RView RV and Travel Adventures
RView RV and Travel Adventures
NEW ALABAMA RESORT- Paradise Found RV with Ty Engler
George and Lisa interview Ty Engler, Owner and developer of a new RV resort on the coast of Alabama just 20 minutes south of Mobile.
www.Paradisefoundrv.com
11551 Dauphin Island Parkway
Theodore, AL. 36582
Lisa RichartHernandez
Hi, welcome to RView. We have a great show planned for you today. We have Ty angler with Paradise found RV down in Theodore, Alabama, which is just south immobile. He's developing a brand new resort. They're going to have lots for sale. They're right on the water, and he's going to tell us all about it. 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 motor coach and tow their Jeep Wrangler always looking for fun and adventure.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Hi, welcome back to RView. I'm Lisa RichartHernandez. And I'm George Hernandez and we have a great guest with us today. His name is Ty Engler from Paradise found RV down in Theodore Alabama. Ty welcome. Tell us a little bit about yourself.
Ty Engler
Hey guys, I appreciate you having me. My name is Ty Engler I'm developing an RV Resort down on Fall River located in Theodore, Alabama. We're roughly 15 minutes from Dauphin Island on the Gulf Coast of Alabama.
George
That's awesome. We are so looking forward to this tie. Why don't you kind of walk us through walk through their listeners through the what you've done so far to
Lisa RichartHernandez
like, How'd you get into this? Right? Yeah.
Ty Engler
Okay. Yeah, so my background is I obviously went to college, did the bachelor's degree, master's degree and partial PhD. And while I was in my PhD, I was kind of headhunted by the waste industry to develop landfills, design and develop landfills, worked in that industry for a while, then got into rental properties myself here in Mobile, Alabama. And then we grew that into doing something like this. And kind of in the meantime, there, I was working for a big company where I was doing a lot of flips, a lot of residential spec homes, apartments, commercial flips, commercial buildings, and he had me looked into doing an RV Resort. And I was kind of looking into these for like the last five years, just to look to kind of see how they work as opposed to just owning your, your basic multifamily rental. And as I was working on this for him, he brought a piece of property to me. And it actually ended up being less than a block from the piece of property that I had under contract to develop one of these things. So here we are today, we we closed on the property in October of 2021. And we've gone through the permitting process, we've got a majority of our permits now we're still waiting on a few things. But we're getting ready and set to break ground here in the next few weeks, actually.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Wow. That's exciting. So tell us about the land, like how big is it? How many acres? How did you go about like choosing? How do you go about choosing the place that you're going to put your RV Resort?
Ty Engler
I guess. So it's really, it's really what the people want. It's not necessarily what I want. A lot of people are looking for waterfront property, it's difficult to find that at a reasonable price. And we actually had a different piece of property under contract prior to the one that we're working on now. And through kind of the due diligence period, we did run into some issues on that property. So we driving driving home actually, from that property. We came across this property. And there was there was an old sign out there from probably about six years ago, where the property was once for sale. And I kind of pulled away the bushes and looked at the site. And I'm like, Huh, I wonder if this is still available. So I had my broker, do some work called the previous Listing Agent and then ended up getting in touch with the owner. And he was willing to sell it so
George
wow, that was that's awesome. Yeah, a little bit of luck there too.
Ty Engler
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
George
So tell us about your your spot and what your amenities. They're going to be where you're where you're going to offer.
Ty Engler
Okay. Yeah, so the property itself, the developable land on the property is about 46 acres. And then we have, we have 1234 additional parcels around the property for future development as well. Within that 46 acres. We're gonna have 246 RV lots, and they're a lot larger than your traditional RV, lots, a lot of regular RV, lots, you see now they're fairly small. These are going to range we have two different kinds within Park 65 of them are going to be along the waterfront, which we have about 2300 feet of waterfront and that's canal frontage, which leads out to Fall River which leaves automobile bay so we're kind of touching all three things. If you're standing on the shoreline, you can see the mouth of the Fall River. And then you can actually see all the way across the bay and see point clear are.
George
So will you have docks there?
