The “3-C” Framework That Turns Mobile Home Parks into Cash-Flowing Communities | Ep. 27

In this episode of The Sage Investor, host Brian Spear sits down with Todd DeLeon, President and Chief Operating Officer of Sunrise Communities, to explore the operational realities of managing manufactured housing portfolios. While many real estate investors over-index on the upfront acquisition—focusing heavily on pro formas, debt structures, and cap rates—this conversation shifts the spotlight to what happens after closing, where underwriting meets reality. DeLeon brings over two decades of operations experience, drawing on a disciplined background in competitive international athletics to outline how Sunrise Communities transforms fragmented, mom-and-pop mobile home parks into institutional-grade, durable assets.

The core thesis of the episode is that operations ultimately determine the outcome of an investment. DeLeon introduces the “3-C” framework—Community, Curate, and Convene—which serves as a systematic approach to asset management. By first surveying the resident base to understand local demographics, operators can carefully curate capital expenditures, infrastructure upgrades, and amenities to match actual needs. Finally, providing spaces for residents to convene fosters long-term trust, driving down delinquency while improving lot fill rates and retention. This structured executive briefing is designed for high-net-worth real estate investors and business owners seeking to understand how to drive operational excellence, implement fair accountability systems using frameworks like EOS, and establish repeatable asset management processes that protect the downside and secure predictable, long-term cash flow.

Key Takeaways

• Takeaway 1: Real estate investment performance is ultimately determined by operational execution rather than upfront underwriting assumptions, as the actual business plan begins only after the deal closes.
• Takeaway 2: Implementing standardized processes, policies, and property management software can significantly optimize a property’s net operating income by lowering delinquency rates and streamlining home stabilization.
• Takeaway 3: Fair and effective team accountability requires absolute clarity, providing each team member with a singular, explicit key performance indicator that leaves no room for ambiguity.
• Takeaway 4: Capital expenditure programs and community amenities should be strategically curated based on direct resident feedback and demographic surveys rather than speculative value-add assumptions.
• Takeaway 5: Building institutional-grade real estate value requires a balance of rigorous structural systems paired with dedicated local engagement that earns the trust of the resident community.

Key Topics Covered

• Mobile home park asset management and operations
• Transitioning mom-and-pop assets to institutional-grade systems
• The “3-C” operational framework (Community, Curate, Convene)
• Team dynamics, leadership culture, and fair accountability systems
• Implementing the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) in property management
• Mitigating delinquency and managing capital expenditures from a distance
• Balancing corporate standards with localized relationship-building

Episode Chapters

00:00 Intro

Host Brian Spear introduces the core theme of the episode, highlighting why operational excellence and building a trustworthy leadership team matter far more than theoretical spreadsheets.

03:40 After the Deal Closes

Todd DeLeon explains the immediate steps taken after acquiring a mom-and-pop mobile home park, emphasizing how boots-on-the-ground management reveals details a pro forma cannot capture.

06:52 From Team USA to Leading MHPs

Todd shares insights from his winding background competing internationally for Team USA Junior Bowling and how athletic discipline shapes his modern leadership and team accountability strategies.

14:53 Mom and Pop to Institutional Quality

A deep dive into how Sunrise Communities replaces fragmented property systems with structured processes, playbooks, and standard operating procedures to elevate community cash flow.

19:00 Managing the Parks (Exact Team)

An overview of the exact management hierarchy used to run multi-state portfolios efficiently, detailing the collaborative roles of on-site managers, regional vice presidents, and corporate executives.

34:20 1. Community

Todd explains the first phase of the “3-C” framework, focusing on how operators must leverage surveys and direct interaction to truly understand the residents living in a community.

36:40 2. Curate

The discussion covers the second phase of the framework, which involves using collected resident data to customize capital expenditures, home infills, and local community amenities.

39:04 3. Convene

Todd highlights the final phase of the framework, showing how creating spaces and regular events for residents to gather eliminates distrust and turns residents into positive brand ambassadors.

43:16 Todd’s Sage Principle

Todd delivers his primary lesson on how corporate culture drives execution and details his core leadership philosophy that people will naturally follow trust.

49:04 Operations Determine Outcome

Brian summarizes the critical lessons from the episode, reminding business owners and investors that true real estate value is built where structural discipline meets human understanding.

Full Transcript

[Transcript begins]

Brian Spear: Buying a community is one skill, operating it well is another. And in manufactured housing, the difference between projected returns and durable returns often comes down to what happens after closing. Here’s what I hope you take away from this episode. Great operators do not just manage assets. They build standards, teams, trust, and repeatable systems that allow communities to improve over time. Welcome back to The Sage Investor. I’m Brian Spear. My mission is to help you generate cash flow and build legacy wealth in a tax-efficient manner because that’s what I’m trying to do for my family, and I’m sharing all the secrets I learned along the way. One sage lesson as a business owner that I’ve taken to heart is Warren Buffett. He doesn’t operate every single business that he buys. He hires the right people. We covered this in episode 24, right? At a certain point, your business is only gonna grow to the extent you’re willing to let go. That’s how you get freedom. You gotta let go of control. You’ve got to let go of doing everything yourself. Let go of being the bottom line. So today, I’m joined by Todd DeLeon. He’s the president of Sunrise Communities. That’s our vertically integrated property management company. He’s an absolute rock star in operations. He’s a stud. He’s the guy behind the scenes driving the day-to-day. Todd brings more than 25 years of operations experience and a leadership background shaped by competitive athletics, including international competition with Team USA Junior Bowling. At Sunrise, Todd helps translate the business plan at acquisition into the day-to-day execution. Boots on the ground. He’s out there building teams, improving communities, supporting all the residents, and raising the operating standards across the entire portfolio. So, Todd, welcome to the Sage Investor, buddy.

