Ed Bridgman owner and developer of Homestead RV Community Alabama
Lisa RichartHernandez
Hi, welcome to RView. We’ve got a great show for you today we’ve got Ed Bridgman with EOB consulting and homestead RV community here in Theodore, Alabama. So stay tuned.
intro
Welcome to RView with your hosts George and Lisa Hernandez each week listen as George and Lisa talk about their RV and travel adventures all around the world. George and Lisa travel in their 40 foot Class A Tiffin motorcoach and tow their Jeep Wrangler, always looking for fun and adventure.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Hi, welcome back to RView. I’m Lisa RichartHernandez.
George
And I’m George Hernandez.
Lisa RichartHernandez
And we have a great show for you today. Or we have a guest with us Ed Bridgman. Edie, welcome to the show, tell us about yourself.
Ed Bridgman
Thank you very much for having me. Thank you for being here at Homestead RV community.
Lisa RichartHernandez
So tell us a little bit about your background. Tell us how does somebody come come about opening a campground? How did this happen? Like, tell us your story.
Ed Bridgman
My story is a lot more than just homestead RV community. I am an Air Force veteran. And in the Air Force, I was taught electrical engineering, I continued my education and became an electrical engineer with a master’s degree in business administration. And then I was one of the original five co authors of Six Sigma. And if you’re not familiar with six sigma, I invite you to type it into Google and look at the 18,000 different stories about six sigma, we kind of revolutionized the manufacturing world. But what it amounted to was developing processes that improve your product or service so that you can exceed your customers expectations, while reducing costs specifically by reducing waste, and making a profit. So we earned the first Malcolm Baldrige Award presented by Ronald Reagan. And he was president at that time. So I was an electrical design engineer for Motorola, a kind of an introvert. And the President of the United States said you will go out and you will speak to Jack Welch and Lee Iacocca and IBM and Xerox and GE and General Motors and you will help America become more competitive against Japan and, and other countries. So for the next three years, I was a consultant, teaching Six Sigma to American companies. And then, at the end of that three years, I went back to Motorola and working in advanced products Research Development Laboratory and had 24 hours a day, seven days a week responsibility and $30 million annual budget and working in the cleanest cleanroom in the world. And But IBM specifically kept calling me back and saying we want to continue Six Sigma, we want to we want to evolve Six Sigma and keep going. And I said, I just don’t have time. And they said, well, we’ll pay you $3,000 a day and I said, You know what? I can find the time I’ve got vacation, I’ll figure out a way. So this introvert became an extrovert and started a consulting business called EOB consulting. And I traveled all over the country actually all over the world, teaching companies how to be more efficient, how to exceed their customers, expectations while creating a profit. And then in 2010, there was this huge oil spill out in the Gulf, you probably heard about it. BP Oil Company was fined $24 billion. And that money was supposed to be spent along 200 miles of the Gulf Coast in the tourism industry. And I said, You know what, I need to be in the tourism industry and let the government bring my customers to me. So I started looking for land and started looking at what was going on and the RV industry was just blowing up.
Lisa RichartHernandez
And now what What year was this
Ed Bridgman
22 April 2010 was when the oil spill was and I started researching what tourism industries were doing well. The RV industry was just blowing up as 100 year old industry, Airstream celebrated 100 years in business and 2019 so parks and and campgrounds have been around for over 100 years. Wow. But the RV industry is expanding at a double digit per year rate, which is a growth rate that any new biochemical business would envy. Not only that the RV industry is being this growth is being fueled by younger people. The average age of an RV owner today is between 32 and 33 years of age. It is a myth that it is baby boomers that are leading the RV industry. Baby Boomers make up 60. Now baby boomers make up 26% of the RV ownership. Actually 65% of RVs are owned by millennials. As I mentioned earlier, the average age is between 22 and 33. So I wanted to be in this industry because I saw the growth potential I saw it it was being fueled by younger people. And so I started looking for land, it took me two years to find my property and had to meet seven very specific criteria. And I found the ideal location and Theodore Alabama, and I purchased my property and in April of 2013.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Okay, so a lot of people say, oh, you know, this RV thing is just the latest craze since COVID. But in reality in the research that I’ve done is the same that this has been a booming industry way before COVID made it even more popular.
Ed Bridgman
Absolutely. COVID has evolved and changed the industry. But it was growing at double digit rates long before COVID.
George
I think COVID brought more attention to the RV lifestyle than anything because we couldn’t travel anywhere but in the United States. And people decided, well, we’re gonna travel, let’s do it. And comfort.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, the sales skyrocketed for Arby’s over 600,000 units for 2020 and 2021. I think those were record breaking years in the industry.
