, every state and be distributed in Canada. That’s what it was about. So it was about investing lots of capital into equipment. Uh, and when we started here in Wisconsin, which is one of the largest, uh, beer states in the world, um, we had 91 breweries.

And, uh, when I say 91 breweries, the anything beyond 15 was just a mom-and-pop garage outfit. When we got out of the business during Covid, there was 367 breweries in the state of Wisconsin alone Um, so, you know, we saw, we quickly, uh, and money was, was available. It was inexpensive. Uh, we saw a lot of growth.

Uh, too many people thinking that, uh, if you build it, they will come, and getting caught with an infrastructure that they could never, um, get an ROI on. So there were all these breweries trying to sell to other breweries, to larger distribution companies. And at the end of the day, it was just too much everywhere and too much of the same thing everywhere.

And the, and it, it was, it was always about being big. It was never about being profitable and, uh, run a tight operation. And I think that’s kind of what the RV market, and I have to say the boating market, uh, is the same. During COVID, it just shot sky high, and now there’s an abundance of used inventory. So new, uh, new boats don’t sell anymore.

But anyway, so we were lucky when we got into the campground business. Um, we had looked at it since 2012, and what we did when we planned is that we wanted to make sure that we had to have as, uh, little amount of, of institutional, uh, funding for it. So we tried to, to map the correct size for a lot of reasons.

One, obviously we needed the revenue, um, in order to service our debt, and we needed the profitability to service our debt. Um, we also, because we live in such a, a faraway place, you don’t drive through Door County to get anywhere, we have an issue with staffing. Um, we have to bring in a lot of J1s or we bring in college students or we get high school kids.

Um, but the downside to all of that is they go away, so you’re constantly trying to retrain and rehire and hope they last through that season. Because if you lose in August, you’re not gonna find a replacement, ’cause everybody’s employed. We have no unemployment in, in this area during the summertime. So The other, other things we did was we wanted to make sure that, um, even though we were small, we had a, a portfolio that would attract, um, the tent camper all the way up to the Class As, and they want nice, um, Scandinavian cottages.

So we wanted to cover the gamut there. But we really focused on, um, who our customer, who we want our customer to be, and that would be 35 to 55-year-old, uh, they own a Sprinter van, and they don’t like to be in the same place at once, uh, all the time, right? They wanna keep going, they’re travelers. They’re not on vacation.

But they also have, um, a good, steady income. A lot of them work, uh, work remotely, but they’re software engineers or th- you know, they’re, they’re doing things with… These people have a lot of income. So, uh, we also looked at our market, and most, not all of our market except us, I would have to say, is simply a parking lot.

And, um, I think people are tired of paying for just dirt on the ground. And not everybody, but you know, there is- You know, 

[00:36:29] Brian Searl: boomers are still fine with it, which is why they haven’t really changed since 1960. 

[00:36:32] John McMahon: Yeah, they’re good with that. Right. Right. And so we also could create, um… You could build more parking lots in Door County and sell them, but we didn’t want that kind of, we didn’t want that business like everybody else.

So we did target a higher-end market that’s willing to spend more money but also expects nicer amenities, but they are willing to pay for an hour in the sauna even though they’re there for 10 minutes. They’re willing to, uh, pay a higher, um, site fee because, uh, we have a beautiful lodge and a bar and everything you can imagine, right?

We had, uh, we, we charge 10,000 for a seasonal site that’s only 168 days long But we did that on purpose. You know, I, I had a guy, uh, last year on a Sunday call me to tell me that he’d never come to our campground because our prices were too high for him. And I s- I, I was so… I said, “And what else did you want?”

He goes, “No, I just wanna tell you I’ll never come there.” And I hung up the phone and I thought for a second, did I do something wrong? Are we doing something wrong? And then went back said, “No, you aren’t, you aren’t our customer, and we didn’t build it for every person.” And I, I think the thing that we’re most proud of is, is, is that kind of pre-opening, um, commitment to not think about being big, but think about being profitable, tighten the operation, make sure that we, everything’s locked down tight, learn from history, and then decide what do we do next.

Do we expand our current property or do we add a new property to our portfolio that is maybe not even in our backyard, but we could mimic that? And then, you know, a couple weeks ago, I think Campspot put out their, uh, mid-season state of the industry, and the only, only campgrounds that are making money, are growing, are small campgrounds under 100 sites that have 20% of their portfolio is lodging, um, or the super glamping sites.

Those are the only two categories. So had we overbuilt from the beginning and thought about, you know, we would be out of staff, we would be, we’d be out of customers. You know, we… And so I think the smart thing to do for new operators or, or new, um, builders and owners is to look at exactly what Landan and Jeff were saying.