Todd DeLeon: Hey, thanks, Brian. Thanks for having me today. Love to jump on TalkShop. We have a lot of great things happening, not only in Sunrise, but through the industry in general. So looking forward to speaking on some of that today.

Brian Spear: This will be one of many. It won’t be the first time we ever pull you on here, buddy. It’s been great. Get you behind the curtain, right? You’ve been behind the curtain too long. We’ll get you out and just talk and shop to just share more insights and wisdom with everybody involved. You know, I guess we’ll start with this. You know, there’s so much stuff you post on social media, all these wins. You see it on LinkedIn over and over and over. You know, a lot of folks in the investment world spend an exorbitant amount of time thinking about the acquisition. You know, the price, the debt, the capital stack, the financing, the rent growth, all the assumptions inside of the pro forma. But from your seat, what really begins after the deal closes? That’s the beginning, right?

Todd DeLeon: No, hey, absolutely right. It’s the process that gets everything started. And, you know, when we’re coming out of an acquisition, that’s really when the team starts to roll. You know, we start to dig in and, you know, we have a very high presence right after acquisitions through our regional management team, through all of our on-site professional management teams, and then all of our folks support team behind the scenes. So, we start peeling back the onion as we like to say, and that’s just, we dive into rent rolls and we dive into CapEx projects and we look at what our infill program is. And then we, you know, the other fact is the residents, right? We start to establish our resident relationships within the community, and we start to input all of our Sunrise community programs into place. So there’s a lot that goes on directly after the acquisitions. A lot of it is behind the scenes, but a lot of it is front-facing as well with the residents and vendors and contractors and, you know, suppliers and all these folks that have served.

Brian Spear: We learn so much about the property. No matter how much due diligence you do on the front end, you learn so much about the property after you close it in the first couple of quarters. It’s inevitable. We talk about it as getting all the skeletons out of the closet. So give me a little color here. What can a spreadsheet, a pro forma, what can it never fully capture about a community?

Todd DeLeon: Well, you know, it’s the day in and day out operational piece that the spreadsheets really just can’t tell you about, right? It’s about, you know, the logistical complications within a community. You can look on the, you know, spreadsheets, look at rent rolls, but you don’t understand maybe some of the issues that maybe some of the residents are having on the back end that you have to work directly with, right, that gets you to that rent roll spreadsheet, right? Or even on delinquency, right, working with several folks maybe on payment arrangement programs or different state assistance programs and stuff like that. So, you know, spreadsheets give you the numbers. When we get in there, we understand the whys.

Brian Spear: Yeah, the spreadsheet, you can make a spreadsheet sing, right? All the numbers, you can make magic happen. But the truth is, the boots on the ground, day-to-day, dirt under your fingernails is really what actually gets the job done. That’s the truth at the end of the day. People celebrate the front end, the acquisition. That’s really just the beginning. It’s actually a very long tenure of slow slog to actually make the magic happen. That’s the truth. Let’s dig into your background here, buddy, given the fact that it’s the first time that you’ve been on the podcast. You have a very unique and winding background, right? Competing internationally as part of Team USA Junior Bowling and then building a long operations career. How did that competitive background shape your leadership style, what you do today?

Todd DeLeon: Sure. So born and raised in Southern California, right? And you know, the windy road is just taking me on a path to where we’re at now. Started back in some high school bowling, right? And through that went into some collegiate bowling, which ultimately led to me being recruited into the Brunswick Corporation. But with that, I had the opportunity to, as you mentioned earlier, compete on the international level with the Junior Team USA out in Australia, New Zealand, Japan, 17 years old, out on the road, not knowing what the heck was going on other than a bowling ball and knowing what I was doing out there. When you travel internationally at 17 years old and you’re with a group of six to eight individuals like likewise like you know reality hits you quick, right? You learn the world pretty quickly outside your little bubble back at home and you get to understand the disciplines that the international teams go through to compete on a national level, so you get to have a respect and admiration for those folks on what they do. And then you look inward to see, hey, how do you actually, you know, how do you prepare to compete on both, you know, local but also national levels, right? What do you do on day in and day out discipline? And with that, right, you know, becomes, you know, then, while bowling is very much individual, but then you become in the team dynamics and then you start understanding and learning, you know, the different how you build relationships and partnerships and how the whole team dynamic works, right? And the respectability and accountability that you got to go out and do your job, right, so rest of the team can prosper and they go out and do their job as well. So that instilled in a very young age as I was traveling through the international. And taking from that as I went through different facets of my career, learning that discipline, learning that you’ve got to be disciplined on a daily basis to get your ultimate weekly, monthly, quarterly, yearly results, right, that you’re achieving and wanting. So, you know, there was so much learned out on that road, you know, from just accountability, understanding dynamics, understanding how relationships are fostered and built and how we built that culture around us eight individuals that were traveling to multiple countries that we’ve never been to. And all these folks are traveling maybe for the first time, but understanding the culture that we were building there. So you’re able to take a lot of those pieces and move forward throughout your career as you start to gain traction with Brunswick and then as I moved on beyond that. So those were some of the pieces that we were able to foster and take from that.

