Manufactured Housing Investing: Why Mobile Home Parks Outperform Through Every Market Cycle

Host: Ali, you started working in this business at only 16, and most kids that age are thinking about their first car. What were you actually doing at 16, and did you have any idea at that time what you were being trained for?

Ali: Thank you, Garrett. At 16 I started leasing homes and negotiating with residents, leasing in a manufactured housing community. But it actually started much earlier. I was blessed because I grew up in a family that is eighth generation in commercial real estate investments. I'm second generation in manufactured housing. Even before my father got into manufactured housing in '81, he was doing single-family flips, to the tune of over 120 homes in Orange County, California, in the seventies.

Host: I'm Garrett Wong, and this is the Investing to Win podcast. How do you define success, and what does winning look like for you?

Ali: As kids, all of us siblings were the ones cleaning up the homes and making sure they were ready to be rented. That was my elementary school. We bought our first community in 1981, when I was 12. At 12 it was cleaning the pool and the restrooms, making sure the grounds were right, and checking on people and their parking. By 16 I was in the office running the business, so to speak. We had a retail store, and I got the opportunity to run it. My high school was not about prom and football and all the things we have here in the States. At times I thought, this isn't fair. In hindsight, I couldn't be more grateful, because I was a sponge around my father, who is a serial entrepreneur. By 16 I was leasing, and by 17 I had moved out and was on to college.

Ali: That's when the hustle started. My father always told all of us, “I'm going to teach you how to fish. I'm not going to give you fish.” I love that saying. By 17 I had already started other ventures and businesses. The passive income and the stability of manufactured housing have stayed with the family through the decades, until today. It was an interesting dynamic, and maybe you can understand the immigrant family culture, where you still have to invest the time and contribute to the family portfolio, which is an honor and an assumption, but you don't necessarily get the benefits of that anytime soon, if at all. You still need to go out and build your own business. That's a long way to answer.

Host: It's interesting, because when I was 16, my dad was also a serial entrepreneur and we had a Chinese restaurant. I was washing dishes from the time I was 12, and when I turned 16 and got my driver's license, I was delivering Chinese food. I have to ask you, working with family that young, and I understand immigrant families and the obligations, as you say: I must have been fired at least three or four times. What about you? Any stories you want to regale us with?

Ali: That's so funny that you bring it up. I asked my dad one time whether I should get paid, because other kids were getting allowances, and some were getting paid for jobs, even working for their parents. He said, “Oh, sure, I'll pay you.” Of course, I was probably fired by him a few times, especially when he saw me with a girlfriend at the pool instead of working. But he said, “I'll pay you. Then let's tally up what you would owe me. If I'm going to pay you for the work, you'd owe me for housing, utilities, food and tuition. Let's do the math and see where it stands, and sure, you can get paid.” I quickly learned to just be quiet. This is the contribution you have to make, and that's how it was.

Host: I'll pay you with a kick in the butt. I love that. I did some research, and from what I see, you've underwritten something like 1,600 deals. Is that correct?

Ali: The 1,600 deals and $2 billion under management refer to a client of ours, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. My history is all in commercial real estate. In my early years I was learning street smarts at home from my dad, and I wanted to make sure I understood the fundamentals of investing, particularly underwriting, because for me it's all about science and mathematics. Underwriting is key. So I became an appraiser, and then I specialized in mobile home park appraisals, because that's where I wanted to hone in. As a result of understanding valuations and having some family relationships with ties to Saudi Arabia, I was brought in. They were looking for a US-based firm to do a valuation of over 1,600 assets spread throughout the entire kingdom, along with strategic business plans for those assets. Pre-money, the value was around $2 billion. By the time I was done, without improving anything yet, just through the valuation reports, we had demonstrated that their value was closer to $5 billion. They didn't have standards and best practices in valuations back then like we do here. We took roughly 50 people from the United States and brought on about 50 people locally, so there were about 100 of us. It took about a year and a half to do that project.

Host: Wow. What was the asset class? A mixture?

Ali: A mixture: office campuses, retail, land, you name it. Some mixed use, and a lot of housing for their staff. This was largely for STC, the Saudi Telecom Company, which I think is still the largest telecom company in the Eastern Hemisphere, with telecom operations throughout the world. STC is largely controlled by the royal family there. It was a fascinating project. It was harder for large global companies to do business there, at least back then. This was 2009, not terribly long ago, but even then it was hard for Western publicly traded companies to do business in the Middle East directly, so it was much easier to have a conduit like my firm. I had some equity on the back end of the deal, and on the front end I was the project manager on the ground.