Ed Bridgman
So 614,000, new Arby’s were manufactured in 2022. But that’s kind of a misleading number, because there was only 350,000 sold. So you have to look at what was you have to look at the difference in those numbers. Because this year, there is some panic in the fact that we are manufacturing 57% fewer RVs in 2023 than we did in 2022. But you have to look at the sales, the sales number is far more important. We sold 357,020 22 And we’re going to sell about 350,020 23. So in reality, the sales is maintaining very well, what in and I can prove this by the fact that if anybody was to drive by an RV destination, they would see that I mean a sales destination an RV dealership, right? If you drive by an RV dealership, they are packed to the gills I can’t even open these slides out because they’re so crammed in, they’re actually renting extra space to put these RVs on. They’ve got 2020 twos brand new 2020 threes brand new on the lot, and they’re receiving 2020 fours. So the RV industry is not suffering a slump as some people would have you believe. In reality, it is a correction of the RV is being manufactured versus the RV is being sold. I got
Lisa RichartHernandez
you that’s very similar to the real estate market in general. Better understanding that for juniors though, but yeah, yeah, so that’s good information. Because people also are, you know, still wanting to get into the industry right now. I think the financing is part of what makes it difficult with high interest rates to find financing for recreational vehicles.
George
I think also, right now, if you’re looking to get into the industry, it sounds like you could probably start getting some really good deals on 2022 models because they’re gonna want to move them off to the lats. Yeah. And put in the 20 fours and the 20 threes. So keep an eye on that
Ed Bridgman
there are several different ways to get into the RV industry. So you have to define exactly what do you want to be a dealer. Do you want to be a distributor? Do you want to be an RV destination owner, you have to define what that is that you want to be. So we’ve been talking about the sales of RV the new RV sales 350,020 23 expected but what’s important number to know is how many RV sites are developed in 2022, we estimated that we would build 80,000 new RV sites, I’m not talking destinations, right? community might have 100 sites in it. Okay, I’m talking about 80,000 sites were expected to be built in 2022. In reality, they only built 17,000 new sites. So no matter how you do the math, if you sell if you introduce into the market 350,000 or three and 57,000, new RVs, and you only introduce them to the market 17,000 new places for them to park is pretty easy to see the gulf between the supply and demand is enormous.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah. So the my most recent research shows about 11 point 1 million RV owners across the country. What is the number? Do you by any chance know, the number of actual RV campground spots that people could rent out of all of that?
Ed Bridgman
Wow, that is a fantastic question. No, I don’t have that number off the top of my head, I apologize.
Lisa RichartHernandez
My script, I might know the answer to that could have looked at what we looked at. We’re gonna put that in the show notes. Because I’ve been looking for that exact number myself just to find out about, you know, since we’ve gotten into this industry, I’m like, how many actual sites are there? And there’s so many more being built. But just like you said, it’s not keeping up with the demand and the number of RVs. So that brings us to homestead RV and your expansions here. Right?
Ed Bridgman
Well, hang on. Well, I have one more comment on that. Also, up until five, 610 years ago, people would stay on an RV site for an average of less than two weeks. Now the average is more than six months. That’s average. Okay. Wow, think about that for a moment, this RV is setting on that site occupying that site for longer periods of time.
George
People are renting these sites for an extended period of time where back in the day, it was a vacation destination. So you went for a week you went for two weeks. But now for example, you look at Florida. During the winter, good luck finding a spot in Florida because all the snowbirds go down there and they rent it for three months. And they rent it a year or two in advance in advance. Exactly. So we are definitely seeing that trend in Hilton Head. You know, people stay for weeks at a time, if not months. And so you’re absolutely right. And if the spots not turning, we need to generate more spots.
Ed Bridgman
Exactly. So there are five different RV destination types and and this needs to be understood. 100 years ago, when someone traveled from their home to their destination say they were going to the Grand Canyon or Mount Rushmore Disneyland. They couldn’t make it in one day. So they had to park overnight someplace. So parks were created and everybody’s familiar with parks. They’ve been around for 100 years or next to the exit ramp of an interstate and they pull over at dusk and they refresh and and sleep and eat and get up the next morning and go. They don’t care about a pool. They don’t care about the fitness center. They don’t care about what’s in that park. They’re only interested in going
George
right it’s not a destination. That’s
Lisa RichartHernandez
when we look for Poulter’s.
Ed Bridgman
That’s a park.
Lisa RichartHernandez
We don’t want to have to unhook our jeep we want to just pull in exactly literally put our Jacks down sleep sometimes we don’t even hook everything up. Exactly just might plug in the power.