Brian Spear: I’ve always appreciated the athletic background, of course, that’s where I come from. That’s my world. That’s my universe. Mine wasn’t baseball. I played all different sports growing up. But baseball was one of those interesting ones. I kind of feel similar to bowling in that you have both an individual dynamic and a team dynamic. Also did wrestling, which is so fun for individual one-on-one because that really forges individual personal accountability. But then the team dynamic, how to thrive in a cohesive environment. Baseball is similar in that you’ve got the one-on-one with the pitcher and the batter, but then you also have the team dynamic, and similar in bowling, right, if you’re doing the team, it’s obviously you going out and doing your best individually, but clearly the team component, I think it’s important, right? And there’s full throttle private equity firms that when they’re out there hiring, right, they’re trying to go hire CEOs in various different realms. The model is to go find blue chip athlete leaders to go run those businesses because of that unique aspect that you learn in those competitive environments and how to thrive, how to drive that personal accountability and breed a culture of success. That’s the thing that I miss the most about the business—the sports back in the day. It’s not necessarily being on the field and the competition. To some degree, it’s the camaraderie and the culture and the teammates and all the stories and the bus rides and all the stuff. You miss that. And again, in the corporate world, you’re trying to foster that same thing. It’s beautiful. So love the background. And I will personally attest that competitive spirit hasn’t left you yet. You’re still out there grinding away, ranked nationally in softball, men’s and co-ed, absolutely insane. You’re a stud. And also set a super high standard not only at sunrise but also in your personal household, right? Multiple kids, unbelievably successful, doing some amazing things out there. So why don’t you brag on the kiddos a little bit buddy, one of your boys in track dominating, your daughter competing nationally, internationally in debate, a little bit of color in the household, share some insights there.

Todd DeLeon: Yeah, you know, I’m going to age myself a little bit as, you know, I’ve got two graduating this year, actually here in a few days. But, you know, from my oldest, you know, trying to, and let me tell you, if anybody has a 19, 18 and 16 year old, you know, bless you, because I know that we’ve gone through at those ages. But, you know, my oldest graduated and went on, but he was competitive in wrestling. And, you know, he went to a city and state and nationals as well. My middle, Ethan, he’s a track and field, right? That’s, and he does some cross country and, you know, he’s a star in his own world. And we’re sad that the high school portion of it is coming to an end here. We’ve got divisionals and state coming up in the next couple of weeks. And then, you know, he graduates. But we’re excited to see what that next level might be for him, right? And then my daughter, Sarah, right, national speech and debate, you know, finalist. And she’s amazing from freshman year. She actually skipped a school year because they told her, you know, she had her mother’s brains and she’s so smart, right, and whatnot. But yeah, he just, you know, and, you know, I think if you look at all three of them, right, it’s to your point of trying to foster that leadership for them, right? You kind of take that same approach and make sure they understand real world and what they’re going to have to be self-disciplined and self-accountability, you know. And, you know, the world’s not going to give them much, right, and they got to go out and earn it and earn it, having that culture base in there as well. You know, hopefully they’re able to pick up a few nuggets here and there and be able to continue life as is. But we’re extremely excited, both graduating, the two younger graduating this year and moving on. So, yeah, super excited.

Brian Spear: It’s beautiful, man. I know that they’ve picked up those nuggets. It’s a testament to you, your leadership, the success, and the standard that you set in the household. And we experienced it over here in our shop over at Sunrise, right on the property management side. It’s beautiful. It’s beautiful to see. So obviously, you had a lot of success growing the ranks over at the bowling side in Brunswick, and then moved over into property management after, again, the long and winding road. But then getting into property management, climbing the ranks prior to coming on board at Sunrise, had managed roughly 20,000 spaces across maybe 20 states in the manufactured housing sector. So a ton, a ton of experience, largely kind of on an institutional size and scale and kind of pivoting over to today, right? You know, one of the things we talk about internally is trying to bring that institutional quality, that systems and processes, that level of standard to smaller middle market communities that historically have been run in more of a fragmented mom and pop nature, right? What does that actually mean operationally? How does that create alpha for us? Walk through some of that stuff.