Host: You piqued my interest when you said 2009. Sorry to go down a tangent, but 2007 and 2008 was a disastrous housing crisis here in North America. Was any of that going on there, and how did it affect your ability to underwrite?

Ali: None of that was happening there. I took this on almost like a sabbatical from the States, because my wife and I wanted to spend some time traveling the world. I didn't want to live in Saudi Arabia, so although the project was in Saudi, I lived in Dubai. I was isolated from some of that, but I was also lucky, because I actually benefited from the 2008 downturn. In January 2008 I happened to move to Houston. When my wife and I got married around 2005, we said we've got about 10 years to live anywhere and do whatever we want, because before you know it we'll have kids who need stability, and my parents back in the Bay Area, where I live in Silicon Valley, would need us. So we went to Boston first, where I could go back to school for a while, and then to Houston, where she has family and friends. We landed in Houston in January 2008, and it was a new world for me. I was excited about the opportunities in commercial real estate. I felt I had an edge, having operated in California and the Northeast. Right or wrong, because it's all about mindset, I felt I would have an advantage coming into the Houston market. The absolute dollar values and price per square foot were lower, and maybe people weren't going to be as sophisticated in my niche of niches. I went in with that mindset, and then came the Great Recession.

Ali: I was picking up properties for 40 or 50 cents on the dollar and doing all kinds of creative deals, and not just in my favorite asset class, manufactured housing, which has been in the background the whole time. I'd like your audience to understand that I didn't just happen to grow up in this business and stick with it regardless. There was a method to the madness. I wanted to invest in Main Street businesses to generate quicker cash flow, because real estate is a long game: a get-rich-slow, compounding game. Initially I invested in distressed businesses, stabilized them and tried to flip them. I had great success with some and great failures with others. In '08 and '09 I was picking up some incredible properties, and combined with the project in Saudi, I weathered that storm pretty well, except where I failed. Sometimes I took on larger operations that were bleeding and distressed. I'm running into a fire when everyone else is running out. I've done that with Main Street businesses and with commercial real estate, particularly mobile home parks. With those businesses it wasn't always fun and it wasn't always a success, and that's where I took a hit during the downturn.

Host: Most people hear manufactured housing and there's a bit of a stigma there. But you've been in this from a very young age. You walked me through 16, 17 and college. At what point, after the 1,600 assets and Saudi Arabia, did you say, “My family was right, this makes more sense”?

Ali: Fortunately, I was involved the whole time. I was involved in the operations through my childhood and consistently beyond, so there was never a stepping away or a doubting it. What I did learn came through the down cycles. I was too young to be doing business then, but I remember the original Iran crisis in the seventies. I remember the savings and loan debacle, and many other things well before the dot-com bust, and of course '08 and the pandemic. I've seen many cycles. I'll use mobile home parks and manufactured housing interchangeably. I've heard some of your other guests rightfully say their asset classes have been recession resistant. I'm still afraid to use the word recession proof. But I can tell you that the resilience in our asset class has been amazing through all of those down cycles. We typically saw an uptick. We never saw a failure of a community, and we've generally seen more and more demand for affordable housing when the economy takes a hit. So I never had any doubt, and I always knew the family operation was right, generationally. I was an active part in making that happen, involved in creating the compounding and a vertically integrated structure. I was more involved with my father than anybody else because it was a passion for me, so we built that together, while simultaneously I was creating those shorter-term income streams. And to your point, through all those debacles and thereafter, all of my siblings agree to this day that this is the best thing my father could have initiated for us and for the kids ahead.

Host: During 2007 and 2008, the Great Recession, what was manufactured housing doing compared to the other asset classes?

Ali: If you ask any seasoned expert from that time, they'll tell you they weren't adversely impacted. Even during the pandemic, when multifamily and others saw a freeze, we didn't, Garrett. In the conventional model, people in our communities own their homes. What they're renting from you is essentially dirt. The cost of moving a home is so prohibitive that it's never going to leave. A resident may occasionally leave, which is rare, because they've bought into the American dream that is their home, and it's much more affordable than any other home they could buy if they tried to replace it. Moving it just doesn't make sense. The home doesn't leave, which means there's always somebody there to collect rent from. If the rent isn't paid, you can place a lien. It's not a foreclosure process; placing a lien on the home is much easier. Nobody's going to give up a $100,000 manufactured home over $500 or $1,000 in lot rent. So we didn't have the collections challenges you see elsewhere. If anything, we typically see an increase in occupancy, because everyone comes down a notch in their lifestyle during tough times. When the economy is tough, maybe we take fewer vacations, maybe we don't eat at the five-star restaurants or stay at the five-star hotels as much. That's why you see ice cream and pizza thrive in down cycles while fancy restaurants don't. Maybe even the Chinese restaurants did well in those times, being more affordable. Similarly, we saw an increase in our business and in occupancy, because we're the last stop in terms of affordable housing.