George
I call it a rest area for an RV. Exactly. So
Ed Bridgman
parks are the only one of the five RV destination types that are actually losing money in 2023. Really, okay. And the reason for that is because we have more autonomous vehicles. People don’t need to pull over as often when the vehicle is letting them know when they move out of their lane or doing more and more of the driving for them. So parks are losing money parks are the only one that is going down and and occupancy occupancy. Okay. Well, not necessarily occupancy because we’ll talk about that during the fifth RV destination type. So where are these people were traveling to the camp. They were traveling to a campground outside of Yellowstone outside of Mount Rushmore, whatever. They camped there while the amenity that they were wanting to enjoy was nearby. Okay, so they didn’t care or about a pool. They didn’t care about being entertained at the campground. They’re only camping there for a week or 10 days at a time while they’re enjoying Mount Rushmore and Yellowstone
Lisa RichartHernandez
is something that we’ve stayed at those places for sure.
Ed Bridgman
Those were campgrounds. Okay. been around forever. Well then, in 20 17k, AOA came out and said that the average RV was selling for $109,000. So people were looking outside their window and they’re looking at this thing that they’re using two weeks out of the year and they’re going I’m not getting my money’s worth out of this thing. I need to use it more often. I want to use it once a month, but I don’t have vacation time to travel to Mount Rushmore for two weeks. So I need to take off Friday afternoon a little early from work, get where I’m going get set up and have the hamburgers on the grill before dark. And then I want to get up Saturday and I want to be entertained. I want to go to a pool I want to kayak I want to I want a walking trail. I want a fitness center. And then Sunday morning I’m gonna get up pack and I’m going to be home and back to work Monday morning. We had to create resorts in the last 20 years. The next the third RV destination type is resorts. They’re within 100 miles of a Metroplex Dallas Fort Worth Atlanta, whatever. They they need to be close enough that these people can get there and get back in a in a long weekend. So that was resorts. Well, then people started living in their RVs longer and longer and more and more. You got the snowbirds, as George already mentioned, that are staying there for three to six months at a time. So people couldn’t afford to get in brick and mortar homes because and 2020. The average American brick and mortar home sold for $300,000. In 2021. That price has risen to the average of brick and mortar home selling in America was $371,000. And we all know what interest rates have done in last couple of years. So first time home owners cannot afford to get into brick and mortar homes. Also, we have this huge evolution in the United States of people downsizing, we have the more and more baby boomers retiring and their kids are off to college or getting married and they no longer need that four bedroom three bath house anymore. So they’re built getting into smaller homes are putting their equity on wheels, the average American moves every 4.2 years. And if you’ve ever bought a brick and mortar home, you know that the first four years, all your payments are going on interest in you at the end of four years. You don’t have any equity because you haven’t paid any principal. So millennials are learning that they can put their equity on wheels. And when they move four years later, they can take it with them. That’s now we mentioned COVID earlier 60% of the people who worked in offices prior to COVID are not returning to offices. They can work anywhere, there’s high speed internet. So millennials like to experience the country, they want to travel all over the country, they want to wake up that morning and do a couple hours worth of work and then go on a walking trail and take the children outside and enjoy their experience at this location. That’s the trend that we have right now. So we’ve discussed parks, campgrounds, resorts, and communities were developed about 10 years ago to satisfy the need of these people who are staying long term in their RV destination, an RV community. The the person who’s looking for an RV community is the same type of thing that you would look for in a brick and mortar community. They want to be near Walmart, grocery store, Lowe’s, Ace Hardware, $1, General, they want to be close to something they want to have a decent school system, they want to quiet they want it safe. Those are the types of places that our communities homestead RV is a community. We focus on people here for long term. And but then the fifth one is the hybrid. And that’s where you have one destination that’s serving two purposes. Or and what Lisa was saying earlier, was that people are taking these parks that were designed for overnight guests, but they’re staying in them long term. So they’re converting them to a long term destination. And the way you prove that is when you’re driving down the interstate back and forth to work every day or wherever you’re going. And you look over at this park and you see that same Airstreams been sitting there For over a year the tires are flat, it’s got a wooden porch. The plants have grown up over the arced air string, that thing hasn’t moved in years. They took a short term destination, and now they’re using it for long term.
Lisa RichartHernandez
And that’s, that’s, I think, even within those five segments, there’s even you can even niche niche it down even more than that. You know what I mean? Where we’ve got like the luxury class a moat only motorcoach resorts that you know, target only the class A owners, and then you’ve got, you know, places that allowed tent campers and things like that. So even the people that do backpacking and tenting like they have no business, they have no interest in the people that are doing luxury motorcoaches. Right. Like we’re just completely, completely different. And the luxury motorcoach people a lot of the things that I market and so those people don’t have as much interest in, you know, people that are just just campers has passing through and those kinds of things. So
George
there’s a lot of resorts that I would say are doing both. They’re catering to the people that want community and want a place to own. And they also cater to the people that just want to come and enjoy the resort. Yeah, because they’re creating a resort now there’s, like Ed said, now you have swimming pools. clubhouse, you have bars, you have fitness centers, everything that you would find that a really nice hotel is in these upscale RV places. Yeah.
