Sometimes parks need what Shlachter calls a “cultural reset” to get people to pay their rent on time and take care of their homes. He and Weissman have instituted a late fee of $40 if they don’t get a check by the sixth of the month and another $40 if the money still isn’t there by the 16th. They mow the grass around tenants’ pads if it gets too high and then charge them.
The pair also tries to make life better in their parks. Nita Holcomb, 80, who has lived in Little Texas, their 73-pad park in Austin, since 1995, praises the two men for putting in speed bumps and fixing 3-foot-deep (1-meter-deep) potholes. They’ve landscaped the yard in front of the clubhouse. They hold block parties and hand out school supplies to kids. Their goal is to instill pride of ownership, which helps them, too.
“We want our kids to own these things,” Shlachter says.
Goldman Alum
Weissman and Shlachter call their company Jaffa Parks LLC, named for a neighborhood in Tel Aviv that they both love. Weissman, who’s originally from Seattle, worked at Goldman from 2002 to 2004 before joining Chicago-based TradeLink Holdings LLC, where he traded stocks for a hedge fund. He hated the hours and the stress, so in 2009 he moved to the Bay area and set up his own investment firm, managing money for friends and family while he scouted new industries.
Shlachter, who’s from Portland, Oregon, was working in Israel at a company called Better Place Inc. when he and Weissman started talking about going into business together. Better Place was in the midst of spending $850 million in equity capital trying to build charging stations for electric cars. The company went bankrupt last year.
When they got together in 2010, Weissman and Shlachter looked for a business that was unsexy and fragmented, with operations that could be run by deputies. Shlachter is a big- wave surfer, which requires being available when the swell hits.
Spacey Lacey
“The litmus test was if we told someone at a cocktail party what we do and their response was a grimace, we were on the right track,” Shlachter says.
A family friend had made a fortune in roller rinks, so real property enticed them. They settled on trailer parks and started a long, hard search. Many of the nicest parks are owned by Zell or another big player. The smaller parks are often neglected slums.