You gotta focus on your operations. You gotta keep it as tight as you can, and you have to make those decisions on where, where’s the best investment, you know? I- are we building for the long term? Are we building for immediate ROI? And I think we do a good job, uh, because of our history, uh, and not in camping, but in other industries like this.

Um, uh, it’s really helped us out 

[00:39:26] Brian Searl: But like you said, I think it’s important to emphasize again, like running good operations requires you to understand who you’re targeting, and it’s not everybody. Absolutely. Absolutely. Like we did marketing for 15, 16 years in this industry. I guess we still kind of do, but I’m trying to like run away from it as fast as I can, ’cause AI’s gonna kill me and I’m doing other stuff now.

Uh, but like, but, but the, but, uh, you know, I have so many people still who call me on the phone and book appointments with me and we talk about marketing and that lots of existing clients, we work with hundreds of parks still for marketing. And, and the answer is always like, “Who do you want me to target?”

“RVers.” What do you… Like- 

[00:39:57] Jeff Hoffman: Yeah … 

[00:39:57] Brian Searl: that’s not an answer. Like what type of RVers? Where are they coming from? What do they want? Have you studied what they want on their site, or what amenities, or what, whether they have kids or don’t have kids, or whether they wanna be noisy or not, or whether they’re traveling nurses or who?

Nothing. 

[00:40:09] Jeff Hoffman: Right. 

[00:40:10] Brian Searl: And so that’s what I mean, the opportunity is so huge, but you’ve gotta figure out the opportunity or have a hunch of what it is, or multiple different opportunities-

[00:40:18] John McMahon: Right …

[00:40:18] Brian Searl: and then target operations toward that, right? 

[00:40:20] John McMahon: Right. And for the most part, you have to stick with your decision. You know-

[00:40:26] Jeff Hoffman: Yes

[00:40:26] John McMahon: like, and also, you know, listening if, if you start getting a trend, but you have to stick to that. You know, just, it’s like my example before, you know, “Why am I paying that much money to come there?” Well, I didn’t des- I’m sorry, I’m not trying to be rude, I didn’t design it for you. And so when, when we look at the operations of the, the, uh, business, we have to make sure…

So our three priorities are customer service excellence, cleanliness excellence in all of our facilities, and an amazing, um, landscape. Okay. So we take care of our property. So when we hire, we have three directors directors, adults, full-time adults that live here running those departments because we need consistency.

So they can hire all they want, but as long as that, that management team manages to our specifications and requirements, we can get that done in the long term. If, if we didn’t hire for those three goals, I, I think we’d be completely lost, and I think a lot of people just hire because they think they need, uh, an educational, someone to do the educational programs or do kids programs or other things.

But when we… Every time we talk to a, a new employee or even our guests or someone who’s looking to come, and we tell them about, you know, what, what is our mission and our vision, and I tell them that, “You know, here’s the three things. You wanna come here for these three reasons. We’re the cleanest park you’ve ever been to.

We’re the most beautiful park you’ve ever been to, and you will leave thinking we’re the nicest people in the world.” And w- we, when we interview, when we talk to our banker, when we talk to, to our guests or, you know, even when we, uh, have articles written about us, those are the three principles that we’re building this around, and if we grow too big, we’ll never be able to take care of the, the facilities the way we take care of it today We’ll never give- 

[00:42:29] Brian Searl: We could probably have- 

[00:42:30] John McMahon: Say it again.

[00:42:31] Brian Searl: We could put, we could probably have a whole episode on hiring is what I was gonna say. I thought you were done-

[00:42:34] John McMahon: Oh, yeah. Sorry …

[00:42:34] Brian Searl: so finish what you’re saying.

[00:42:34] John McMahon: No, I am done.

[00:42:34] Brian Searl: Uh, we could, we could have a whole episode on hiring because I feel like that’s the same analogy as the parking lot on a macro level again, but I think there’s a whole lot of people just putting a body where they can put a body and not worrying about what their specialization is.

Are they good with kids? Do they have good communication? Are they cheery? Are they sad? Are they mopey? Are they-

[00:42:55] John McMahon: Right …

[00:42:55] Brian Searl: hate, whatever, isolated, depending on what kind of activity or whatever they’re doing, which I think ends up being solved by robots at some point, where the robots do the mundane tasks and then you can hire, like you’re saying, your three great roles that are consistent that require higher thinking because in hospitality you’re never gonna lose the guest touch, but that doesn’t mean the guest touch has to be with every person or thing in the case of robots.

[00:43:18] John McMahon: Right.

[00:43:18] Brian Searl: It has to be with the people that really make a difference.