Ed Bridgman
pools for their children and pools for the adults. Yeah, they’re
Lisa RichartHernandez
segregating them. Well, and there’s also like the over 55, you know, the 35 plus the adults only communities and some that just target families. You know, it’s very, very diverse. I think the cool thing is, is there’s something for everybody out there, just whatever it is that you’re interested in, George and I always talk about all the different kinds of things and people getting advice on what RV should I buy? I want to I want to get into camping and I want to get into traveling? Do I buy a fifth wheel? Do I buy a class I do a buy a Class C? How about a class B? And we always say to people, our best advice is buy your third coach first. Because if you really love it, you’re going to end up upgrading every time. So that’s, that’s our that’s our little joke for people when they’re looking into buying. But the thing is, you can really get into it any way you want. Right? But
George
we always tell people also figure out what you want the RV for? Is it just going to be a weekend adventure? Are you going to use it? Are you going to go across the country? Are you going to music festivals? The reason I live in it right? The reason Lisa and I won’t go past the 40 foot is because most music festival locations will not accommodate a 45 foot RV. So we enjoy music festivals right now. And we were very happy with a 40 footer. We stay for extended periods of time we’ve been here with Edie now for three months, almost three months. Yeah. And we’ll be back in January. So we’re, we use it, we use it a lot. So figure out what you want to do with your RV before you make the purchase.
Ed Bridgman
Well, it’s actually kind of similar to what EOB consulting does when we’re designing RV destinations. We want to create the perfect fit for the location, but it also has to function correctly for the user.
George
Correct? Yes, because the theory of build it and they’ll come does not always apply. Yeah. So you got to make sure that you’re offering what people are looking for. And make it a true destination. Well,
Lisa RichartHernandez
yeah, if that’s what they’re looking for, like, tell us about so homestead RV community, that’s the name of your of your resort. It’s the community. My community. It’s amazing. The community. Yeah, I mean, if you put the thing is you didn’t use the word campground, you use the word community, and it’s very specific, and it tells a different story than a campground. So what was like, now that you’ve told us all the different ones, what was your vision for this community? And tell us about how you how you built it. What was important to you, you said, I’ve heard you say many times before, it’s the most technologically advanced campground. Tell us about why why that is and tell us just a little bit more about homestead. Well,
Ed Bridgman
thank you. So I’m an electrical engineer, and I’m all into applying more virtuality more modern more high tech opportunities in my product. So I understand that the hurdle that has to be crossed the barrier to entry When developing an RV destination is the sewer. And one of my seven criteria that I required when I was looking for my land was that I have access to public sewer, you 85% of the designs that I designed for EOB consulting, have septic and that’s fine, we can work with that. But public is the best, right? And then the next thing that I wanted to make certain that we the barrier to operating, whenever you develop something or the barrier to actually making it work is the worker. So in America today, it’s very, very difficult to find workers who are willing to apply themselves and make good decisions that would be somewhere to what the owner would want them to make.
Lisa RichartHernandez
staffing. Staffing is a hard thing. Again, construction development is difficult. It’s
Ed Bridgman
really hard. And I mean, these workers, their home is on wheels. Okay. So I mean, for any reason that in the middle of the night, they can wake up and say, You know what, I’m going on to someplace. Yeah, we’re out of here. Yeah, we’re out of here. And we’ve literally had that happen here at Homestead. We talked to the guy that day, he’s loved it here. This is the best job he ever had. He never wanted to leave, he’s gonna die here, blah, blah, blah 930. That night, he calls up and says I gotta go, I’m going back to Oklahoma, I’m gonna be working in oil rigs making a bunch of money. And I said, Oh, so this is your two weeks notice. And he’s, I’m already hooked up. I’m, this is your 30 Minute notice we’re out of here, you know. So workers very, very, very, very hard to find. So it was important to me that homestead was not dependent on workers. We have 20 acres that we keep mowed like a golf course. And we have 59 sites and we escort each guest to their site. We have 11 bathrooms that we keep spotless. So we have five Jacuzzis that we can deliver to any site, obviously for an upcharge. And you can have a Jacuzzi at your site. We have a store that’s virtual that is open 12 hours a day, seven days a week, you go online order anything you want, we’ll deliver it to you within 10 minutes. We deliver all the mail, deliver all the packages, and I have exactly one worker, a disabled American Marine. He does, he does everything five days a week. And Monique, my wife, my beautiful wife, Monica and I work two days a week here at Homestead RV community. So we’re able to accomplish all of this with one worker. And and that was important to me. So homestead is the most technologically advanced RV destination in the world. When I started homestead I interviewed RV reservation software companies. And I said we’ve got to meter electric and water. And they said, No, nobody else is doing it. Nobody else is asking for that nobody else wants to do that. We’re not investing any time in this. So I paid there, I found a company that would work with me. And I paid their engineers to develop the technology to be able to meter both water and electricity for every site and every building at for every customer for every guest, whether they’re here for one day, one week, one month, whatever. And it’s all automated. So the meters are read automatically, every hour, and the information