Ty Engler
Yeah. So the plan right now is we're working with the Corps going through the permitting process. As you guys all know, that process takes a little bit with the corps. We're working on a 38 slip marina. Wow, that's awesome. Yeah. The county is also purchased property next to us for a public boat launch and kind of like a scenic Park area.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Oh, that'll be that'll be a great benefit to you.
George
Now, will the Marina be a separate entity? Or will it be part of if you buy a lot, you can buy a slip. So it
Ty Engler
will not be a separate entity, it'll be exclusively used for the RV Resort. People awesome. People can purchase slips, they're going to be deeded slips just as the units are going to be deeded as well within the park. And we will be running boat Boat Rentals out of their jetski rentals, kayak rentals, all that stuff. And also in the area, we currently do have a marina less than a block from us. It's a restaurant Marina that has launched a field station and a dump station. So in the meantime, while people are kind of waiting for our Marina to come along, we have the ability to use his facilities and get boats in and out of the
Lisa RichartHernandez
water. Oh, that's great. So will there be like a place that people can store their boats at Paradise found RV? Like will they be able to park their trailers there?
Ty Engler
Yeah, so that additional one of those additional pieces of property that we have for future development actually butts right up to the county property? We do have that set to be about 120 spots for people to park boats trailers.
George
Oh, wow. Yeah, that's always great. Because there's a lot of places that don't offer that. And you know, a lot of people tow trailers behind their RVs. They have all kinds of stuff. And if you have somewhere to store it, that's fantastic.
Ty Engler
Yeah, absolutely.
Lisa RichartHernandez
So a lot of our listeners are just not really familiar with owning an RV lot like people, you know, rent or whatever, but they're not really familiar with owning an RV lot. Tell us a little bit about like, what the sales are going to be like, how much what your starting prices are? Obviously I feel like we know the benefits of owning an RV lot. But just from your perspective for our listeners, just share with us like what your thoughts are on that?
Ty Engler
Yeah, so owning a lot, in my opinion is like, in the area where we're at, we have we have dolphin Island 10 minutes one way, we have the city of mobiel, the historic city of mobiel. The other way, on Dauphin Island, if you're looking to buy a small beach house, or a small waterfront house, you're looking to spend anywhere from 1.5 to three and a half million dollars. And if you're owning an RV lot, you still get those same amenities where you can easily easily have access to the beach, you easily have access to the water. And we're going to be running a special here soon with a starting price point of our interior lots at $69,000.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Oh my gosh, wow. That's a great deal.
George
For somebody who's looking to get into this lifestyle. That's a great entry price offer.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, I mean, you know, it's rare that you see any lots for sale anywhere for under $100,000. So, for that entry price opportunity, I feel like those are going to sell like hotcakes. We will need to get in touch with you quick.
Ty Engler
We do have. We do have some competing parks on the other side of the bay from us too. And their price points. They don't have waterfront access. They don't have waterfront, their price points start at 149,000 for essentially nothing and then they move upwards to 550,000. So
George
Wow. Wow, that's unbelievable. So you told us a little bit about the area. You're close to mobile. You're close to the beach.
Lisa RichartHernandez
That's dolphin Island at Dolphin Island.
George
Now how far are you? I think I looked it up and I think are you about an hour away from Biloxi?
Ty Engler
Yeah, actually, if you take the some of the side roads you can get there in around 40 minutes and a lot of people don't know about Biloxi but Biloxi is like a miniature Vegas loss. Yeah,
George
exactly. Yeah.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Georgia is always seeking out the closest casino to wherever
Ty Engler
there's a there's a there there's probably 15 to 20 casinos down there and I didn't know about it when I first moved here and I I kind of traveled over to the area. I was like wow. But there's there's concerts every single every single Thursday, Friday Saturday, Sunday. And they're not just small name people their big name people that are coming to Biloxi and playing concerts
George
that plays blew up unfortunately after the hurricane wiped them out they they Yeah chain because all those casinos used to be on floats. Now they're all land on land, which is great. And you're on our way that I think that'll also draw people to I mean, that's that's a great attraction.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, Georgia and I have not really spent much time down there on the coast of Alabama and it's been one of our like, we want to go down there and check the place out. So when we heard about this one, we're like, oh, we need to take a trip out there and, and just kind of like learn the area and it looks really
George
I've been automobiles. I've told you about it before. I loved it. I think it's a beautiful place. I actually worked there twice. I was a mounted police officer and we work Mardi Gras. Okay, we were invited to come and work and it was just beautiful. We had a great time. So I'm a little familiar with it. But we definitely want to go down there and learn the area and spend some time down there. Yeah.