[00:43:20] John McMahon: Yeah. 

[00:43:22] Landan Dory: I wanna dovetail off of, uh, something that John was saying here, which I, for, for people watching this, like, this cannot be, this, this cannot be overstated. But the value of defining who your customer is, like your ICP, figuring out who that is, and then catering everything that you do around that profile or a handful of different profiles because what happens is, especially right now, like if we were to start- 

[00:43:45] Brian Searl: Sorry, one second.

Can you explain what ICP is for everybody? Ideal customer profile, I’m assuming you mean, but just so people at home- 

[00:43:50] Landan Dory: Ideal… Yeah, ideal customer profile. It’s, it’s who you wanna attract, right? It’s everything that you just mentioned, from the traveling nurses to the this, to the that, the other. Um, and you can’t create a park that caters to everybody ’cause what happens, if you have everybody on your park at the same time, you’ve got the spring breakers, you’ve got the retirees, the long-term stays, the, you know, the, the low-income housing.

Those, those personalities will conflict and you cannot possibly have the amenities and the staffing and the infrastructure to s- to serve everybody nearly as well as you could pick one customer profile or maybe three customer profiles and be the best possible thing to that person. ‘Cause the mistake that people make is they say, you know, they say, “My occupancy’s the lowest it’s been in years.

What do I do? I’m a historically long-term park.” And they say, “Well, maybe I’ll just open up these 20 spots over here for transient campers and, you know, we’ll get some revenue that way.” The problem that that creates is if you are a park that has predominantly long-term renters, maybe they’re workers, maybe they’re construction guys in town for six to eight months on a project, whatever it is, someone that’s working 12-hour days, when they come back to their trailer, they wanna sleep.

They want peace and quiet. And if you start opening up sections of your park or even just individual spaces to people that are in town, you know, traveling through or they’re on vacation, they’re staying up till 2:00 in the morning drinking beer, being loud, guess what? Both of those people are gonna be upset when they leave the park and your entire, your entire, you know, the hospitality component of what you’re doing, your guest experience gets tainted by decisions like that.

Another mistake I see people making is when times get tough, they cut important things like marketing. They go down their line items on their P&Ls and they see, well, marketing, you know- “What is this actually doing for me?” Because they can’t track their customer acquisition cost and their lifetime value.

They say, “Well, we need to cut back on this.” Well, that disproportionately and negatively impacts their top-line revenue because now they don’t have a customer acquisition channel, and that is so critical. So John, what you’re saying is, well, and it’s like, I’ll speak from the brokerage side for, for a second.

I’m not valuable to any of my clients if I’m selling RV parks and campgrounds, as well as office buildings and apartment complexes and all this stuff, because my attention gets spread too thin. Yeah. I don’t have any value for any of those individual profiles. When we decided to just niche down on the outdoor hospitality industry, our value to every single one of our clients just increased significantly, and that, that’s reflected in, in the relationships and the clientele and the value that we can actually bring people.

And, uh, if anyone’s listening to this, like, that cannot be understated. Don’t fall for that trap of trying to service everybody, and really questioning whether or not you made the right decision by what you said, like telling this guy, “You’re not the right guy for us.” It’s a very important decision that an owner has to make.

It can be a hard decision, but that really sets the tone for what you think they’re out to be. 

[00:46:32] John McMahon: Yeah, I agree. 

[00:46:33] Jeff Hoffman: Um, John, I just, uh, I like that you’re brave enough to charge a seasonal rate that’s in line with what your operating expenses are. Um, most people that have seasonals never run a formula to find out what they should actually be getting.

They just kind of go with what everybody else is doing. Well, every park has a different cost structure Uh, but you have, it seems like you have- 

[00:47:02] Brian Searl: That’s what you, that’s what you see the, I don’t think you watch Outwired very often. I don’t know if you do, actually. I, uh, or how many people do. Uh, but Outwired for Scott and I, or Scott Bahr and I were talking two weeks ago about that very thing, about valuations.

We saw a, a post in Mark Koep’s Facebook group where some lady was like, “I don’t understand how my neighbor is charging $500 a month all in for electricity and everything else a month for seasonal sites when some of my customers who I charge electricity for are averaging 300 to $450 a month for their electric bill in Texas.”

[00:47:32] Jeff Hoffman: Yeah, 

[00:47:33] Brian Searl: uh- And so that’s what you’re talking about, though, on a, on a, on an extreme level. 

[00:47:36] Jeff Hoffman: Well, yeah, and those are the people that actually need our help, uh, because they have no idea of what they’re doing in business. Uh, sometimes their idea of customer service is not that good, uh, and can be improved. You know, John, I think, you know, you staff, it sounds like you’re staffing somewhat heavily so you give great service, but that’s gotta reflect in your prices, and I congratulate you for telling the guy, “You know what?