is fed to the cloud. And when someone checks in, we we check them in, escort them to their site. And when we push check in it goes up to the cloud and it harvests that data. And then when they check out we we check them out and it goes up to the cloud and harvest the new data. it subtracts the small number from the big number finds out how many kilowatt hours of electricity they used. And we provide 25 kilowatt hours up to 25 kilowatt hours per day. And if they exceed that, then that what they exceeded is charged back to the guest. So that’s a that’s a very important thing that other people now in the last four years most people realize the importance of metering and, and charging guests who exceed more than the average amount of electricity that has become quite common for long term guests. But most people still haven’t determined how to Bill short term guests but if you recognize that long term guests can exceed then usually short term guests can exceed also they just don’t have a way of doing it. But we do here at Homestead.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, that’s actually a big ol Hilton Head Island motorcoach resort is we’re owners in there. And that was one of the first ownership. motorcoach resorts where we, you know, learned about in state about and now we’re the preferred Realtor in there. So you know, we have a lot of vested interest in everything. But there’s always a controversy bit of the owners of people that go over a John their water, and for us to build them for their waters that we do meter, the water at Hilton Head, and everybody seems your owners has their own electric bill every month. So I’ve just been working with some of these other developers seeing the technology of of just like you said, being able to, basically, through the cloud, be able to get the updated electric information is, I guess, it’s, it’s good. Do you ever get any pushback from people that are like, I didn’t know you’re going to charge me extra for electric or anything like that.
Ed Bridgman
We communicate multiple times prior to the reservation, even if you make your reservation online without talking to anybody, you’re sent messages saying that, that we’re going to provide up to up to 25 kilowatt hours per day, and anything exceeding that you’re going to get charged for. But we’ve had exactly one person in the last two and a half years who freaked out and got upset, because he was here for one week, and he was charged 98 cents. We went over by
Lisa RichartHernandez
always that person, it’s always that How dare you?
Ed Bridgman
Yeah. But what was what was, what was really interesting to me was we are able to keep our base rate lower. Because we have created we have taken this variable expense electricity. And we have created a fixed cost that we’ve we’ve turned that into a fixed cost, we know that anything beyond 25 kilowatt hours, at 20 cents a kilowatt hour is $5. We know we’re not going to pay more than $5 a day for electricity. So we’re able to keep our base rate lower. And and the place that he was comparing us to actually charges $22 more per week than we do. And so we saved in $22. I’m charging of 99 weekly rate, but we charged the 98 cents that he had gone over almost five, almost five kilowatt hours in the week that he was here. And he sent me two emails calling me every name in the book, because he was charged this extra 98 cents.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, it’s funny how the squeaky wheel, you know, sometimes you’ll get, just like you said, you’ll get all these five star reviews. And then two people that I always read through the reviews and go I can tell like, that person’s just a jerk anyways, like there was no way. I think I think I heard you say went like 4.9. And the only two bad reviews I have I’ve never even stayed here
Ed Bridgman
are my neighbors. Neighbors on each side of me. They’re the only one star reviews that I have. Yeah. So homestead RV community serves three purposes. First of all, it is a profitable destination. And you just mentioned we have over 260 Google reviews now we’ve been open for two and a half years. And we’re carrying a 4.9. So it is a it is a profitable business. And that’s great. I’m glad Yeah. But also it is my marketing tool for EOB consulting people come here. And sometimes they tell us they’re coming. And sometimes it’s a covert mission. But they’re here for a week or so. And then that that last day that they’re here they go, oh, you know, can we have a conversation with you in the office, and they come in and they go well, we’ve got this 40 acres, we’ve been farming and it’s not big enough to make a living at farming anymore. We’re looking at something to do with it with we’d like for you to build us or design for us. And RV destinations. So that’s it’s my marketing tool. This is this is my show room that people can come into our homestead and see how we design RV destinations. Third, different companies will contact me and say we have this new reservation software, or we have this new pedestal or we have this new electric meter water meter transmitter, and we want you to test it for us. So I do this for free. I’m electrical engineer and I have sites that I use specifically to test these products. And I give them my honest feedback and most many much by far most companies apply that feedback and improve their product. And I’m happy to help them do that. Then I have clients that I am designing their RV destination, and they contact me say, well, what’s the best pedestal out there, or what’s the best reservation software. And I’ve tested them all, I’ve tested most of them. So I can give my unbiased feedback because I’m not getting a kickback. From these companies, I didn’t get paid to test it. I didn’t, I don’t get paid a percentage when they sell something. And if I don’t like them, I am very honest and say Don’t avoid that company because their product doesn’t work as well. And, and I don’t get any, I don’t have to worry about any lawsuits or anything like that, because that’s just my opinion. So, so homestead serves two purposes. And that’s why we will always be the most technologically advanced RV destination in the world, because we will always be incorporating the latest technology.