Todd DeLeon: No, absolutely. You know, it’s one of our biggest challenges, right, when you acquire a non-institutionalized community, right, a mom and pop type of there, because the dynamics from a mom and pop are so different from traditionally what large operators, institutional operators operate as, including ourselves in Sunrise with that. It’s all about, as you mentioned, processes, policies, and procedurals. It’s getting in and we talked about, hey, what comes up after acquisitions, right? It’s getting in and understanding the business. Whether it be, hey, they’re working in QuickBooks or Excel or just handwritten notes or whatever it is, right? It’s understanding the process there, and then it’s elevating it to the Sunrise standards, the Sunrise way, right? So we run off a property management system. We have various processes and procedures in when it comes to move in, move out, whether it comes to sales and marketing, occupancy, delinquency process, collections, all that fun stuff. So what we try to instill is we start to put those pieces of the puzzle in place. You know, we don’t do a mass dump load because, you know, that would overwhelm the community staff on there. So, you know, we take a look at, hey, what’s the lowest hanging fruit that we can initially grab on to? And then we start putting those pieces together, right? And so we have an onboarding process with all of our community managers’ acquisitions that run us through different phases of what that acquisition is to ensure that we’re not missing any steps, but we’re also being respectful of who we’re onboarding as well, right? And we want to, we’re driven by our culture, our mission, vision, values, right? We’re driven by our operational excellence. And we want to ensure that we maintain those standards by following this onboarding program that we have for the communities.

Brian Spear: Of course. Love every bit of that. Maybe walk through what changes, what changes inside of a community when you go from more informal, lackadaisical mom and pop style management to more process driven management and accountability?

Todd DeLeon: Sure. I would say, you know, your execution, your results, right? Those tend to go hand in hand. So, you know, when we’re talking about execution or results, right? So you think about collections or delinquency, right? A lot of mom and pops out there don’t have a formal process, collections process. They kind of just kind of go with the flow a little bit. They don’t necessarily have it stepped out in a dial process, right? So we’ve seen delinquencies decline anywhere from single to high double digits once we instill our collection process. We talk about occupancy and revenue producing sites and RPS, same thing, right? We have a very formidable sales and marketing program. We have a very outlined sales playbook that we follow. So that when homes do come back to us, we’re able to quickly get those homes rehabbed and back on the market and get them occupied. It creates less downtime for the communities, right? So once you start putting, you know, that’s just a couple of the programs. But once you start putting some of those pieces, what you tend to see is, you know, your top line revenue continues to drive a little bit. Your bottom line gets better because you’re more efficient on your cost control items. And ultimately, your NOI continues to raise at that point as well. And we’ve seen beautiful results from that implementation in due time.

Brian Spear: Let’s walk through maybe kind of oversight of these communities and kind of how we manage them from a distance, right? We now own stuff in multiple states. We’ve owned stuff in 16, 17 states, manufactured housing, almost 20 now, whatever the number is, but they’re all over, right? So walk us through kind of how you keep your finger on the pulse from community managers to regionals to your oversight. How often are we in there? Just walk through kind of what that looks like just to give a little color for everybody.

Todd DeLeon: So one of the first steps of when coming on board with Sunrise was establishing kind of our operational process, right? Which includes those type of, you know, community oversight, right? And what does that include? So today, right, we at all of our communities, we have professional onsite management teams. They’re there to deal with our day to day operations. They’re there to help and assist our resident building that resident relations to ensure that our communities look good through our curb appeal programs, through some of our residential programs as well. So they are there really the main boots on the ground, right? They’re the front line team that’s holding all the pieces together. And then our next layer of management is our regional vice presidents. And each region, you know, traditionally will have anywhere between eight and 12 communities somewhere in the neighborhood of, say, a thousand to fifteen hundred sites is where we like to keep them for operational efficiencies. Spend some time in the ivory tower because I think that’s important because you got to be able to have that time to review, you know, financials and review stuff that you can do in the office, right, and putting plans together and reviewing invoicing and all that fun stuff. But you can’t manage completely from the ivory tower. You’ve got to get out in the field. So our regional vice presidents traditionally visit our communities a minimum of once a quarter. Right. And that’s really going out and spending time with that onsite property manager, our community managers and team. Right. So with some communities might have assistant managers. Some might have grounds and maintenance folks that might have sales and leasing. But it’s really for them to get in there and spend some time with them, but also evaluate kind of where the community is at. Do a very in-depth, we have a program that we complete. It’s our on-site program. And they go through, just as I mentioned before, right, they’re looking at community curb appeal. They’re ensuring that any lease or site violations are noted and being taken care of in a reasonable amount of time. They’re looking at all of the financial answerments with the CMs, right? So they’re going over occupancy and delinquency and rent roll and NOI and P&Ls and all that fun stuff. So they’re completing that as well. You know, they’re doing a walk of the community, right? Looking at potential CapEx projects that might be going on, or maybe that we’ve scheduled, you know, are coming up. Or maybe we don’t have it scheduled and it is a need in the community and we need to make sure that we create that awareness so that we can either budget for it on next budget season or we implement that fix right away if it’s necessary. So they’re out in the community looking at all that, right? They’re walking our inventory homes to make sure that our current inventory is what we call show ready, meaning, hey, they’re ready to be occupied, right? They’re clean. The yard’s clean. And the lots look good in just protecting the assets of the organization. Right. And then the last piece of that would be just the resident relations. Right. They’re there to be seen and engage with the residents while they’re on site. So, you know, they traditionally outside of, you know, unscheduled, but they’re they’re hitting about once a quarter. And then for myself, right, the same aspect. You know, my grind is, you know, I’m looking, I’m the visionary that moves the operations ahead. But I also got to live in today’s world, meaning, you know, I need to understand, just as we mentioned with the RVPs, right, financials and where we’re at in infill program or CapEx program, where we’re, you know, how are our community programs operating and all that fun stuff. But I also get out in the field, right? I like to spend time with the regionals out on the road. You know, last was a couple months ago, you know, me and an RVP, we spent four days in the car together, right? About four hours a day, a lot of windshield time, but it was great because we were able to just talk, talk shop, understand, you know, her pain points, understand how I can help better help and support the team. But we also get out and visit communities, visit people, visit the residents, everything like that. Right. So I try to get out consistently each quarter as well, visiting other communities and with the RVPs. But also, you know, getting into what may be troubled assets for whatever reason. Right. Maybe we have a community that’s maybe not operating as efficiently or effectively as possible. So I want to go in and see what’s going on in that community and see how I can help or support or bring some ideas or programs or whatever it might be, right, that we can write that ship quickly. And then it’s visiting capex projects and new home field projects and stuff like that. So I’m very visible out on the field like rest of the operations team. We have a director of community projects. We have a VP of sales and leasing. They’re also very visible out in the field, making a presence out there as well. So for us, the boots on the ground is a very tactical need that’s in this. We are in the people business, and our internal and external guests, what we mean is internal is obviously our staff and all that fun stuff, our externals, all of our residents, vendors, suppliers, and everything like that. So while you can do many things from the ivory tower, it is prudent that you are boots on the ground, inspecting the quality, inspecting the resident relation piece of it, and just building that team chemistry dynamics as you’re out there as well.

