Advice for 21 Year Old Aspiring CRE Broker Specializing in Mobile Home Communities

[Byron Friend]

Hi everyone my name is Byron Friend, I got interested in real estate through my family's manufactured housing community business which owns 700 units in 5 mobile home communities in the Lancaster and Bucks County areas. I am a senior finance major at Penn State University Park with a focus on real estate, I am a first generation college student and have ambitions to break generational curses within my family and to create a portfolio of my own that I hope to grow into something significantly more than what we currently have, I am extremely entrepreneurial, and want to become the person I am not today. I recently completed an affordable housing development internship this summer and am graduating in May of 2024. I feel behind because I hadn't applied myself to real estate to continuously learn until early January of this year and have been doing everything real estate since. I have a great foundational knowledge of manufactured housing communities and have been a seasonal maintenance worker throughout my summers as a high school student and even middle school, it's the perfect niche for me to specialize in as a future broker and I enjoy it. Here are my questions:

1. Should I focus on networking and applying to boutique brokerages to jumpstart my ambitions? or try to attempt to apply for a top firm like to build connections and work my way up, and would my decision matter because of my mobile home niche? I'm not sure which brokerages have the most connections or advantages in mobile home sales and I am trying to prioritize staying at a Philadelphia office for personal reasons. I've heard that smaller shops it takes you 6-12 months to get your first deal but at large firms you work for 3-7 years before selling anything at all.

2. Can anyone put me in contact with someone who has mobile home brokerage experience? 

3. If my 10 year goal is to have an established portfolio of mobile home parks and financial freedom, is mobile home brokerage my best option to get my to financial freedom at the fastest rate?

4. Should I get my real estate license during my fall semester to be prepared for brokerage? Would residential experience while doing college be worth it or should I continue to focus on real estate studies and build my knowledge of manufactured housing?

That was a lot, I may have more questions in the future but I hope I can provide value to the BiggerPockets Forums in the future as I grow my real estate experiences.

Best,

Byron