My experience with Sunrise Capital (Mobile Home Fund)

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My experience with Sunrise Capital (Mobile Home Fund)

Sophie Sawyer
Coppell, TX · Member since 2017 · 22 posts · 19 votes

I am an accredited investor looking to deploy capital. Recently we had a not-so-pleasant experience with Sunrise Capital. I am sharing my experience as I believe that TIME is the ultimate currency in life. I am simply hoping to prevent folks on BP from having their time wasted.

Three weeks ago, I heard a podcast about Kevin Bupp's Mobile Home Park Fund, by Sunrise Capital Partners. I went to the company website and signed up as a potential investor.

Got an automated welcome email from Sunrise partner, Brian Spear, which asked me to read the fund's PPM and schedule a phone call with him. The PPM was long but very well written. Great job there! 

I spent hours and hours reading through the PPM, doing due diligence, and typed up questions for the scheduled investor call with Brian Spear. Later I got an email confirmation of my upcoming meeting with Brian. I shuffled some of my other meetings around in order to accommodate this call with Brian. However, when the time came, I never received that phone call from Brian, all day, all week!

I thought maybe the fund is full, or maybe Brian simply forgot about it. So I emailed Brian to check. No response. 

I later called Brian's office number. No response. 

Then I texted his cell phone, using the phone numbers displayed in the email Brian sent me. No response. 

At this point, due to all the mixed messages I have received from Sunrise, I started to wonder if they are still in business. I pulled out the latest podcast from Kevin Bupp. They are still advertising for Sunrise Capital in the podcast, and broadcasted a new phone number in that show. I called the new number, spoke to their answering service lady. She informed me that they are still in business and recommended me to schedule another call with Brian Spear. She schedule a call for the next day. Later I got an email confirmation about the upcoming meeting. Again, I moved some of my personal meetings to accommodate the second call with Brian Spear.  Re-read the PPM to refresh my memories. 

Again, he never called, all day, all week!

At this point, I am so fed-up with the lack of professionalism from Sunrise Capital, and fed-up with all the time Sunrise has wasted me. If this is how they are treating a potential investor/customer who will bring them money, I wonder how they are going to treat existing investors who already have their capital tied up with Sunrise.

Hope I am the last one!  

Sunrise Capital, please fix your system!

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Ryan MurdockPro Member
Rental Property Investor · Austin, TX · Member since 2016 · 1k+ posts · 1k+ votes
7y

@Account Closed

If there are maintenance concerns that's an entirely different issue. Address them with the management company. 

Nothing is forcing you to stay in that park. If the rents and upkeep are really as unreasonable as you claim there should be other cheaper and better solutions nearby. 

Podcast Guest on Show #355
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  • Charles Kao
    Specialist · Grand Rapids, MI · Member since 2016 · 1k+ posts · 611 votes
    7y

    @Sophie Sawyer Sorry to hear about your experience. My experience was not great but not horrible. Consider investing in Sun Communities not Sunrise capital. You can purchase through a brokerage account with much smaller minimums. This also helped us in an unattended way when investing with my Solo 401k because banks treated the funds as liquid when invested in a public traded exchange versus in their fund and helped with securing better commercial financing on a deal because of the strength of our application in liquid assets. I would still consider investing in Sunrise but Sun Communities owns everything in my area so I see first hand how they run it and a few park managers I spoke with spoke highly of Sun Communities and even told

    me they had applied. That said alot to me as an investor.

    0Reply
  • Gail Travers
    Member since 2019 · 42 posts · 48 votes
    7y

    My insider knowledge is not that at all.  We are clearly on the outside!  The purchase price is public knowledge.  It can be found on our county data base.  The payment structure with the family is also not a secret.  It is generally known in our community.

    My point about capital improvements and it's relation to our rent is this:  This park was making a profit - we know that because there had been some earlier discussion about purchasing the park by the residents before SCI was even on the scene.  Plus, we can do math! In addition, modest increases that take cost of living and other indicators into consideration is a reasonable way to assure longevity among tenants.  The point about the "trailer trash" mentality is that it makes it easy to dismiss tenants as undeserving, uneducated, undesirable.  Hence, our concerns are discounted.  The comment about us getting a better deal somewhere else is evidence of the scorn.  Capital improvements are important  and need to be planned for.  We realize that.  But investors need to be paid, new parks need to be purchased and the experience of others in our situation (and in the research) has shown that improvements and concerns of tenants come last.  

    We are hoping for a future that would include developing a co-op.  We are organized and active and that would be our best case scenario.  Nothing is stopping us!  

    This is my opinion and mine only - functional communication requires listening, truthfulness, transparency, and an easing of threats. We hear from SCI via letters, most of which let us know that eviction is their right if we don't comply. We also follow blogs like this and are educating ourselves regarding investments in parks.   Name-calling, threatening messaging and using proxies to stand where the owners should has not worked for any of us.  The management company has met once with us.  There were no results of that meeting except our conceding that the new on-site manager seemed to be an improvement over the last one.  Following that meeting, nothing in the park changed. The emotional content is high with a lot to lose on both sides.  Sadly, communication consists of "if you don't like it, hitch your trailer to your truck and get out".  We resist.  It is becoming a quagmire. By the way, you can't hitch these places to a truck.  They are very difficult and expensive to move. 

    0Reply
  • Gail Travers
    Member since 2019 · 42 posts · 48 votes
    7y

    Mobile Homes: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

    Some educational video from John Oliver.  