I’m too expensive for you.” That’s good because I’m looking for a certain guest that appreciates what they get for their dollar. 

[00:48:19] John McMahon: Right. 

[00:48:20] Jeff Hoffman: And that everything’s gonna be clean, well-kept, and not have problems. So- Yeah … I congratulate you. I love your ads. I see them all the time. 

[00:48:29] John McMahon: Oh, well, thank you. 

[00:48:30] Jeff Hoffman: Yeah, just thought I’d let you know that your marketing is out there.

[00:48:34] John McMahon: Thank you. Um, yeah. 

[00:48:35] Brian Searl: How come you haven’t gone, Jeff? 

[00:48:37] Jeff Hoffman: Uh, I’m retired, you know, so I, uh- 

[00:48:40] Brian Searl: You’re not retired. 

[00:48:42] Jeff Hoffman: I stay home a lot now. Uh, actually I’m going to Wisconsin for an Expo in September. Uh, John, maybe, uh, I’ll try to come up and, uh, take a visit. 

[00:48:53] John McMahon: Yeah, that’d be great. Yeah, right. Love to show you around. 

[00:48:56] Jeff Hoffman: Yeah. Well, it’ll be a re- 

[00:48:57] Brian Searl: He’s got one, he’s got one seasonal site left for $10,000. 

[00:49:00] John McMahon: That’s right. 

[00:49:01] Brian Searl: Yeah. 

[00:49:03] John McMahon: Yeah, we have a special. 

[00:49:04] Jeff Hoffman: Yeah. And I got a s- And I got- 

[00:49:06] John McMahon: No, 

[00:49:07] Jeff Hoffman: there’s a- And I got a bridge they just built in Detroit that I can get you in on the ground level 

[00:49:11] John McMahon: Yeah, I, I saw the lines the other day. No, thank you 

[00:49:16] Landan Dory: There’s a really, really good research paper that was put out by, um, uh, Rafael Correa over at Blue Water recently about, um, what this new market looks like in terms of, like, identifying your customer profile.

And what he basically, you know, the, the claim that he makes and he backs up with his data is that in this market where there’s an oversaturation of rentable spaces that people could choose to save- stay, he’s seeing the, um, the renters move in two different directions, right? So you have the super premium renters, the guys who wanna stay at a park like John’s because it’s got the cold plunge or the sauna or whatever else amenities you got, and they’ll pay a premium for that because they’re not cost-sensitive in the same way that somebody is on fixed income.

They’re trending in the other directions. They’re never even considering John’s property because if they save themselves $50 a month in lot rent, that’s real money. That’s, that’s gas money, that’s grocery money. And if you are a under amenitized park and you don’t have much more to offer, then the only thing that you have on a, on a competitive basis is either your location or your cost and you can’t control your location and you really don’t wanna be in control of your cost unless it’s moving up and not down.

So it’s a really good, uh, paper if anybody’s watching this. Go check it out. It, uh, clarifies that and crystallizes it and it really- 

[00:50:33] Brian Searl: I haven’t seen the paper, but Raf is a guest on our podcast once a month, so I know he’s super smart and so I’ll trust your judgment with that it’s a really good paper. It, uh, assume he would put out nothing less.

Uh, but we’ve been talking about that on the show too for a while, like not necessarily his paper, but just the K-shaped economy in general. Well, yeah. And how people are being pulled up and pulled down and I think there’s, like, man I’m scared, I was about to say as fuck, but I don’t know if I can curse on my own show. The FCC is here, so I gotta watch what I can say.

[00:50:59] Landan Dory: It’s your show, you can..

[00:50:59] Brian Searl: But like the, I, like the middle ground, like if I’m a middle of the road, let’s just call it a KOA holiday, right? But like a middle of the road, uh, middle class park, right? I’m really worried about where the next few years go and then the other side of that too is I was, and I follow the economy probably more than I should ’cause I have no life, but, uh-

we, the, the ca- There’s a lot of data in the last month’s report that the K shape, the top of it is starting to collapse because of the prices going up so much. Not completely, but like the spending is starting to go down. 

[00:51:29] Jeff Hoffman: Well, one of the, one of the things we have in this industry is, you know, our top tier has disposable income but our strong base is on the other side of that K. They’re, they’re being affected by the economy right now. 

[00:51:47] Brian Searl: Well, can I, can I play devil’s advocate for a second?

[00:51:49] Jeff Hoffman: Mm-hmm.

[00:51:49] Brian Searl: ‘Cause I don’t know. I used to think they had disposable income too, Jeff.