Host: So that's your safety net, and people gravitate toward it in times of trouble. I find it interesting that you're leasing dirt, but it's a homeowner paying you. Condominiums are somewhat that type of model, but you're also sharing walls, reserves, common elements and other fees. I own a large property management company here in Canada, and it's always broken tenants and toilets. Walk me through the ease of collecting rent from people who aren't going to complain that you haven't fixed their toilet.

Ali: Imagine having all the upside of commercial real estate investing, Garrett: the appreciation, the tax benefits, the cash flow and the returns, without the typical landlord headaches of toilets, termites and tenants in the traditional sense. Lot rent is relatively easy to collect. The mechanics are simple. We typically have on-site management, and people can now pay digitally. The business model is also very simple. You're renting dirt, typically at a fixed rate for a year. Even with rent control, especially where I'm active in California and other blue states, where rent control is strict and there are other restrictions, you'll still see increases on average of three to six percent annually on those rents, really five to six percent. Communities often have common amenities like a clubhouse or a pool, plus common street lamps. The infrastructure is your responsibility, but that's so much less of a headache than a thousand toilets in a 300-unit complex, with a $300,000 roof and a $200,000 boiler, and the economic lifespan of the building after 40 years.

Host: I live this stuff every single day. You mentioned blue states. We have pretty strict rent control up here, but I didn't imagine there would be rent control on leasing in a manufactured home park. How does that affect your costs? With an apartment, you've got your mortgage, your hard costs, property management costs. Is there a disparity between the three to six percent you're allowed to charge and what somebody would try to collect to make up for capital improvements on an apartment asset?

Ali: Let me answer it a different way. Our total operating expense percentages have increased substantially over the last 10 years, but they're still relatively low, or at least competitive, compared to other asset classes. We went from the high 30s to the mid 40s in average operating expense, particularly in blue states. It all gets factored in as you're buying, during underwriting, because you know about the rent control in advance. Yes, it's gotten more expensive and more difficult to invest in parks, particularly in blue states. But that's offset by less competition, and specifically fewer operators who are truly operators. You have plenty of investors and sponsors who get in the game and learn the business, but there are fewer of us who come from operating. That gives us an edge to buy right and operate well, so it hasn't been as big a challenge for us as it might be for others. I'd add that beyond rent control, which is huge, what's really creating more costs is insurance going through the roof nationwide, more and more improvement requirements from agency lenders, and municipalities trying to get into your pocket for different things. All of that combined is having an impact. But it leaves fewer players, and it's almost a supply and demand issue where we can still thrive.

Host: Let's say an investment group just wants to get into this. I was going to ask you about it, because I think it's Wall Street's turn to catch on to this asset class. Without an operator, what are these groups doing? Hiring somebody and trying to run it like a property management company?

Ali: Ever since Sam Zell broke in, did a great job and made it a national statement, we saw the REITs, institutional investors and private equity groups start coming in. They've been learning the hard way and then paying a premium to hire and train experienced managers on the ground, property managers and operators. There's a distinction. There's also a lot of failure on the part of sponsors who come in and think they can operate, particularly in challenging states, and it just doesn't work, not only in our asset class but across the board.

Host: Walk me through the problems somebody might not anticipate in running a manufactured housing community.

Ali: Number one, the human resources aspect. Finding people for almost any job, especially capex, renovations and physical improvements, has been a big challenge, just like in any other asset class. Second, there are pitfalls new buyers often fall into, whether they're mom-and-pop or institutional buyers who aren't yet aware of the issues within the industry. One is underground utilities, if the utilities are park owned. A lot of older parks have septic tanks and water wells rather than municipal services. Know whether the park owns them, and do your due diligence up front to understand their condition: what material they're made of, when they're expected to fail, and what it's going to cost to literally dig up all these pads and repair them underground. That's a big pitfall. The other one is the valuation of these communities. In some communities you'll see a lot of what we call park-owned homes versus tenant-owned homes. Now they're collecting rent not just on the lot but on the home, almost like a multifamily play. You're talking about rental income from real property versus personal property. As you know, that home is not considered fee simple in the United States, so it's not valued the same. When you mix the income from these two different types of assets, you ultimately become unbankable, and you're seeing a false picture, because those homes depreciate and don't have a lifespan of much more than 30 or 40 years. Mixing that income with real estate is just wrong, in principle, fundamentally and in terms of real cash flow. I see that mistake often, even among professionals in the industry: brokers, including in their OMs, and appraisers on occasion. That's a big pitfall to avoid.