Brian Spear: Last point that you made regarding the team chemistry and the dynamics. You talked about culture a little bit earlier. You know, a lot of companies, they talk about mission and vision and values, right? You know, you made the point that values, they have to be lived out on a day to day basis. They have to actually be lived out. It can’t just be a poster on a wall somewhere. So what does that look like when you’re leading operations across multiple communities, multiple different states? How do you go ahead and drive that culture?

Todd DeLeon: Sure. So, yeah, look, I think we’ve all been in organizations where, you know, the mission, vision, values is stated. Maybe it’s on the wall. Maybe it’s on a business card. Maybe it’s somewhere. And that’s where it dies. Right. Because it’s not really beyond that. As Sunrise, I will tell you, you know, from top down, you know, we really, you know, I think you can see it across the board, but everybody truly believes in those bedrock core values that we’ve established, right? And how do you get that in the team? You know, some of it is through just our one-on-ones that we have. So not only myself having one-on-ones with our executive leadership team and our operations team, but it’s those folks having one-on-ones with our community managers and, you know, our grounds folks and stuff like that. Not necessarily to talk shop, but just, hey, what’s going on? Like, how can we help better support you, right? You know, we have a very robust reward and recognition program, you know, that we recognize peers, recognize peers, and managers can recognize direct reports and all that fun stuff through, you know, not only our Slack program, but everyday overall interaction with that. You know, we get together quarterly for me with the operational leadership team. We get together quarterly regularly, which builds that team dynamic, right? It also influences our core values as we drive home more there as well. So we tackle it from many different aspects. Are we perfect? No, do we try every single day to live and breathe the core values that we put up on the wall? Absolutely. And I think that’s from top down. And, you know, we, we started doing surveys and stuff to get that feedback, right? We, we do, we host an annual event every year for all of our employees. We gather feedback from those guys. So, you know, it’s not just a, Hey, here’s one thing, how you, how you embed core values or mission vision values into your organization, right? There’s many, it’s, you know, there’s many aspects of how you can drive culture within a business. And there’s many ways how you can drive culture out of a business. And we try to be very mindful of of both ways of that program. You know, there’s the softer side, the emotional side, the behaviors that you want to ultimately implement along the way.

Brian Spear: One thing that I’ll share out there for anybody interested in running a business or you might find this valuable, we use Awardco. Todd recommended us beginning to use that. It’s been great. So thank you for that recommendation. It allows the entire team to recognize each other when they see something valuable for the small day-to-day wins that ultimately folks have. It’s just beautiful to be able to recognize folks for those opportunities, for those achievements, be they small, large, whatever the case may be, it fosters a really good narrative across the entirety of the organization and brings to light people that are upholding the core values that you want to espouse inside of the organization. So feel free to check that out if it’s of interest to you. But it’s not just maybe the, I would say, the softer core values. It’s also about trying to drive an execution system and actually get things done, right, and hold people accountable, right, to drive results. And you know, you’ve said historically that people actually want to be held accountable when it is fair and when it is consistent. So what does fair accountability look like?