[00:51:53] Jeff Hoffman: Mm-hmm.

[00:51:53] Brian Searl: But I think most of their wealth is in stocks, and I don’t know that that’s easily accessible disposable income.

I think they’re seeing their $150,000, $200,000 a year salaries on the upper side eaten into just as much as somebody else when your electricity is up a percentage, and your hot tub maintenance is up a percentage, and your insurance is up a percentage, and everything, gas and everything else, right?

[00:52:14] Jeff Hoffman: Mm-hmm.

[00:52:14] Brian Searl: So continue, take that. I don’t wanna stop you from talking, 

[00:52:17] Jeff Hoffman: but- Yeah. Well, I do understand that. The, you know, the scariest thing that I look at is, uh, with the stock market, I, I don’t And this is just my basis. I don’t see the value. It’s got to correct at some point. I don’t know what keeps driving it because- 

[00:52:39] Brian Searl: The AI bubble keeps driving it, but that’s a whole nother show, too, 

[00:52:42] Jeff Hoffman: so Yeah, but the, the AI value is only a percentage of that market, but it’s driving- 

[00:52:50] Brian Searl: It’s like, it’s like 60% of the S&P, man.

[00:52:53] Jeff Hoffman: Right.

[00:52:53] Brian Searl: It’s like a big chunk of that market. 

[00:52:55] Jeff Hoffman: But it’s driving people that don’t have the revenue to drive up their stocks. 

[00:53:00] Brian Searl: I know, but they’re not accountants like you, man. 

[00:53:02] Jeff Hoffman: And most eventually, yeah, well, eventually that’s going to, somebody’s gonna look at it just like they did in the 2000s and go… 

[00:53:11] Brian Searl: Only it’s gonna collapse 100 times worse than the 2000s.

[00:53:14] Jeff Hoffman: God, I hope not. 

[00:53:14] Brian Searl: It’s gonna be ugly, man. But that’s another show, man. That’s another show. Go back to RVs. You were making a good point. 

[00:53:19] Jeff Hoffman: Well, it just, that, that does affect it, because I do think our people that have wealth are starting to wonder, you know. They’ve grown and grown, but anybody that has more than five years of experience in the market knows that.

[00:53:37] Landan Dory: So Jeff, in your opinion, does that impact, if you make $200,000 a year- 

[00:53:42] Jeff Hoffman: Yep … 

[00:53:42] Landan Dory: does that impact your decision to stay at a high-end park versus a maybe middle of the road or lower end park, or does it impact your decision to just travel that season at all? 

[00:53:52] Jeff Hoffman: I think it’s impacting the decision to travel at all, because the people that are making that money, when they travel, they’re gonna go to John’s park.

[00:54:01] Brian Searl: They want the luxury, yep. 

[00:54:02] Jeff Hoffman: Right. The other people that would go to the lower campgrounds, right now I think they’re concerned about getting school supplies, paying for their kids’ athletics and all of that. I have never seen August up in our area drop off the way it has. I, I don’t think you guys have seen any of the reports, but August is looking, the last two weeks are looking horrible.

Labor Day is still good, but these last two weeks, everybody that I’m working with, it’s fallen off the, the board. 

[00:54:41] Brian Searl: Yeah, we track that a little bit. Like, the, I think the- Oh, we- … well, OHI comes out, but we look at occupancy data ’cause we track it for like, I don’t know, 28,000 cities. 

[00:54:48] Jeff Hoffman: Yeah, we lost- 

[00:54:49] Brian Searl: And like 90% of our parks.

[00:54:50] Jeff Hoffman: Well, we lost one week that’s normally good. Last week is normally a good week because everybody figures out their kids are going back to school, so they all travel that last week. And in our area, because of the rainstorms, it didn’t come. So I, I wanted to bring up- 

[00:55:10] Brian Searl: The evidence is already there, Jeff.

[00:55:11] Jeff Hoffman: Yeah.

[00:55:11] Brian Searl: Like, if you look at the retail spending report in the US, we don’t wanna d- diverge into economics, but if you look at the retail-

[00:55:16] Jeff Hoffman: Yeah …

[00:55:16] Brian Searl: spending report from last month in the US, you can see the top of the case, like-

[00:55:20] Jeff Hoffman: Yeah …

[00:55:20] Brian Searl: starting to tighten their spending.

[00:55:21] Jeff Hoffman: Yeah.

[00:55:21] Brian Searl: And that top of the K, that top 10% of people are responsible for, like, 50% of all US economic spending. If they pull back 10%, we’re screwed. 

[00:55:31] Jeff Hoffman: Well, don’t pull back, Brian. You just keep spending.