Ty Engler
How long ago did how long ago were you in mobiele? If you don't mind? Yes.
George
Oh, God. It was a long time ago. So if it's changed, for the good or the bad. I don't know.
Lisa RichartHernandez
20 years ago, it was.
Ty Engler
Yeah, movil. I originally moved here 13 years ago and mobile and just the time that I've lived here has changed significantly. Like we have cruise lines running out of mobiel. Now, we have massive ports. There's a ton of development going on downtown. And actually mobile was just voted the second best summer destination in the US. Wow, nationwide poll. And then two years prior to that Dauphin Island was voted the third best beach and
Lisa RichartHernandez
wow, that's awesome to get down there and check it out. You
George
know, that makes sense. When I was there, it was a long time ago. But it it looked like it had so much potential. Because it was a great little it was a city that was more like a town really big town. And now Now it sounds like it's actually grown into a city.
Ty Engler
Yeah, a lot of people don't know to that. mobiel is actually the birthplace, birthplace of Mardi Gras. Yeah. So
Lisa RichartHernandez
I know we argued about that. Georgia is like no, I'm telling you mobiel was because we've been we've been in Mardi Gras in New Orleans, like several years in a row. We did that.
George
And I told her I've been to the original. Mardi Gras. Yeah,
Ty Engler
yeah, we have a whole museum downtown that's dedicated to the development in the founding of Mardi Gras.
George
Yeah, and I'll say I've been to both and I enjoyed mom feels better. It's the same more
Lisa RichartHernandez
20 years ago to
George
everything to me is relative, it was just yesterday,
Lisa RichartHernandez
aging yourself. Well, tell him tell us a little bit more about the actual resort that's being built. Like tell us about like, what amenities you're gonna have. I know, we talked about the marina, do you have any, like modern features like, everybody wants really great internet? Like, are you do you have any things that you want to share with us about that?
Ty Engler
Yeah, absolutely. So the so we have quite quite the amenities package. When you first arrive at the park, we have a 4000 square foot Welcome Center, that's going to have your front desk a few bathrooms, we've we've designated an area in there specifically for indoor outdoor wetbar. That'll lead to the pool section. Also, we have a large amount of laundry facilities in that in that area as well. And then we have two flanking buildings that are kind of kind of going to kind of wrap around the pool area. And those are both 30 850 square feet apiece. One building is going to be dedicated to an arcade, simulated golf, and then an indoor movie theater. Oh, wow. The other other building is going to be a bath house. And it's going to have a dedication of a fitness center as well. So and then in the outside area of those of that amenities package. We're going to have multiple pools. pickleball courts, everybody loves pickleball.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Court. Yeah, it's like tennis is make or break is the pickleball courts. Now these people are Yeah, I mean, I feel like we've played a few times, but it's like hundreds of people playing pickleball like and every resort that we go to, like, no one does tennis courts anymore. It's really crazy.
Ty Engler
That seems to be the trend. But also we're going to have outdoor fire pits there for people to enjoy. And an outdoor movie theater bags cornhole, depending on which part of the country live in is what it's called. And then dog parks, we have a dog park there as well. And then we have some of that additional future development area. We're looking at doing some glamping tents or possibly some some tiny homes.
George
Oh, that sounds great. So besides all the activities that are around the resort, you're it sounds like you're making the resort a true destination resort,
Ty Engler
which is that's that's exactly what we're looking for.
George
Now we've been talking about this is the resort going to be completely owners or you're going to have a rental section.
Ty Engler
So the initial idea was we're going to sell these 65 Lots, which we call presidential units, we've opened up an additional our that that promo that we're going to have is going to be an additional 69 Lots for $69,000. And those are going to be those interior lines. And then we'll still retain about another 160. That will we'll use as transient rentals.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Okay, so the 69 lots that you're selling, describe what somebody would get for that $69,000.