Todd DeLeon: Sure. No, and to that point, right, I think, you know, when accountability crosses the gray area, it gets people confused. They don’t understand. And it drives resentment across the platform, right? I truly believe through years of leading folks that people do want some sort of accountability, right? They want to know, hey, what am I accountable for? What’s my piece of the puzzle that ultimately that I’m held to those standards, right? And then it starts at the recruiting level. It’s when you are recruiting to bring on a teammate into the organization, you’re setting those expectations, those accountability, those standards through the interview process. And then as you start and if that individual comes on board, it’s again reprogramming those accountabilities, responsibilities into their onboarding process, right? Where they understand that there is a level of what we call oneself, meaning you’re accountable to your piece of the puzzle. And, you know, we’ve evolved the Sunrise a little bit on being able to, you know, through our accountability chart and different aspects to be able to really dive into individual accountabilities and what they are ultimately responsible for the success of the team, right? So, you know, during the onboarding, we drive that in. And then, you know, as we go through, again, you know, whether it be weekly or biweekly, one-on-ones, right? We’re reestablishing those every single conversation where they understand, you know, that, you know, when we’re doing all of our review process, you know, our business review process, right? Everybody’s accountable for that. And, you know, we operate under the EOS program, which folks may or may not know out there, but, you know, we all have rocks that ultimately we’re accountable for on a monthly, quarterly basis, right? So, you know, they choose these rocks and then they choose the milestones that lead up to it. And then ultimately, right, we’re checking in to make sure that, hey, everybody’s on track. And then at the end of the quarter, we have our quarterly meetings. And we go in with, we like to say no egos. That, hey, everybody is checked by how we execute and how we perform in that last quarter. The good, the bad, the ugly. We get it out on the floor. We understand where we’re at. And then we look forward to the next quarter. So, you know, it’s instilled through the recruiting process, and it’s still embedded as they go through their career with Sunrise, and we are reevaluating that, you know, almost consistently, right? And you gotta be consistent with that, but it’s also making sure they have clear, direct understanding of what their piece of the pie is, right? You know, making sure that’s not muddled because I think that’s really when the accountability issue starts to fall apart in organizations is when the individuals are not truly don’t truly have a general understanding of what they are actually accountable, responsible for. Right. Yeah. We all have many things that we do. But at the end of the day, like, what are you truly, really accountable for? What is your piece of the puzzle, right? And we try to identify that and make that top of mind. So everybody in the organization truly understands what their piece of that puzzle is.

Brian Spear: Couldn’t agree more, right? It’s about clarity, providing everybody with one main critical outcome. What is that one KPI, the one thing that you’re ultimately accountable for to get knocked out on behalf of the team? And is it at the end of the quarter, like you said, is it done or not done? Black and white, brutal facts. It is what it is. That’s how you drive accountability. You provide levels of explicit clarity. And then are we done or not done, right? At the end of the day, that’s the role of everyone in the organization. And we’ve got to get everybody rowing in the same direction, right? We all do little bits and pieces. We can’t do this individually. I could never do this individually. It takes a team. And providing the level of clarity to every respective individual on what they’re ultimately accountable for is what’s necessary for the betterment of all. And we all win when everybody has that level of clarity. So thank you for bringing that to the team. It’s beautiful. One thing that I want to spend a little bit of time on here today, one framework, I mean, we could talk for hours and hours and hours on so many different things, different programs, so much stuff. We’ll be back, okay? But one thing I want to spend a little bit of time on today is the three C’s framework that we’ve brought to light here. And so that three C’s is community, curate, and convene. Let’s start here with community. When we’re ultimately buying assets and we’re trying to implement the business model, we implement the three C’s framework. Let’s start with community. How do you understand who actually lives in the community before deciding what that community actually needs? Let’s walk through that.

Todd DeLeon: Sure. So, you know, some of this is looked upon during our due diligence process and in the acquisition, right, to see what information maybe they have available that will kind of guide us towards some of that information. And then, you know, depending on what we get, what we don’t get out of that, right, we spend a lot of time in the community. And the only way you’re going to know is by spending time in the community and seeing what residents you actually have in that community. So we actually spend a lot of time in the community to understand that. We also have implemented a survey, right, for our residents for, again, for us to better understand who’s living in our communities and what other areas, you know, information and knowledge that we can seek out of that. So that’s really how we get it, right? It starts kind of at the acquisition, due diligence piece. You know, we see what’s available. But from that standpoint, it’s really, hey, we get, once the acquisition closes, we get in there, we truly understand who’s living in the community. We send out the surveys to better our knowledge on that. And then, you know, at the end of the day, right, while it’s not perfect, we can have an idea of really who’s in that community.

Brian Spear: Yeah, it’s beautiful. It reminds me of the Dan Sullivan R factor question for those uninitiated. It’s basically, how can I create a great relationship with you? I have to understand more about you, right? So if we’re having the same exact conversation, let’s fast forward three years from now and we look back to this moment. What would have had to have happened between right now and three years from now to make this a great relationship, to make this very successful for you? We try to find that information out via surveys, like you’re saying. And then we head to the second C, which is curate, which is curation, where we’re trying to shape the services, the amenities, all the myriad of things around the specific needs of that community. So again, let’s dig into that. How do you ultimately pull the trigger and decide what’s actually needed and what we’re going to do there?