[00:55:33] John McMahon: Keep spending money, Brian. 

[00:55:35] Brian Searl: The top 10%, man. 

[00:55:35] Jeff Hoffman: I’m down here in the, I’m down here in the other 10%-ers. Um, but- That’s me … uh, Landan, I d- I did wanna bring up one point that you kinda hit on. There was a lot of these purchases that were done with very little money down, a lot of owner financing, blah, blah, blah, and they were getting owners to finance at rates of 4%, 3%, blah.

Well, now those balloons are coming up, and that owner wants his money because he can get more than that rate at a bank, but the value of that campground has come down, and they didn’t have equity to begin with, or very little That’s really what’s causing a lot of this. We’ve… I’ve, I’ve had some people that have just walked away, and I think that’s gonna happen more.

Those may be bargains for buyers, but they’re gonna be at a, a, you know, at more of a reasonable price than they were selling for. So, St- 

[00:56:41] Landan Dory: I just, I’ll s- 

[00:56:42] Brian Searl: Wait, wait, wait. Before, before you answer that, Landan- 

[00:56:46] Jeff Hoffman: I don’t wanna see that happen, but it’s going to …

[00:56:46] Brian Searl: I, I don’t wanna see that happen. Before you answer that, Landan, like are you ta- are you talking about there’s a danger of some of these larger groups that have come into the industry who have all owner-financed, or 90% owner-financed, potentially collapsing?

Or having them, not, not as a large entity organization, but losing a bunch of their parks underneath them? 

[00:57:04] Landan Dory: Depends on how well they’re capitalized and depends on what their exposure is, but there’s already, I, I… If I’d have known this question was coming. There’s a great… First off, the, the creative financing, you know, guru phase that we’re in right now, I’m not gonna say names, but that’s, I think it’s very problematic and very predatory.

And that type of structure is the most at risk because in some cases you’ve got two loans on your, on your, your property, and oftentimes the owner is of a second position to a primary lender. So you get wiped out if something goes sideways. Yes. But there’s a, there’s a really recent story out of Florida where this portfolio, maybe eight to 10 parks that were put together under these creative financing structures, that these same economics that we’re talking about started negatively impacting them.

And it got to the point where they realized that it, it wasn’t just the amount of work that it was gonna take them to get back to a profitability standpoint. They looked at the numbers and said, “There’s no profitability standpoint. We can continue working and doing this and have nothing to show for it.

So let’s give this back to the bank. Let’s wash our hands and let’s go focus on something completely different.” The bank doesn’t wanna own the park, and then the owner who’s in a second position on that note, you get completely wiped out. So it is, it is happening. It’s, that’s probably one of the larger scale examples I’ve seen.

If you’re a big operator, you probably have a fragment, a, a sliver of your portfolio that’s feeling this. I know several of them that have very problematic parks. But really where we’re seeing this is on the individual mom-and-pop level. You made… You had a single property, you made a single deal, and now that deal’s gone bad.

I’ve got one client right now who is, we’ve- I’ll, I’ll gatekeep some of the information ’cause it’s very, very-

[00:58:44] Brian Searl: Yeah. …

[00:58:47] Landan Dory: private. But-

[00:58:50] Brian Searl: Nobody watched the show anyway, don’t worry.

[00:58:51] Landan Dory: He, he’s, he’s a million dollars upside down on his, his park. We’ve, we’ve, we’ve brought plenty of activity. We know what the value of the property is. We know what the market’s opinion of value for the property is, and he’s either facing a personal bankruptcy to, to get out of the situation or basically liquidating his entire 401and his stock portfolio, whatever other investments he’s got, to make up that delta between what that thing sells for and what the bank is owed.

And that’s a very dramatic representation of what’s going on, but that is not uncommon at all in, in… Uh, I’m, I’m speaking primarily in Texas and some of the surrounding states, ’cause that’s where I’m most familiar. But when I talk to… I got plenty of brokerage friends in this industry, we kind of swap notes from time to time.

It’s very, very prevalent throughout the entire country. 

[00:59:33] Jeff Hoffman: Yep. And that’s, you know, I enjoy working with banks and the owners to try to, to- Come up with something where we can work it out, because I hate seeing people lose everything on a bad investment. Sometimes you just, you can’t get ’em, but maybe we can figure out how to make it less stressful and less damaging. Um, but- 

[01:00:00] Landan Dory: And these types of things aren’t all preventable, but some of these things are preventable. It just takes a little bit more knowledge in a specific area that might not be your, you know, your, your expertise on the marketing side or the operational side. Yeah. But you can make some significant improvements.