Ty Engler
So it's going to be a large patent. The width is 40 feet by 75 feet. It's going to have a parking area for RV, and it's going to have an additional area on the side where you could you could do what you want if you want to put a pergola firepit seating area, whatever you want to do in that area, it's going to be roughly 28 by 30, or I'm sorry, 12 by 30. So they have the option to do what they want to do as far as upgrades, and I'm actually working with a local landscape hardscape company, right now to put together packages. So if someone wants to put an outdoor kitchen, that's going to be this package, if some of them wants to do an upgraded pergola or a hardscape fireplace, that's another additional package. And then the 65 units that we call presidential units, they're they're significantly larger, they're 45 by 75. They come with the same size parking pad, but there's those come with a fireplace and those come with a pavilion and that that side area is 16 by 35 as the square area and then it comes with a big round area on the back for a fireplace or a seating area. Oh, go ahead, I'm sorry. And those units will have the same upgrade package. And then we're also going to allow people to put casinos on those units.
Lisa RichartHernandez
That was going to be my next question. If people people always ask me, you know, I do. Sales down in Hilton Head Island motorcoach resort and people are like, can we put casinos here and unfortunately, in Hilton Head, you can't and a lot of people really love to have that option. Just so they have like either extra storage or a place to put the washer and dryer or an extra bathroom. Is that stuff that would be possible, would you be able to put a bathroom in a casita there?
Ty Engler
Yeah, actually, after I did some due diligence on it, we would we would have the ability to do it. The guy who's specking them out for me right now it's going to come with the plumbing for a bathroom. And with the polling for indoor kitchen if you want to put winner. Oh, wow, that's awesome.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, definitely.
George
I'm sorry, guys.
Lisa RichartHernandez
I was just gonna say it's hard to find those.
George
Yeah, well, absolutely. Yeah. Are you going to have free rein on the construction? Or are you just going to offer packages?
Ty Engler
So the way I the way I discussed it with the guy who's going to be doing the the amenities, upgrades for the lats, is, we're going to have maybe three or four packages. And then if people want to go above and beyond those packages, it's not going to be a discussion. They're going to have the it's going to be a discussion they're going to have with him and he's going to take it over from there. Because, I mean, he just showed me an outdoor kitchen, for example, in the amount of things you can add to an outdoor kitchen nowadays.
George
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, that's why I was asking because, like at our resort, it's very limited on what you can do because they want to keep it kind of uniform, give you a little bit of freedom, but they don't want people to just go crazy.
Ty Engler
My goal is to keep the architectural structures similar. So the buildings, for example, for the amenities, they're all single sloped buildings. So the casita is all the single focus eat as the pavilions want single failures. So the architectural, the architectural aspect of the resort is going to stay similar no matter where you are in.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Well, that's this is like such great information. Ty, like, thank you so much for sharing this with us. We'd love to get down there and check it out. Some days, though, we might be making a road trip down there. We'll we'll do another podcast after that. But tell us if people are interested in purchasing how they can get in touch with you. Our when do you think you'll have the first actual like rental and lots available actually.
Ty Engler
So our construction period, we're looking at about eight months, eight to 12 months, depending on whether for when we get started. The biggest thing down here is we do get some patches of rain in the summertime. So that might be one of the things that holds us up. But really eight, eight to 12 months is our construction period. There's really no really no more delays with with COVID on materials. We've reached out to all our suppliers, and our materials are ready to go. So it's
Lisa RichartHernandez
so when you hit there. Yeah. So when you break ground, you'll be hitting the ground running. It sounds like
George
and when are you breaking ground?
Ty Engler
We're hoping here in the next two weeks is what we're looking like so Oh, excellent.
Lisa RichartHernandez
So you're doing the pre sales. So people would put a deposit down and then would close on it when the when their site is ready. Is that right?