Host: Are you suggesting it's not a good investment to invest in the homes as well, or just don't mix it?

Ali: I'm saying don't mix it. I'm happy to buy communities that have park-owned homes, but we typically carve that out. The bankers, lenders, appraisers, the whole industry generally frowns upon having those mixed. I don't necessarily want to be a typical landlord like we talked about earlier. I don't want the toilets and the termites. Yes, we could have more to the bottom line by renting those homes out. What we do instead is buy a community that has park-owned homes and ultimately sell those homes to the residents or somebody else. Now we have installment income from the sale of the home, and sometimes that's a long-term income stream, because there's attrition at times. Homes get sold and resold, and other homes come in. So there's an additional income stream without the typical landlord headaches. There's still value there, but you want to assess the value of those homes properly and not place real property values on personal property.

Host: I've done a little research into this space, and a lot of founders say it's hard to get started, but you were, quote unquote, born into it. What would you say is the hardest part for somebody wanting to get started?

Ali: At 17, as I said, my father didn't want to give me fish, so I had to get started on my own as well, while still contributing to the family business. I thought about how I was going to break in. I didn't have the capital to buy real property, so I initially leaned toward Main Street businesses and smaller real estate transactions. Rather than becoming a traditional real estate agent or broker, I decided to become a business broker, of all things, Garrett. As a business broker, I got insight on deals. Before long, I saw a few distressed deals and thought, wait a minute: these owners have all this debt on the business, and the total purchase price equals or is similar to that debt. If it were operated right, by my underwriting, I could see where I could earn. This was the year 2000, and I remember being able to project about $10,000 in monthly income immediately, just through some restructuring and by managing the business myself at first. I got paid to learn the brokerage business, so I got all the training for free. I got deal exposure and did a couple of transactions as an intermediary for other people. As soon as I saw some opportunities to pick up, I disclosed that I was the intermediary and had other people handle the transaction for me. That was my way of breaking in, because now I had a $10,000 income stream with no money down, through a creative deal and an arbitrage of taking over that debt.

Ali: I'll share one other transaction for folks who are thinking about it, because it's very difficult, but it's not impossible. I'm not giving conventional advice here. I'm sharing examples of what I did, because you might be able to do something similar. Early on I bought a parking lot business. I haven't mentioned this, Garrett, but as you probably understand, manufactured housing, self storage and parking essentially have the same business model. They're all small areas of real estate leased for short periods of time to maximize revenue per square foot, with economies of scale, and with risk spread across many tenants instead of a few. I love all three. The reason I'm in manufactured housing is because it's an absolute essential, and not just an essential, but the most affordable form of that essential. That's why I think it has been resilient versus resistant, as we talked about. Getting back to the parking lot business, I don't say this often publicly, because it's almost unbelievable. I bought this business for $2,500 down. This was '05, and I had done many other creative deals well before then. It was a distressed airport parking facility in the Los Angeles area of Southern California, so it wasn't out in the sticks.

Host: Was that vendor financing? I can't even get the numbers to work.

Ali: It was seller financing. The total price was just $25,000 with 10 percent down. At the time I thought it was a really small lot, but then publicly traded companies and large private equity groups started knocking on my door trying to buy it from me. That's when I realized there had to be more here. That was an eye opener. That $25,000 purchase was a distressed situation, an alligator, a money pit for the owner at the time. He was happy to have somebody else take over and hopefully get some payments out of me, so he handed it over for $2,500 down. Long story short, I got it to seven digits in less than six months.

Host: Wow.

