A busload of hopefuls, ranging in age from early 20s to late 70s, hangs on his every word.Īs the tour approaches its first stop, Rolfe repeats a warning which earlier flashed on to a screen in a conference room of the Orlando airport Hyatt hotel: “When we are on the property, don’t make fun of the residents, or say things that can get us in trouble or offend anyone. On a bright Saturday morning, under the Floridian sun, Frank Rolfe, the multimillionaire co-founder of Mobile Home University who is the nation’s 10th-biggest trailer park owner, conducts a tour of parks around Orlando, Florida. ‘Don’t make fun of the residents’įrank Rolfe, who runs a weekend tour with his Mobile Home University showing ordinary Americans how they can follow him and make big profits from trailer parks, warns his students not to be disparaging about trailer park tenants. Such success is prompting ordinary people with little or no experience to try to follow in their footsteps. Buffett’s trailer park investments will feature heavily at his annual meeting this weekend, which will be attended by more than 40,000 shareholders in Omaha. Warren Buffett, the nation’s second-richest man with a $72bn fortune, owns the biggest mobile home manufacturer in the US, Clayton Homes, and the two biggest mobile home lenders, 21st Mortgage Corporation and Vanderbilt Mortgage and Finance Company.
In 2014, ELS made $777m in revenue, helping boost Zell’s near-$5bn fortune. Sam Zell’s Equity LifeStyle Properties (ELS) is the largest mobile home park owner in America, with controlling interests in nearly 140,000 parks. It is a market that has not been lost on some of the country’s richest and most high-profile investors.
According to US Census figures, more than 20 million people, or 6% of the population, live in trailer parks.
Trailer parks are big and profitable business – particularly after hundreds of thousands of Americans who lost their homes in the financial crisis created a huge demand for affordable housing. T he number one rule is stated twice, once in the classroom and once on the bus: “Don’t make fun of the residents.” Welcome to Mobile Home University, a three-day, $2,000 “boot camp” that teaches people from across the US how to make a fortune by buying up trailer parks.
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