Todd DeLeon: Some of that is we take the data that we learn, right, and that we’ve gathered, and that will shape some of the aspects and the processes moving forward. You know, one of the things that we do as well is, you know, we have an annual town hall every year in our communities. And our regional vice presidents, our community managers get together with all of the residents. And, you know, we talk to them again, good, bad or ugly. We say, hey, you know, what’s the needs in the community? What’s the pain points? What would you guys actually like to see in here? Right. Because, you know, if I go in and put a pickleball court in a community and everybody in the community hates pickleball, yeah, it’s an amenity, maybe it’s a value add, but nobody in the community is going to use it, right? And suddenly now it’s just going to waste away, where maybe they wanted a soccer field instead, because that’s really what the kids really wanted in there. We gather all this data and then ultimately, that’s kind of what shapes into, you know, what we’re doing from community programs to infill, right? Understanding the dynamics. Right. If you’re a very family based community, right, putting in a one bedroom, one bath home probably doesn’t make the most amount of sense in that community. You probably want to go with a two-two, three-two, something like that. Right. So we look at it from an infill perspective as well, so CapEx programs and everything like that. So we take that data, we listen, and we try to create those different things based off of the feedback that we get from the folks that are actually in there.

Brian Spear: It’s beautiful. Trying to serve the residents to the best of our ability. So we understand step one, the community. Who are the demographic? Who are the human beings that are residing here? Who can we serve? Who are we serving? And how can we serve them to the best of our ability? Two, actually curate the experience specifically to them. Solve for their problems personally. And then the third step in the puzzle is ultimately convene, where we create places and opportunities for residents to gather, to communicate, to build more trust. Walk us through why that matters operationally.

Todd DeLeon: There’s always some level of distrust when a new acquisition takes place, right? They don’t know you, you know, they don’t, they may have seen some articles, you know, on Google or Facebook or whatnot. So, you know, they’re unsure, sure. And, you know, they’re going to be unsure until you can actually get in there and start having those conversations, showing those different resident programs and whatnot. You know, some of the aspects that we do, we’ve introduced a new program called the Community Committee Program, right, is where we take about five to eight residents every quarter and we get together with them each month. And really, it’s a talk shop, the good, the bad, the ugly, any pain points that they’re seeing out there. It’s always great when you can add eyes and ears in the community of what’s going on because the community manager’s not always there. But then you also can get to understand some of those dynamics. But on the flip side, you start to create brand ambassadors as well because, you know, now they know you’re listening, right? And if you can take some action on some of those items that were brought up during some of those committees, right, now they will go tell their other residents, oh, hey, did you know? Or, hey, I was at this and did you know that, right? The other part, too, it puts a lot of false rumors to bed because now they’re hearing it straight from our management teams of, hey, what’s really going on in the communities? We do newsletters every quarter. We do biannual surveys out to our residents to get that feedback, right? And we do our quarterly community events. These are barbecues or pool parties or ice cream socials and all of that fun stuff. So we try to develop that community within a community type of sense out there. Right. So, you know, and that is really where we, you know, we can. You know, you can talk the talk, but do you walk the walk, right? And at that point, the third piece is really what gives us the opportunity to kind of walk that walk with our residents.

Brian Spear: I couldn’t agree more. So again, you understand the community, step one, understand the demographic. Step two, you curate the experience for them personally. And step three, you find a place where they can convene. You renovate clubhouses, you renovate playgrounds, you renovate pickleball courts, whatever the case may be. And then you begin to have them interact amongst each other and the management team in such a way that you will eventually foster significantly more trust. We’ve had numerous experiences where you go into communities that none of the residents oftentimes spend time together, know much about each other, etc., and it really is not the community within the community, as Todd, you’d mentioned, buddy. And at the end of the day, what we want to do is try to take these communities and create a much better living experience on a day-to-day basis because it’s mutually beneficial. Folks are willing to pay more on a monthly basis for a significantly better living experience. When you can serve them in this manner, it’s mutually beneficial for all parties involved. And it doesn’t happen overnight. This is not like an easy-bake oven. When you go into a community that’s been owned by a mom and pop guy for 20, 30, 40 years, and a new face comes in, it takes a little bit of time to, I would say, earn the trust of the community. But if you put your head forward with the right set of mind, with a servant leadership mentality of stewardship of the land along the way, then ultimately over the very long haul, it’s beneficial for everyone involved. So that three C’s framework has served us all very well over time. You’re going to be on many, many times, buddy. This ain’t going to be the last time you’re here. So we can go on and on and on. So I do want to be mindful of time. But we’ll round out. And we like to ask all of our guests this. I’ll ask you this. This is one time, of course. We won’t do this every single time. But I’ll ask you this this one time. It is, after all, the Sage Investor Podcast. You know, given your unbelievably phenomenal background, life experiences, personally and professionally, seeing so much stuff, traveling internationally, leading hundreds and hundreds and now thousands of people, managing P&Ls with up to $800 million over time, just unbelievable things that you’ve done. If someone can only remember one sage investing lesson from your entire life’s experience, what would it be?