Lisa RichartHernandez
So I know we’ve talked some about this, but I want you to share with our listeners about what your plans for expansion are for homestead, if you’re willing to do elaborate on that.
Ed Bridgman
So we’re like I mentioned it, we’ve been open about two and a half years this, this interview is being taped in October of 2023 is okay for me.
George
Yeah, absolutely. Okay.
Ed Bridgman
We’ve been open for just over two and a half years, and we came up during COVID. So at that time, Oh, wow. Yeah, the government didn’t allow us to build a pool because people were not supposed to be commingling bodily fluids. And so we weren’t allowed to put in a pool. And that was a bad deal. So now the government has decided that COVID was, is not going to kill us all. And we’re all going to be safe, and we can get back in the pool. So we’re building a pool right now, as a matter of fact, we should be breaking ground in the next few weeks. And we should have a pool up in a saltwater pool up and operational in the spring of 2024. Excited about that. I also host conferences here at Homestead RV community, twice a year, mostly my clients come to be introduced to investors, both public and private. So and that pool house is going to have a large conference center where we can hold these conferences. And so we’re putting in a pool and a pool house additional laundry, additional bathrooms over in another corner of the current property. And as soon as we complete that task, we’re going to start selling sites, individual sites, so people can come and purchase this particular site. And then they can have a deed to it, they can use it, they can rent it, they can sell it, they can do whatever they want. And so immediately after building the pool, we’re going to build an additional four sites that are going to be our models. And they’re going to have I call it a pole barn. But my marketing guru tells me that it’s supposed to be a portal. So you’re going to have an ability to put your RV underneath a cover. To provide shade, you’re going to have an outdoor community, an outdoor garden. It’s there’s a fancier word than garden, but but and we’re going to have an outdoor covered storage like a patio space. Yeah, place that it’s fenced in a six foot high privacy fence so that you can put a Jacuzzi back there bathing suit optional, and you can have your dog back there and stuff like that. And then an outdoor storage outdoor kitchen and country cottages so I used to call them mother in law Suites but my marketing gurus know I like country cottage can’t call them either mostly. That’s next rheumatory is also
Lisa RichartHernandez
no more master bedrooms.
Ed Bridgman
So I listened to Lisa really do what she has to say. And we’re gonna call them country cottages, but they’re brick and mortar fastened to the grounds with concrete foundations. They’re not park models, they’re not 400 square feet or less the smallest one is 500 and something square feet and the biggest one is almost 700 square feet. So people can purchase their specific site and then they can purchase they can say I want this portal assembled on my site or this outdoor kitchen or garden something.
George
garden area Yeah, they can add whatever
Ed Bridgman
they can add whatever they want to their site, our general contractor will build it so that they all look like they belong on the same property. We can’t have somebody build one. Yeah, yeah. Somebody built one out of stucco and stuff like that. So we will manage that so that it always coherent and And then as soon as we sell half of my existing sites, then we’re going to be adding another 70 sites on land that I already
Lisa RichartHernandez
own. Awesome. Now, so that’s a big expansion.
Ed Bridgman
We’ll have 130 sites. When we finish phase two, I have first right of refusal on my neighbor’s property, and so we could eventually expand to 200 sites.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Wow. Yeah,
George
I’ll talk. So that’s where we’re headed. Oh, that’s excited forward to that. Yeah.
Lisa RichartHernandez
I liked the country cottages, that’s a great name for them. So much better than mother in law suites. We could all agree on that. Yes. Nobody brings their mother in law with them. Most of the reason they live in their RV is to get away from their mother in law, or they are the mother in law. And they say, Yeah, I’m gonna live in my RV, so I don’t have to live with you. Oh, that’s funny. So we’ve talked a little bit like, let’s see, we’ve talked about the changes that we’ve seen in the RV industry. And what do you think about the future? Where do you think, you know, I’ve got some people, different investors, people that don’t know about the industry? Oh, this was just a fad. Like the, you know, your we hear that all the time. Yeah. You know, like, oh, well, you know, now that COVID is over, nobody’s gonna go camping anymore. My research shows that that’s not true at all. But I’m just curious what your opinion of that is.
