Park Street Partners

Jefferson Lilly lived through the dot-com boom and bust of 2001 while working in Silicon Valley sales leadership roles. Convinced by Warren Buffett's value investing principles, he began diversifying his portfolio out of tech stocks and into real estate around 2005. While researching multifamily apartment buildings, he stumbled upon something odd: mobile home parks yielded 300-400 basis points more return than apartments. "I'd see 99 apartment buildings at like an 8 cap," he recalls, "and then oh, a trailer park at an 11 cap. And I thought, oh, that's interesting."

At age 39, Jefferson made his first mobile home park investment in Oklahoma in 2007—a 66-lot park costing $450,000. He put down only 19% ($86,000 with closing costs) by securing 81% bank financing. The property was already generating a 10 cap (45,000 in unlevered annual profits), but Jefferson immediately improved the economics: he raised lot rents from $110 to $125 per month, then to $155 as the market allowed. He then deployed a brilliant infill strategy—buying used mobile homes for $8,000-$10,000, investing $5,000 in renovations and $5,000 in moving costs, then placing them on rent-to-own agreements at $550-$600/month for 5 years before tenants owned the home outright and paid only lot rent in perpetuity. His first deal quickly generated 25-30% cash-on-cash returns, eventually growing to over $100,000 in annual cash flow across his two personal Oklahoma properties.

Jefferson overlapped his Silicon Valley job with mobile home park investing for about a year, earning $100,000 base salary, before committing full-time. The key insight was understanding mobile home park economics: with 30% operating expenses on lot rents, he could keep 70 cents of every dollar collected, and after mortgage payments (roughly half of that), roughly half went into his pocket. He built a portfolio by buying used homes off Craigslist and from local foreclosure dealers, then rent-to-own financing the homes to underserved tenants who couldn't qualify for traditional bank loans. Over roughly 8-9 years, his first park remained nearly full with very few tenants moving out. He scaled by acquiring 11 communities nationwide and building reputation with brokers for access to off-market "pocket listings" that don't appear on LoopNet.

By 2016, Jefferson had co-founded Park Street Partners with Brad and built a $5 million investment fund (which raised $2 million in the last two weeks of 2015 alone). The fund was closing 2 deals in the following 3 weeks. He and Brad took only a 2% acquisition fee upfront and no management fees—they split profits 50/50 with limited partners after paying out an 8% preferred return. Jefferson personally signed on 85% of the debt with personal guarantees backed by his houses, cars, and net worth. Their early 2016 investors were tracking 15% cash-on-cash returns plus appreciation. Jefferson launched the Mobile Home Park Investors LinkedIn group (3,000+ members) and a podcast, positioning himself as the industry educator. He was working 4 long days a week (Wednesday-Saturday) while spending time with his two young children, embodying the flexibility and wealth mobile home park investing promised.