The original layout for mobile home parks was a simple, straight street with homes placed on both sides of the lane. This is called a "shotgun" park and one of the greatest challenges to these early offerings is to make them attractive. In this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we’re going to review some of the best steps to increase the aesthetics of this style of property to both retain and attract residents.
Episode 364: How To Enhance Shotgun Parks Transcript
There are many different mobile home park layouts out there. There's radial, there's the HUD, very curvilinear road systems that were prevalent back in the late '60s. But the earliest and the crudest form of mobile home park is called the Shotgun. It's a street that basically goes off at a 90 degree angle away from the typically major secondary street that the city owns. And on that single street, which typically dead ends, you have a mobile home on both sides of the street.
And it's very prevalent on a lot of parks built back in the 1950s and the '60s, because what you had was you had a mom and pop that owned a piece of land. They had a vision that they would make a side hustle income by building a mobile home park on that land. And the simplest way to do that was simply to build that one straight street that dead ended, to put in one water line, one sewer line and tee it off on both sides of the street as they went. And to fill those lots sequentially. They weren't even sure if there was enough business to make it all happen.
And over the years, the city grew around them. They were typically annexed in and the result today is a mobile home park which is fully functional. They can be very successful. They can have great locations, but yet they're called Shotgun parks. Now, when you buy a Shotgun park, one of the first things you wanna do when you're thinking about what your investment plan will be, is to maximize the aesthetics of that Shotgun park to make it more functional, to make it more modern, to make it more attractive and pleasing to help you retain and attract residents. But how do you do that? This is Frank Rolfe, the Mobile Home Park Mastery Podcast. We're gonna explore some of the ideas we've learned over the past 30 years, to make the Shotgun Park better.
Well, the first one is a no-brainer. The first thing is you wanna have a really good entry to that Shotgun Park, because typically Shotgun Parks are not that full of great-looking things to work with. And if you have a really nice entry, it sets the first impression. Oh, what a nice property. Even as someone who hasn't gotten in to yet, they'll feel good. They'll feel happy with the product. Our favorite entry is three rail white vinyl fencing down the frontage with feather flags spaced about every 50 feet behind that three rail white vinyl fence and a really nice sign, which is again, follows that white vinyl format, typically a four by eight or five by ten foot sign with four by four posts holding it up sleeved in white pvc with white pvc caps on the top.
So that's one great way to dress up the Shotgun Park or any park is with a great entry. But it's also equally important, particularly on the Shotgun Park, that the very first home you see on the left and right as you enter is held to a higher standard than any other homes. Because that's what you see when you go down the street. That's what you see when you first turn in. That's where your first impression is made. And if you already have homes on the left and the right on that very first two lots, it's absolutely essential that you makes sure that they have superior skirting, that they are painted, that the decks are painted, if they have a shed that the shed is painted, if they have windows that there's shutters on the windows, if there's a hitch on it let's remove the hitch because that is really a critical moment in the perspective of the existing customer and the new customer as to whether they really wanna live there or not. So we've got to make sure those first two homes you see are in really really good condition.
Also, we need to streetscape down that street because often in those Shotgun parks, which are typically half a century old or more, there are some critical problems that are blaring to the customer. You've got things like rusted roofs, you've got certain homes that are not painted, you've got missing pieces of skirting which stand out like a broken tooth. So you wanna stand at the front of that park looking down the street and say, okay, for those who do enter the park, 'cause you really won't see down the street unless someone drives in. But for those who do come in, what are the big items here that I need to fix? And as a result, you can then make a list, an action list of all these different things I need to get done. Then you can go out and get that bid, like the Henry Ford assembly line, and you'll find that typically in any given Shotgun park, you may have a couple rusted roofs, three or four homes that need to be painted, things like that. But it's manageable and you can get all of that solved.