[01:00:14] Jeff Hoffman: Yep, and that’s unfa- You know, a lot of times when people bring me in, it’s when right before the bank’s gonna get rid of him, and it’s like, I need time to perform miracles. I, I, I can’t just-

[01:00:28] John McMahon: Yeah …

[01:00:29] Jeff Hoffman: do this. 

[01:00:31] John McMahon: I mean, this is a great thing. How many of those deals were financed during COVID? 

[01:00:34] Jeff Hoffman: That, quite a few of them. That’s-

[01:00:36] Landan Dory: A lot …

[01:00:37] Jeff Hoffman: and- 

[01:00:37] John McMahon: You know, it’s the same thing I was talking about in the brew- in the craft beer world, that- 

[01:00:42] Jeff Hoffman: Cheap money … 

[01:00:42] John McMahon: you can blame us for all growing too fast, but the money was, they were begging you to take the money. They knew-

[01:00:50] Jeff Hoffman: Mm-hmm …

[01:00:50] John McMahon: it was a bubble. They knew it, and they knew at COVID that boats, and RVs, and camping is gonna, when things change, they’re gonna go down.

The odds are they’re gonna drop, and they did. So it is, it is kind of… It should make operators pay attention more, and owners pay attention to how they operate their company. 

[01:01:09] Jeff Hoffman: Yep. Well, the other thing that we don’t, and it’s starting to happen, and for a long time it happened in the hotel industry because they knew that we were overbuilt.

That’s why hotels are now going more to, um, a stronger investor base to build and not financing, ’cause the banks withdrew from hospitality, uh, as far as hotels for a long time. We, you know, we’re gonna end up maybe having seven, eight strong banks that will finance RV parks, and those are the ones, they’re going to, like, just butcher your statements- 

[01:01:46] John McMahon: Oh, sure drill it down. 

[01:01:49] Jeff Hoffman: You know, there might be some fun money out there that is willing to invest, but- 

[01:01:56] Brian Searl: I need to go back and look at that, Jeff. I had a conversation with Claude, like, two years ago that you just remembered. Probably, well, maybe it was Claude, Chat GPT, I don’t know. I’ve been using Claude since it first came out, way before everybody thought it was cool.

Uh, but I want- I had a conversation with AI, like, two years ago, where I actually ran those numbers for, like, Independence Bank that helps KOA then. Yep. And I said, like, “What is the…” I think it was when the banks were collapsing, like, two or three years ago, right? Like, what would actually be a trigger that would cause Independence Bank to collapse if RV parks went down this percentage, whatever else.

I gotta go back and look at that conversation and see how well it held up. 

[01:02:26] Jeff Hoffman: Well, out of, out of all of the banks- 

[01:02:30] Brian Searl: They’re one of the safest and strongest 

[01:02:31] Jeff Hoffman: Oh my God, they are so, so conservative that there are so many that are gonna fail before he does. 

[01:02:39] Brian Searl: Yeah, for sure. I was just using him as an example ’cause that’s the name I, it popped in my head.

By the way, if anybody has a hard stop, feel free to jump off. Like, I just don’t wanna cut everybody off. So if you guys have meetings scheduled, please- 

[01:02:47] Jeff Hoffman: Um, I’ve got a partner meeting, but that can wait 

[01:02:50] Brian Searl: No, you don’t have anything. You just said you were retired, Jeff. 

[01:02:52] Jeff Hoffman: Yeah. 

[01:02:53] Brian Searl: Did you just make up something now-

[01:02:54] John McMahon: Yeah, I heard that

[01:02:54] Brian Searl: you don’t wanna talk to me anymore? 

[01:02:57] Jeff Hoffman: No. I said I have partner meeting, but they can wait.

[01:03:00] Brian Searl: Oh, okay.

[01:03:00] Jeff Hoffman: I enjoy talking to you, Brian, and Landan, and, uh, John, I definitely wanna come up and see your park. It sounds amazing. 

[01:03:07] John McMahon: Oh, thank you. 

[01:03:08] Jeff Hoffman: I just like, you know, I’m, you know me, I love talking about the industry. 

[01:03:12] John McMahon: Yeah.

[01:03:13] Landan Dory: Yeah. 

[01:03:14] Brian Searl: All right. Well, let’s, uh, be cognizant of everybody’s time though, and let’s, let’s wrap up. Uh, so, uh, Landan, final thoughts, and then where can they learn more about North Star? 

[01:03:22] Landan Dory: Um, my final thoughts for if, if anything that we’re talking about today really resonates with owners and you feel like you- you’re on an island and these problems are isolated to you, just know that there’s, they’re not.

