Mobile Home Park Investing with Ekaterina Stepanova

Starting from scratch in a new country seems challenging but today’s guest took $130 and pursued real estate opportunities in the U.S.  On today’s episode, we talk with Ekaterina Stepanova, a mobile home park investor who immigrated from Russia in search of the American dream. We discuss with Ekaterina the challenges she faced from building a business in a new country, how buying one unit at a time wasn’t going to cut it when achieving her goals, how to analyze mobile home parks, and what to look for during your due diligence. We also discuss her buying criteria and the importance of having a diversified tenant base. Ekaterina Stepanova was born and raised in Moscow, Russia, in a family of energy engineers. Recognizing early that engineering wouldn’t be a great fit after graduating college, she pivoted to the exciting world of Advertising. Ekaterina had continued success within advertising; becoming at only twenty-four years old and ranked in the top 5 advertising agencies in size and billings worldwide. Also at twenty-four, she fulfilled her longtime dream of becoming a property owner, when she purchased a rehab apartment in Central Moscow. In 2006, Ekaterina made a life altering decision and immigrated to the United States with her then husband following his dream of becoming and opera singer in New York. At that point, her newly renovated apartment in Moscow, became her first rental property with her Mom acting as property manager. Getting a taste of passive investing in the form of rental income and quickly learning about the wide range of opportunities for real estate investing in the United States, Ekaterina purchased her first “turnkey” property in Memphis 4 years ago. Unfortunately, after 2 evictions in the course of 6 months, made Ekaterina reconsider her appetite for residential real estate, ultimately turning to commercial real estate investing. That’s when she discovered Mobile Home parks and has been doing it ever since. Today, she is a partner at M2K Partners, who owns 2 mobile home communi