Now, the next one is something you will see already going in, to many of these Shotgun parks, and that are repetitive features, most commonly coach lights. A lot of park owners like coach lights 'cause coach lights were very common back in the 50s and the 60s. These are the basically the pole, typically painted black with the light on the top, typically painted black, and coach lights are perfectly great at mobile home parks, they give ambient light. They give a feeling of class to it. But in a lot of Shotgun parks, it's all screwed up. That repetitive feature which looks so good when it's first installed, Over half a century typically the lights are broken, the lights fall off, The poles are hit by a car and they're bent over at an angle. The whole thing is rusted. And just as that helps you having that repetitive feature, it hurts you when you have the same thing that's in bad condition. So you'll need to go through and fix those repetitive features.
If you can't make your coach lights work, you're better off having them all removed. It's not hard to fix the coach lights. Typically, it's a matter of straightening the pole, maybe buying a new pole, painting it. And if you can't make the top of it work in the old original style, you can put a solar street light on where the old hardwired street light head was, and it works out just as well. But fixing those repetitive features or even adding repetitive features can do a lot for you.
Also, don't think that just because it's a dead end street that you can't go one step better and put a turnaround on it. A lot of those parks, you have enough room and have enough land to do a turnaround and look at the great things that happen if you have a turnaround. For one thing, if you have a turnaround on that street, people go in to visiting their friends or just going in, who live there rather than have to go to the end of the street and back up laboriously into the hopefully open parking pad of the last person on the street to turn around, you could just seamlessly drive and turn around in that cul-de-sac and leave. It really takes and elevates a typical Shotgun park because that's what you have at a Shotgun-styled residential subdivision which also exists. There's never dead-end like trailer parks often do.
And it really is not that expensive to build that little roundabout. In fact, in some cases, that little roundabout, that turnaround, that cul-de-sac is what will allow you to have polycart trash service. Now, polycart trash service is the best thing you can do if you're in a mobile home park, it gives it that subdivision feel as opposed to dumpster. And sometimes all you have to do to do that is to build that turnaround so that the truck, which will not back up typically for safety can just simply pull forward do the U-turn and leave.
Also, it's absolutely essential when you have a Shotgun park that your common areas, whatever they may be, may just be your entrance, that they're absolutely immaculate. They have to be well mowed, well manicured, because you don't have a lot to work with. And you also wanna set a strong standard for the residents of, hey, we're trying to make this the best thing it can be. And on that note, typically during mowing season, you may have to pay your mower to go a little beyond the norm and do things in people's yards that they repetitively failed to do.
A big issue you see in some Shotgun parks is grass that's growing over the curb out into the street and what happens is the tenant may mow, they may have a mower, they may hire a kid in the park to mow, but they don't edge and they don't weed it and rather than chase them all around to try and get these things accomplished, which you never will get done, you may just tell your mower look every so many cuts just go ahead and edge both sides of the street, all the way down the entire length of the street because that's what makes this property look crisp and clean and good.
Also, if you have mailboxes, which you can often have in a Shotgun park with a different box on each lot, once again, that's a repetitive feature. You have to make it look good. I know you don't own the mailbox, but you may have to go in and paint every mailbox in there a nice shade of green. Broadmoor green or Forest Service green or something pleasing to the eye. You may even have to rebuild those to make them look good. And let's not forget about the lot numbers because some of those Shotgun parks have the worst array of aesthetic decisions for lot numbers known to man. They'll even have homes where people have spray-painted their lot number, maybe say the number three, in orange fluorescent paint on the end of their home.
That again is not acceptable because in a Shotgun park we do not have much to work with. One option you would have would be to go to the worst offenders and say, look, we gotta fix this up. And just at your own cost, do it. Get their correct numbers, paint over where they spray painted and put that on. Another alternative is to make nameplates for every consecutive home in the park. All looking the same. Maybe that same forest green with the number applied in white vinyl where again it looks very cohesive and aesthetically pleasing.
The bottom line on all Shotgun parks is don't feel that a Shotgun park has to be a lesser form of community. Shotgun parks can look just great if you really work it. I can give you endless examples of very, very nice properties that have a Shotgun format. But the key is you have to use some common sense methods to make them look their best. This is Frank Rolfe, the Mobile Home Park Mastery Podcast. Hope you enjoyed this. Talk to you again soon.