Ty Engler
Correct. So we have an offering statement that anybody who's interested, they receive an offering statement. It includes all the restrictions and covenants of the HOA. It's a pretty lengthy document, but most of most of them are they they read through that document, they sign the contract. Well, I guess they pick their upgrade package, then they sign the contract and then they put a 15% down payment. And that's all required right now. We do have some preferred lenders in the area that if people want to finance we do have some preferred lenders, there's actually three preferred lenders that are lending within a 30 minute radius of resort.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Wow, that's that's great too, because a lot of places don't have financing options available. So the fact that you have three is really incredible. It makes it so much more accessible for so many more people by having the financing option available. We didn't touch on one thing we were a lot of the resorts that we go to luxury resorts require only a class a motorcoach, what kind of motor coaches are you going to allow? And who can be like, what do they have to have to be a buyer in there to be an owner?
Ty Engler
Yeah, so being in the area we're in, we didn't, we've noticed there's a lot of people buying very high end, fifth wheels and very high end bumper poles like that the idea of the $15,000 bumper pole isn't a thing anymore. Just recently at an RV show here in mobiele. There's there's some bumper poles and fifth wheels that are exceeding that $150,000 mark, and people are buying these and a lot of the resorts around us, you can only have class A's. We didn't want to do that to the people in the area and people traveling to the area. So we've allowed class A's super C's, fifth wheels and bumper poles into the resort. And those are going to include anything that's 20 years or newer, but I don't want to restrict people if they have a really awesome 1965 Airstream that's 100% restored, and they want to bring that thing in there and show it off, I'm more than welcome to allow that to happen. They just got to get the approval from our management staff.
George
And that's how a lot of resorts operate as far as the age of the RV.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, you just have to be in good condition. So would people be able to like buy a fifth wheel for example? Put it on the lot and kind of just keep it there like as a permanent foundation? Or do you have to like, for example, in Hilton Head, we have to do a 90 day turnaround so every they do that so that there isn't just like bulk broken down trailers all around or whatever. But do what are the Are there any restrictions to that, like could put people put a permanent Park Model on there or what's what's the
Ty Engler
Yeah, they they have the ability since they are deeded lots they can put a permanent Park Model on there just has to be a movable structure because we are in HERC hurricane prone area. So we don't want to be in a situation where we're trying to figure out something to do with 20 Campers when we got a cat five hurricane coming through. And I know that's that's hypothetical, but we just have to have the ability to be able to get them out of there. But as far as limitations in the county, we really don't have any limitations on the the time of stay so people can put an RV there. And to reflect off of what you said about it, it turning ugly and broken down RVs being there. The HOA documents really prevent that from happening. And Alabama to their specific laws that if people don't follow rules, you have the ability to take action. So
Lisa RichartHernandez
you want to keep it nice.
Ty Engler
Absolutely.
George
That's interesting that Alabama actually has a rule for that. Yeah, there's a lot of places that don't. So that helps you. Yeah,
Lisa RichartHernandez
great. Well, all of that sounds really good. And it sounds like you've really opened up an opportunity for people who don't have a class A or that have just sort of gotten into the RV lifestyle. Like for example, we we've had other podcasts where we talk about like your first motorcoach or your first RV, or how you got into the whole camping thing and, and people sort of progressed over time to get like nightlight, you know, if they really love it, then they get a nicer place and nicer things. So this is like, very accessible for really anyone to get into this. And I really think like for that 69,000 If you are even considering owning and wanting to have a place near the beach, and the water and water access, and all these amenities that are, you know, especially for like young families that may not have access to all that cash like to have financing and be able to get in there very, very reasonably priced. That's great. So
George
to anyone who's listening, take it from us. 69,000 is a fantastic entry price. When we went to Hilton Head the first time there were around that price, and we waited and we were like, wow. We don't know, we don't know. And then next thing you knew we were like, oh my god, we should have bought when? Yeah, that's a great entry price. And if you're new to this, you're gonna love it.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, we should have bought 20 of them when they were $60,000. Because when we waited like maybe two, like we went there like three more times over the course of a year and a half. And the prices were up to over 100,000 We're like, oh my god, we got it. Now they're 200,000 It won't take long.
Ty Engler
Yeah. And that seems to be the trend on the other side of the bay for me too. You know, these people buy in at a pre construction price. And then when the resorts develop a lot of them actually just turn around selling because they're worth double triple what they're paid
Lisa RichartHernandez
for. Yeah, yeah.