There’s a lot of people out there that are trying to navigate a, a complex and changing market all the time. Um, and just take a little bit of solace. And if I could make a recommendation to anybody, don’t isolate yourself as an owner. They, there’s the age-old saying that says, “You are a, a good average of the five people that you spend the most time with.”

Yet most people I know that own these campgrounds aren’t talking with other owners on at least a weekly basis. Find some people in your community, find some other owners who have similar properties, and put together little groups, pods, calls, meetups, whatever the thing may be, because you can learn so much from other operators, and you have so much knowledge that you can give as an operator to other people.

So don’t isolate yourself. Um, as far as where you can learn more about North Star, North Star, you can check out our website, N- N-S-T-A-R-B-A.com. We’re on Facebook, Instagram, um, we’re everywhere. We’re pretty easy to find. And then if that community concept like really resonates and someone wants to check it out, we’ve got a community we’ve built specifically and exclusively for owners.

Check it out. The conversations in there are so… It’s just a breath of fresh air to see operators getting in a room, sometimes 25, 30 people at a time, and just talking about their business, sharing the problems that they’re facing, the solutions that they’ve found. And inevitably there’s somebody else out there who either already has a solution to that particular problem or is struggling with the same thing.

And then those two people can kind of cohort up and keep each other accountable as they grow. I, I can’t understate the value. We don’t make any money off of it really. It’s just a place for owners and owners only to go build relationships with other people that are just like them 

[01:05:06] Brian Searl: Thanks for being here, Landan.

 John, final thoughts, and where can they learn more about your resort? 

[01:05:10] John McMahon: Yeah, no, uh, I mean, it, it’s great to hear you guys talking about this, and it just kinda reinforces what we started to do, how we plan to build the company. And I think it would help any, uh, campground owner, operator to hear exactly what you guys said today.

Yeah, I think that a lot of this would change how they look at their future and, and, and, um, how they build profit within their, in their properties. So I wanna thank you guys for sharing all your knowledge. 

[01:05:46] Brian Searl: It was mostly all three of you guys. I don’t have any knowledge. Jeff knows that, so I just show up.

I can’t even say I show up and look pretty, ’cause look at this. Anyway, uh, John, where can they find out more about your resort? 

[01:05:56] John McMahon: Uh, online at, uh, camp-door.com. 

[01:06:00] Brian Searl: Thanks, sir. Appreciate you being here. Last but not least, Mr. Jeff. 

[01:06:03] Jeff Hoffman: Ah, thank you. Uh, Landan, also through, uh, OHI, which is the national owners association, we have things called 20 groups that get together, uh, we’re kind of a peer support group, and it’s very, it, you should take a look at joining one of those, joining OHI, joining your state associations.

It keeps you from being isolated. We all, I still own a campground, so I’ll put it that way. Uh, you know, we all have problems. We all have issues. Uh, not everybody has to reinvent the wheel. On a lot of this stuff, just ask another owner. They probably have been through it. You know, where we come in, uh, as advisors is at the, somewhat the next level and try, you know, the biggest thing is you can set all kinds of priorities, but you actually gotta get them done, and that’s what we kinda do, is help you get s- get stuff done, take a look at your park, get the value back.

Um, I, you know, I love working with people, um, and trying to help. That’s why I founded the business, because yes, I did retire and then said, just through my other, other things in the industry, I knew there were people that needed help. So that’s why I started doing it, and I really enjoy helping people.

That’s why we do it. 

[01:07:33] Brian Searl: Thanks for being here, Jeff. And yes, please do not try to reinvent the wheel. Uh, flying cars are coming and it’s already been done. 

[01:07:38] Jeff Hoffman: Oh, Jesus. 

[01:07:39] Brian Searl: Uh, so- 

[01:07:40] Jeff Hoffman: Camp- campstrategy.com. 

[01:07:42] Brian Searl: Campstrategy.com. Thank you guys for joining us for another episode of MC Fireside Chats this afternoon. Scott and I are off again, uh, ’cause I’m at the lake.

Uh, we’ll see you next week though for another episode of Outwired and another episode of MC Fireside Chats. Thanks guys, I appreciate y’all. 

[01:07:54] Jeff Hoffman: All right, thanks Brian. Nice meeting you both, uh, Landan and John.

[01:07:58] Landan Dory: Likewise. Nice meeting you as well.

[01:07:59] John McMahon: Yeah,

[01:07:59] Landan Dory: John. Thank you, Brian.

[01:08:01] John McMahon: Go Bulldogs, right? 

[01:08:03] Jeff Hoffman: What’s a Bulldog? 

[01:08:03] Landan Dory: Go Bulldogs, that’s right.

[01:08:05] Jeff Hoffman: What’s a Bulldog?