Ali: If I'm doing my math right, it was exponential growth, because it just required somebody on the ground to take control of a distressed situation. It was a little risky, not the risk of the investment, because it was only $2,500, and at the time I was starting over after a couple of challenges. It was the risk of physically being on the ground. It felt like the mafia was running the business there and taking in the cash. So I went in and physically took control. I stood in the heat for a whole summer with a uniform on and became the cashier in the shack, just to be on the ground and get full control. You speak that language and collect $6 to $12 per hour from individual retail customers, but you keep the mindset that you're building something much larger: streamlining operations, putting in the best systems, joining the industry associations to understand what works so you're not reinventing the wheel. The internet was already around, so research was easier. I took advantage of those tools, and within three months I had things stabilized. Within less than six months I also had B2B accounts with FedEx, Hertz, Avis, all the rental car agencies and cargo companies, renting my additional space during times when retail use was low. Those were additional income streams on longer-term leases with larger groups, and I was able to factor those receivables, so I got paid up front for leases that ran 10 years out.

Ali: I ultimately sold the business as well. Before I sold it, I had already transitioned it to Central Park, the publicly traded company, to operate for me right after three months of stabilizing it. I'm mixing my examples a bit, but that income was about $15,000 a month, passive, in '05, on a $2,500 investment. I regret selling it, by the way. I probably should have kept it. But as you can imagine, it sold for exponentially more than $2,500 down. Hopefully this is helpful for your audience: that wasn't even a real property purchase, although it was treated like one. The actual owner of the property was the Union Pacific Railroad, and my seller had a 99-year lease. In the States especially, a master lease of over 30 years is treated as equivalent to ownership, since mortgages are typically 30 years or less, so you get essentially all the benefits of being an owner. It was all set up as triple net, so I was paying the taxes and insurance. That was a long story, but those are two examples. You can go into sales, you can do a creative no-money-down deal, you can hustle. It's much harder today, I get it, but it can still be done.

Host: One question that came to mind is build versus buy. I don't know if you've built a community from the ground up. Would you recommend somebody getting started build or buy? I don't even know the regulations to buy a plot of land and start.

Ali: Communities in this asset class were originally developed back in the sixties and seventies, and in the last 40 or 50 years, since I've been in the game, you really didn't see any development, rightfully so. Why develop when you can buy an existing operation with proof of concept, where people want to live and there's income already, maybe not fully occupied, but 30, 40 or 50 percent occupied? If you could buy an existing community for half the cost of building, development made no sense, so you never saw any. Today we're starting to see some development in states like Texas and Florida, and there are some rumblings here. Aside from the cost, the bureaucracy, the red tape and all the challenges are so immense. I haven't done it. I know some folks who are doing it in Texas now. I'm open to the idea, especially as we become more accustomed to different types of homes in these communities. If we can get legislation passed for container homes, ADUs, other modular homes or 3D-printed homes, where maybe we can go vertical, I think it will make more sense to see more developments: smart community developments with technology integrated from underground all the way up to the home, with much more efficiency. I can envision that ahead. We're not there yet.

Host: Spend a few minutes telling me about your current operation, Rise 360 Ventures. What are you doing with it? I know it's only a couple of years old, but it's very successful, and obviously you're going on podcasts to spread the word about this wonderful asset class.

Ali: It's two years old, backed by 45 years of experience in operations. It's a technical split, because the other was a family operation for myself and my extended family. The idea now is to bring the opportunity to invest in mobile home parks, or manufactured housing communities, to professionals and others who are busy in their professions, don't have the time, and don't want to reinvent the wheel. My family's experience and my experience are now brought into Rise 360 Ventures, where we offer passive investors a way to get in the game. That's been exciting, because it's not just about a return on investment, Garrett. For us, the real goal is for everybody to win. The industry changed the name from mobile home parks to manufactured housing communities to emphasize two things. First, these homes are properly manufactured to HUD code and meet the standards, and in many ways probably exceed the quality of a typical stick-built home. Second, these are communities where people live and thrive, and where operators like us try to make it a pleasant and safe place to be. These aren't random trailer parks. At Rise 360, we're showcasing for the resident, for us as operators and for the investor that you can uplift a community and provide a great environment where a resident owns their home and has the American dream, while you as an investor profit from it, and we're the intermediary making it happen. I like to see that as a win-win-win across the board.

Host: You're talking about a fund, versus somebody trying to get involved at a JV level or in a GP/LP structure, where you're putting all your eggs in one basket. With syndications right now, maybe not manufactured housing, I have a lot of associates I've met in my travels over the last couple of years who are suffering in syndications. It's almost like a cash pour, waiting for a payout in three, four or five years, assuming it happens. Talk to our audience about what a fund looks like for manufactured housing, rather than a syndication.