Ed Bridgman
My research shows that the RV industry is gaining traction and going to continue to gain momentum for quite a while. One of the largest problems in this country, depending on upon who you talk to, is affordable housing. And as interest rates continue to soar. And there’s no indication that they’re going to come back down below 10% anytime soon, as the cost of materials continue to rise. And as the global economics create more material shortages, construction costs is going to continue to go up and new buildings of brick and mortar homes are going to continue to go up. And and as we mentioned earlier, the evolution is that people are putting their equity on wheels and downsizing. So the RV industry is going in my opinion, the RV industry is going to thrive for the next several years as far as far as the foreseeable future, will will let us look,
George
I totally agree. I also think that I totally agree with you with the housing situation. But I also think that there are and you touched on this before there are way more people working from home than there were before COVID. And now people are like, well, if I’m going to work from home, let’s put wheels on it. And I can go work anywhere and change my view every couple of months. And I’m still providing for my family I’m still doing my job. But let’s let’s move that’s that’s keep it rolling as long
Ed Bridgman
as they have high speed internet and so here at Homestead I invested $50,000 to bring in fiber optic cables and did fiber optic throughout homestead is very important than your new development that you make certain you have high speed internet.
George
Absolutely, absolutely.
Lisa RichartHernandez
I think that’s a make or break that’s a make or break for me because I work from the road all the time. And some people say they have high speed internet, but in my opinion, if you can’t stream your Netflix that is not high speed internet. And like most of the stuff that I do on my computer is video and and high. You know, I need high speed internet to be able to do my job.
George
I mean, if anybody’s working, they need really good internet, or else they’re gonna move they’re gonna leave.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, I mean, it doesn’t matter how nice the places I would leave if they’re Georgia isn’t had to pull over at McDonald’s for me to hook up to their hotspots before if I’m like, I gotta get internet I’m writing a contract right now
George
you can see the trend because a lot of cell phone providers now are providing Wi Fi boosters, they’re providing Wi Fi services, because they also see the trend that people need it and they’re gonna pay for an RV people have them all the time.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, you have
Ed Bridgman
to and I’m, I’m proud to say you guys have been here for three months. So it must
Lisa RichartHernandez
I’ve had a lot of zoom conferences. Yeah. Now only a couple of times I’ve had like a little but it’s only it’s usually when I feel like when everybody comes back from home from work or whatever, they must all get on at the same time. And I’m like, I’m getting a little bit of a shortage of my service. And then it’s then they go to dinner and it’s like it’s a brief moment in time and I’m like I have a good guess but never no problems at all. We’ve it’s been great and as a matter of fact, I do want to just compliment you on this like i This place is so well maintained. All the pads are I see I don’t know how you do it with a one man show out there. Everything is very meticulous, very clean. The lawn is perfect. The pads are clean, nice big level pads. There’s, there’s no, I don’t want to use the word trashy but is it’s very well maintained and very, very nice place to stay.
George
You guys. The power wash the pads every time somebody leaves, right? Pretty much
Ed Bridgman
every time if somebody’s only here overnight, and and they didn’t make it. Yeah, I mean somebody that’s long term, somebody who made a mess. Yeah, their power washed. That’s awesome.
George
Yeah, I’ve seen your guy out there. I’ve seen you out there. Yeah. And that’s one thing I said to Lisa. I said, Ed, and your beautiful wife. Really? Are you really committed to this place? I see you delivering mail. I see you cutting the grass. I see you power washing the lots. It’s, we can tell that you love this thing. And it’s your baby and your model for your for your business.
Ed Bridgman
Thank you very much.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Yes, that’s, that is one thing that we should also say it’s good that you can get your mail here. Do you know that a lot of resorts don’t allow you to have your mail sent there? That’s It’s just great to be able to
George
oh, this is community. So if you can’t get your mail, it’s not community. Right. That’s got I mean, we talked to a gentleman the other day who has been here for two years with you. Right? So we’ve been
Ed Bridgman
open two and a half years. And he’s been here two years. Right. Right. Right. And then the lady next to him had been here one month less than he had. Yeah.
George
That’s a great tribute to you and your your community here.