    0Reply
  • Jim Tassoni
    Rental Property Investor · Grand Rapids, MI · Member since 2018 · 50 posts · 24 votes
    7y

    I was actually supposed to have a call with Brian today to discuss their second fund and he was a no show.  I believe these guys are very good at what they do but may be a bit stretched from an infrastructure standpoint given their growth.  I think they will continue to see success in their niche but they should be careful about letting these issues become too commonplace.  To paraphrase Warren Buffet “it takes a lifetime to build your reputation and only a moment to destroy it”

    1Reply
  • Barbara Eichlin
    Investor · Perkasie, PA · Member since 2015 · 7 posts · 2 votes
    6y

    Hi Sophie. Did you ever get a resolution to this? Did you invest with them? Thanks.

    Barb E.

    0Reply
  • Barbara Eichlin
    Investor · Perkasie, PA · Member since 2015 · 7 posts · 2 votes
    6y

    Have any of you done anything more with Sunrise Capital Investors since this thread two years ago? I am wondering how they are as an investment these days. Any complaints, praises, things to look out for, etc. Thanks. Barb Eichlin

    2Reply
  • Robert Tench
    Member since 2023 · 1 post · 0 votes
    3y
    Quote from @Mike Dymski:

    Sorry to hear about your challenges...not fun.  I just committed to fund II.  I vet a lot of passive offerings and am particularly active in MHP, SS, and MF.  Feel free to reach out with any questions.


     Mike, If you are still active in MHP and SS, I'd be interested in an exchange. I'm on the brink of investments in both spaces. Thanks,

    0Reply
  • Susan McLain
    Member since 2024 · 1 post · 1 vote
    2y

    All of you!  Have you read what they do to Mobile home parks! How this affects the tenants in these parks! They are taking advantage of what was affordable housing and making it less affordable while providing the least amount of services all just to provide the best return to investors.  They openly state their game plan in podcasts and how easy it is to evict people and just take over their home because they can’t afford to move it!  They brag how they pass fees on to the tenants that use to be included in lot rent.  They care nothing about the tenants in these parks!  Shame on you all!

    1Reply
  • Todd Tuell
    Member since 2024 · 1 post · 0 votes
    2y
    Quote from @Mike Dymski:

    "Holding onto a grudge is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die." –Buddha


     Hi Mike,

    We're quite a few years down the road now from your comments. Do you have any new information to share about Sunrise Cap?
    Todd

    0Reply
  • Joe O'Connell Jr.
    Member since 2024 · 1 post · 0 votes
    2y
    Quote from @Mike Dymski:

    Sorry to hear about your challenges...not fun.  I just committed to fund II.  I vet a lot of passive offerings and am particularly active in MHP, SS, and MF.  Feel free to reach out with any questions.


     I'd be interested in hearing from you about your experience as I'm reviewing Fund 4 and it all seems good.  Can we connect offline?

    0Reply
  • Florence Simone p
    Member since 2025 · 2 posts · 0 votes
    1y
    Quote from @Account Closed:

    Sophine,

    I am a resident in the Akron Mobile Home Park, Akron NY and a board member on the Akron MHP tenants association. We have repeatedly ask to speak to Mr. Bupp but have not hear one word or email form him. SCI has also repeatedly said they are there for the residents and want the best for them. We have found that SCI wants nothing to do with us and only responds to us (our tenants and tenants association) through the hired management company M. Shapiro and their local attorney Sean MacKenize. When SCI first took over our park went right down hill. Snow plowing was terrible, when spring arrived the common area grass mowing was terrible as well. We have had all kinds of issue with the water meter reading too, and getting lot rent invoices in a timely manor. We have done extensive research on both SCI and M. Shapiro and you would think they would know how to run a mobile home park correctly. We have had nothing but problems here showing us they do not care about anything except to jack up lot rents to make a quick buck. We are not against them making money just not the way they are doing it by charging high lot rent to fixed income, low income and elderly in our park that have had affordable housing for years with the old "mom / pop" owner.

    Shawn Sheedy - AMHPTA

    I’d like to reiterate this statement all these years later ! As a tenant of their Maryland MHP this company is awful to deal with . No one knows anything and they don’t like to play by the rules. 
    0Reply
  • Alexander Cohen
    Brookline, MA · Member since 2017 · 1 post · 1 vote
    1y

    I just want to add to this old thread: Fund IV just had their first distribution. Apparently, they are treating all distributions as return of capital first PRIOR to built-up pref returns. As such,  your capital drops immediately and your accruing pref return moving forward will be lower and lower after each distribution (unlike most deals where it only drops after a refi event 1-3 years in). It DOES state this in the PPM, but is glossed over in their marketing materials.

    Just make sure you are comparing apples to apples. (in order to have an 8% pref, the burden is now on YOU to quickly re-invest the returned capital to get up to 8%, unlike other deals where reinvesting the returned pref adds on top of 8%...)

    I probably won't invest with them again.

    1Reply
  • Alex Zahn
    Member since 2025 · 1 post · 0 votes
    1y

    @Alexander Cohen
    Alex, it sounds like prioritizing return of capital doesn’t align with your preferred waterfall structure. In my experience working with investors, some like it, some don’t.And even though it delays the timing on the GP’s participation in profit sharing, this fund follows the European waterfall model for a variety of reasons (See https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/432/topics/1017897-return-of-capital-vs-return-on-capital-syndication-lp-investor for a good discussion of the pros and cons of ROC-first vs PREF-first).That said, as you and I discussed privately, we respect your viewpoint. Best of luck.

    0Reply
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