George
We have definitely seen a natural progression of when you get into it, and it doesn't take Long too, when you're in your weeds, we always said, We love our V, we're never gonna buy another one. We're now in our second one, we're not gonna buy a lot. And we now are in our second or third I can lie. Yeah. So it's like this natural progression. Because once you start living that lifestyle, you realize how awesome it is. And the ability to be in Alabama, and you have a place there, or you have a place in Hilton Head or you, it's just so wonderful that you can move around and own the place, you can go whenever you want.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, especially after COVID, you realize like, owning, there was a lot of people that did not own anywhere, and they were kind of homeless, because like a lot of these resorts shut down and stuff. So the prices of our like camping in some of these nice places are, you know, a couple 100 bucks a night prices have gone up so much. So if you own your own place, you'll always have a place to stay and you don't have to make a reservation. It's great.
Ty Engler
Yeah, absolutely.
George
Well, another thing that we haven't touched on, also is if they own it, can they rent them out?
Speaker 3
Yes. So that's a special that we're running for the pre construction people, we're actually allowing them to rent them out. And if they want to just rent the lot, we're actually we have a property management company in place that is going to do a fee free management program. So a lot of these other resorts you go to you can buy a lot, and you can rent it, but it's they charge anywhere from 35 to 55%. For rental, yeah, if we're the resorts taking that money in, it's going to be part of our daily process there. So we're actually incorporating that where these new these these new people that buy at these pre construction prices have the ability to buy him as investments, if that's what they're looking for. And we're not going to charge them an additional fee for property management.
George
Wow, wow. That's incredible. Yeah, that's,
Lisa RichartHernandez
that's a great opportunity. Because I do know, even just being down in Hilton Head, they take 50%. And a lot of people kind of balk at that. Like, why don't we why don't why don't we get more money than that, like, and they all vary. You're right. But that's like to have a No Fee Management and to keep the rental income. That's incredible.
George
So that makes it even more enticing. Yes.
Lisa RichartHernandez
So people get on the phone and call you got the
Ty Engler
area. The area we're into. It's you know, we attract a lot of snowbirds in the wintertime, we're 100% occupied in this area in the wintertime. And then in the summertime dolphin Island actually holds holds some of the largest worldwide fishing tournaments. And there's not enough places to stay on the island and us being 10 minutes from the island. The rental income that people can bring in during the fishing rodeos is insane.
George
So they could almost just pay for the whole expenses for the year with a couple rentals.
Ty Engler
They can wow,
Lisa RichartHernandez
that's, that's great. Well tell us Ty, how can people reach you if they're interested in buying and getting more information.
Ty Engler
So we are on Facebook, Paradise found RV Resort marina on Facebook. And then we also have a website, it's paradise found rv.com. And actually on the website, there's an ownership tab, if you're interested in purchasing, it kind of gives you a rundown of what we have available. We have not launched the 69 for 69 deal on there yet, because it's that's an upcoming promo. But if people do want a call and are interested in that price, I can present them the last number we're going to be selling at that price. And that will be available. There is a form on there you can fill out and automatically ask for your information. And then it directs it to one of our agents that are selling the properties and they'll immediately give you a call and let you know any additional information you need. Or if you're interesting interested in being a unit owner, they'll send you the offering statement, the contract and kind of a package upgrades we're gonna have.
Lisa RichartHernandez
That's awesome. All right, well check out Ty at Paradise found RV, we will put more information on our website, which is RViewpodcast.com. And share this and subscribe to our podcast. And if you're out there listening, driving in your RV. Share this information with some of your other friends who may also be interested in buying down there looks like a great entry level opportunity for anyone. I wish you the best of luck. I think you're gonna do great.
Ty Engler
Alright guys, Lisa, George, I appreciate your time and I appreciate your help.
George
No problem. And we'd love to come down and check it out and do a follow up podcast.
Ty Engler
Absolutely.
Lisa RichartHernandez
All right. Sounds good. Thank you. Thank you guys.
Outro
Thanks for listening to another episode of RView. Don't forget to drop us a line at rview.podcast.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