Todd DeLeon: I think at the end of the day, right, understanding that culture drives execution and and people follow trust, okay. And so, you know, look, I’ll speak about that here, culture drives execution, what does that mean? So from from the sunrise perspective, right, the internal guess which all of our all of our teammates, right, the better that you can foster that culture, the better buy-in, the better, oh hey, accountability, they don’t want to fail. They don’t want the company to fail, right? They want to go out and get this done because, you know, the company treats them right, individuals treat them right. We always say, you can measure culture by the way somebody feels Sunday night. And the meaning behind that is if they’re going to bed Sunday night and they’re like, oh, I got to go to that place again tomorrow and I’m going to just try to get through the week and I really don’t want to be there. Well, that company has culture. It’s the wrong culture, but that company has culture, right? Or are they Sunday night like, man, I can’t wait to get in there, make an impact in my community or whatever department or position that they’re in. And I can’t wait to see X, Y, and Z. And I got to do this and do that, right? So that’s where you put really the culture drives execution because the culture will drive people back to exceed beyond their duties, responsibilities, and whatnot, right, at the end of the day. So I love that piece of it. And the second piece is people follow trust. And what I mean by that is, you know, one of the greatest aspects for any leader is when you change organizations and you have folks that say, hey, don’t forget about me, I want to go too, right, because of the years that you’ve worked with them and they fully trust that you have both their professional and personal best interest in mind at the end of the day and they’re they’re they’re ready to follow, right. And so that itself, right, because now when you say hey yeah come on hey let’s go, right, now that level of trust builds the culture and the execution that comes along with it as well. And then I think there’s a flip side to this when I say that the people follow trust, but the external guests. So when we talk about those residents on brand new acquisitions, if you can go in there and do what you say you’re going to do, talk your talk, but your walk, your walk, right, the residents are going to follow that trust and know that you have the best interest for that community, for those residents in mind when it comes at the end of the day. So those are the two lessons that I would say.

Brian Spear: That’s beautiful. It’s beautiful, Todd. And I mean, I’ll just attest that’s been our experience here with you specifically. It’s been an absolute pleasure. I mean, I’ve said this many times. When you hire the right leader, when you hire the right executive on the team, you don’t just hire that person. You get their standards. You get their experience. You get their network. You get their SOPs of 20, 30 years of doing this. And you get all of that that comes along with it. You’re investing heavily in somebody. And that return on investment, every time that we’ve made that decision over at Sunrise, has paid dividends far over and above the investment level that we’ve made along the way. It’s been an absolute pleasure. Since you’ve come on board, it’s been an absolute pleasure getting to know you along the way and the impact that you’ve had over here at Sunrise. And just appreciate you coming on today. This has been excellent. Again, thanks for spending a little bit of time to pull back the curtain on exactly kind of what’s happening after we buy a community, right? Because a lot of different folks, from an investor’s perspective, it is easy to focus on the acquisition—the cap rate, the rent growth, the debt, the business plan. What you really highlighted today is the durable value that is needed, and it gets created in the execution. Boots on the ground, day to day, many, many moons after you write that first pro forma. It’s the people, the systems, the accountability, the resident trust, the daily operating discipline. That’s what matters. And I think that that’s the real lesson here. Manufactured housing communities, MHPs, they’re not spreadsheets. They’re living, breathing communities with actual human beings with a heart beating on the left side of their chest. The best operators, they’ve got to bring institutional standards without losing that local understanding that makes these communities work and that nurtures the relationships over time. So again, Todd, thank you for your leadership. Thank you for the standard that you set at Sunrise Communities. And again, thanks for joining me here at the Sage Investor, bud.

Todd DeLeon: Hey, not a problem. Hey, appreciate you having me on. Talk shop anytime, sir. I look forward to the next one.

Brian Spear: Well, I hope you enjoyed the conversation with Todd DeLeon. For me, the biggest takeaway is this: In real estate, the acquisition, it might get all the headlines, right? But the operation determines the outcome. A community can look attractive in a spreadsheet. It can have all the right basis, the right market, the right upside, all the right business plan, right? But once the deal closes, the real work actually begins. That’s when underwriting meets reality. And that’s where operational discipline matters. In my business, right, at Sunrise, our goal is not simply to buy manufactured housing communities. Our goal is to bring institutional caliber leadership, systems, accountability, and long-term stewardship to communities that have been under-managed or under-resourced while still respecting the people, the culture, the local dynamics that make each community unique. And that balance is critical. If you become too corporate, you lose trust. If you stay too informal, you lose control. The best operators know how to do both. Raise the standard and understand the community. And that’s where the three C’s framework that Todd discussed becomes so important. Community, curate, convene. First, understand the actual community. Second, curate the operating plan, the staffing, the capex, the amenities around what that specific community needs. And then third, convene. Convene the residents in a way that builds trust, communication, and long-term alignment. That is operational intelligence. It protects the downside and supports our assurance of outcome. Because resident trust affects collections. It affects retention. It affects reputation. It affects leasing. It affects work orders. It affects the quality of life inside of the community. And ultimately, it affects the investment performance. That is the Sage Investor lesson from today’s episode. Durable real estate value is created when discipline meets human understanding. You need the systems. You need the standards. You need the accountability. But you also need leaders who are close enough to the ground to actually know what’s happening. As always, thank you very much for listening to the Sage Investor Podcast. Make sure you follow along. We love having you here with us, and feel free to share with a friend. We will see you on the next one. But until next time, you be great.

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