Ali: It would be a passive investment, but I'd like to make a distinction first, Garrett. While syndicators and funds were struggling in multifamily and other spaces, and outside of syndication, when other asset classes saw issues during the '08 crisis, the recession or the pandemic, we were unscathed, as I mentioned earlier. To the best of my knowledge, that stands true for syndicators in our asset class as well. That's why we see so many people flocking in from multifamily, not just passive investors but syndicators, saying, “This has been really tough in our space, but you're not having the same issues.” It comes down to the core business being the last option for the American dream. Our numbers and valuations are built on fundamentals, at the most affordable level. Let me also share that in the past I built the portfolio mostly through debt rather than raising funds, through debt and the 1031 exchange benefit we have here in the States. That was the model for my personal business. Now we're scaling through passive investors, applying the same business model and everything I've done for the last 45 years. I understand their fear of what's happening in some other asset classes, but if they dig just deep enough, they'll see there's a reason we haven't had that problem in this asset class, and a reason everybody's flocking to it now.

Host: Do you have to be accredited to go into the fund passively? How does that work?

Ali: Yes, we are a 506(c), so we accept accredited investors. There may be a different fund down the road that is a 506(b), which would not necessarily require accreditation, but today we do require it. Thank you for asking.

Host: Happy to clarify that for the audience.

Host: I'll put your information in the show notes. Is there anything else you want to tell the audience about how to get started in something like this, or why your fund may be a little better? Other than the obvious 45 years of operator experience, which stands on its own. I'll give you the last word.

Ali: Thank you. I would say check everybody out. Maybe there's a better fit in a particular market or geographic region. We invest nationwide, but even if you just want to talk to us and compare notes for somebody else in your local market, there's no problem with that. I don't know that we're always the best. I would tell you that we have the underwriting fundamentals of valuations, but also, because of the eight-generation history, I think outside the box. I think creatively, and that's the culture we're building at Rise 360. We look at everything from a unique angle, and we know how to leverage dollars much further as a result. The other thing that sets us apart, I believe, is that a lot of organizations depend on a single person as the leader. While I bring 45 years of experience, our president is Daniel Nguyen, and Daniel has many years of experience himself. We have a succession plan in mind where he ultimately becomes a managing director. And not only Daniel: we have the entire leadership team immersed in this asset class and understanding it well, so we can all function in any of our roles. It isn't centered on one individual, God forbid I get hit by a bus. We're thinking not just about the immediate future. We're grooming the next generation today, with people in mind for leadership roles, so we're cognizant of a succession plan.

Host: That's the cornerstone of a thriving, strong business. You've got your unit economics right, and now you'll be able to spread the word. To me, if you're truly in housing, especially property management, the overall benefit is for the people meant to enjoy it, whether tenants or lessees. You can only do that with good operators like yourselves who keep these communities stable so they can flourish.

Ali: Absolutely.

Host: I always end the podcast with a question I ask everybody. You may have heard it at the end of some episodes when you were doing research, but I want to hear what you have to say, Ali. This is the Investing to Win podcast. How do you define success, and what does winning look like for you?

Ali: You ask this question, and I'm still finding myself stumbling, because I talked about some of the winning earlier: the win-win-win for all three people in our business, the resident, the investor and ourselves. But what I'd like to share with the audience more specifically is that winning, to me, is not just related to business. It's about individually having peace and success in your personal life. I didn't spend a lot of time developing this skill myself. It's only in recent years, Garrett, that I'm taking time to actually listen to myself, to my inner self, versus just hearing things. It's taking time out to have more and more quality time with family. Why are we doing all this? We work hard and invest because we want to take care of our loved ones and have some security. If you don't actually enjoy any part of your life with them, I don't know if that's winning. There has to be balance, and just like any other discipline, there has to be some effort toward it daily, whether it's meditation, focusing on health or other things. To me, winning is having that balance individually and collectively.

Host: Well said, and I tend to agree. We work so hard for the ones we're trying to protect and provide for, and yet we won't be around for them because we're working so hard. You have to have balance: mental health, fitness, sleep, nutrition. If you don't take care of the engine, it's not going to run.

Ali: Right.

Host: Ali, thank you so much for hanging out with me for the last hour or so. I learned a lot, and I know my audience did as well. We'll definitely spread the word about this asset class, and congratulations on your success.

Ali: Thank you, Garrett. Congratulations to you on the three-plus years. It's been quite a journey, I'm sure, and it's amazing to see how many followers you have. I've watched several of your episodes and learned from them, so thank you for all that you're doing for the community. I appreciate it.

Host: Thank you very much. Take care.

Ali: Take care. Bye-bye.