Ed Bridgman
Well, I don’t believe that somebody looks taller when they stand on somebody else’s shoulders. But there are a large number. Well, the median age of an RV destination in America is 40 years old. That means half of them are older than 40, half of them are younger than 40 77% of RV destinations in the United States are older than 20 years old. A lot of the people that are owning those RV destinations, inherited them from their parents, and they may have inherited them from their grandparents. So a lot of those people have enjoyed the fact that there is a huge gulf between the supply and demand. So they have been able to impose restrictions and policies that maybe were less than fair to the RV owner, but they were able to get by with it because they had the only game in town. And I don’t believe that philosophy is true. This kind of contradicts what I said earlier, I believe that the RV industry is growing, I believe that there’s a huge demand for RV sites. But at the same time, I want the RV destination owner to be humble, and recognize that they’re providing a service for a customer for a guest. And they should not take that for granted. And they should not say okay, if you have three kids in your RV, we’re going to charge you extra if you want to use the shower or you got to bring your quarters because we’re going to limit the water to two minutes. There’s places that do that. Okay. I’m like, Oh my gosh, that’s what
George
it but it’s like you said it’s because they inherited to something that was built when there was no competition. Now the competition is arriving, and they have to either adjust or die.
Ed Bridgman
So there’s this old saying that you can’t continuing to do the same thing over and over and expecting different results is the definition of
George
insanity. Okay,
Ed Bridgman
I get that. These people are saying, well, we’ve been doing the same thing over and over and over. And it’s been very successful. So why change? The problem is the guest has changed. Yes, exactly. You cannot continue doing the same thing over and over and over and expect the same results. When your guest is different. Now you need to adjust to the new guests. The new guest is younger, more fluent, more educated. They require high speed internet, they don’t want to be nickel and dime, they want safety, they want quiet, they want security. They want experiences. And if you’re not providing that, then they’ll find it at your competitors.
George
Exactly. And the new client is more demanding. But they’re willing to pay for that demand. If you give them a good product, they have no problem paying for whatever you’re giving them where the other mentality is. They’ll just keep paying, they’ll keep paying, they’ll keep paying and eventually they stop paying.
Ed Bridgman
Exactly, exactly and that’s that’s why I say you can’t keep doing the same thing you’ve always been doing and expecting the same results when you’re dealing with a different customer.
George
Right and This industry is changing so fast that you have to stay, you better stay on top of the game or talk
Lisa RichartHernandez
about your 4.9 Google rating. I mean, I’ll be honest, every single place that we ever go, whether it’s a restaurant, whether it’s a hotel, whether it’s a campground or a resort, whatever we do, I look at all the Google ratings. You know, I’m definitely not gonna go to a restaurant that’s under a Ford for Google rating, you know, things like that. And he used to make fun of me for doing that. But now, we’ve been to so many amazing places, and I’m like, I can see why it is. But people can walk in, make a bad decision, you know, you give them a bad impression. And they’re gonna go right out and tell everybody in the world what you did. It’s not like, bad word spreads faster. What do they say? Bad news spreads faster than good news or something like that. But it’s like, you just need one angry person to cause a problem,
George
just review ratings. You can get 100 Great reviews. You got one bad one and your rating drops? Yeah. And it’s like, but I got 100. Good ones.
Lisa RichartHernandez
That’s what I that’s what I tried to tell my kids about their grades. Yeah. And then they go hard it is make it up from a one F right. You got it? How many A’s you have to get to make up from one if not just one. So Well, I think we’ve gone over like a great amount of stuff. Like you’ve really shared some really interesting industry information with me, that’s been great. Tell me tell our listeners, how they can get a hold of you where they can find your homestead RV Resort, how to reach you online. And then we’re also going to put all this information in the show notes as well. Well, thank you.
Ed Bridgman
So homestead RV community located at 10550 Pioneer Road in Theodore, Alabama. The website is home, our VC for RV community.com Home rvc.com. And our telephone number is 251-973-2484. You can make your reservations online. But we’re more than happy to help you 24 hours a day, give us a call. And we’ll help you make that reservation for ELB consulting. My website is EOB dash consulting. And as the dashes the line if you don’t spell da sh it’s EOB dash consulting.com. And that phone number is 512-785-1379. We are the largest RV destination consulting company based upon volume. We’re doing an average of little over three a month in 2023. Four of RV destinations and boat and RV storage facilities all over the country.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Great. That’s awesome. Well, thank you so much for your time today. We’ve enjoyed our time here. And well, we’ll see you back in January when we come back.
Ed Bridgman
We might have to do a follow up.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, there we go. Well, hopefully you’ll have your bread broken ground on your pool by the definitely. That’s right. That’s right.
George
I can’t wait for that. I don’t know how cold it gets here in January but I’ll be ready for a pool.
Lisa RichartHernandez
That’s right. Well, hey friends, don’t forget to share and like our podcast and share it with your friends. We look forward to talking to you again soon.
George
Take care. Bye bye.
Speaker 2
Thanks for listening to another episode of RView. Don’t forget to drop us a line at Rviewpodcast.com That’s the letter R view podcast.com And like, subscribe and follow us so you don’t miss out on our next adventure.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
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