When assessing a market for mobile home park investments, many investors turn to BestPlaces.net and similar resources to examine population growth statistics. A city with a rising population might seem like a sure bet, but that’s not always the case. Take Austin, Texas, which has grown exponentially over the years. Meanwhile, Charleston, South Carolina, known for its strong mobile home park market, doesn’t exhibit the same growth trajectory. Yet, despite the contrast, both cities maintain substantial housing demand.

We all know the weak spot of apartments from a customer perspective. We are constantly reminding potential homebuyers that mobile homes 1) don't have neighbors knocking on your walls and ceilings 2) comes with a yard 3) allow you to park by your front door 4) cost about 75% less per month to live in 5) makes you an owner and not a renter and 6) offers a sense of community with more permanent residents. And that message resonates really well and results in massive amount of mobile home sales nationwide, as well as long-standing retention of existing customers (with an average length of tenancy of 14 years).

We have been talking for years about the difficulty in building new mobile home parks. However, there has been a shift in the parable of how you can get a permit to build yet still be in a desirable area. In this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we’re going to explore the new face of park development and why that’s a great thing for the industry.

When I went to my old banker Glenn in the 1990s with one of my early mobile home park deals he admonished me “why don’t you invest in things more respectable like office buildings?” To Glenn, mobile home parks were junky and not on the level of office buildings, which he admired. That was 30 years ago. Mobile home parks have steadily risen in value over that time while office buildings have plummeted.

Dave Thomas, the founder of Wendy's, was the first to explore the necessity of "riding the wave". And his lessons learned transfer well to mobile home park management. In this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we're going to review what he meant, how he came to form this opinion, and how all mobile home park owners and managers need to embrace this important tenet.

Small Houses Have Always Been Part of the Landscape The current fascination with diminutive living spaces often overlooks the fact that these compact residences are anything but new. Early American settlers typically called modest cabins and cottages home—far smaller than the suburban developments many of us know today. So what caused homes to grow in size over time, and why are smaller footprints coming back into favor?

We’re thrilled to announce a groundbreaking opportunity for our community of mobile home park owners: the Lowes Affiliate Program, brought to you by Purchasing Platform.

Most community owners raise their rents annually, and typically in the Spring. As part of that process, they often have to get new leases and rules signed. Additionally, every time you buy a new mobile home park you are going to have to get new leases and rules executed. But how do you navigate that process? In this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we’re going to review the methodology to do this correctly.

The new year has arrived, bringing with it fresh opportunities and challenges. In our latest Lecture Series Event, Frank Rolfe explored the Top 5 trends—good, bad, and wildcard—that we see shaping 2025

Have you noticed how much of the data our industry uses is based on published reports from the REITs and largest owners (and the roughly 4,000 mobile home parks they represent) and the Federal Government (which owns no parks)? These stats not only inaccurately reflect the actual numbers but anyone who is an active participant in the industry quickly realizes that they are wrong because they violate the instinctual reality of what they see all around them. Let's explore some of the worst of these offenders to our collective common sense.

Much of the uncertainty in America ended with the November 5th election, and we now know who will be running things starting in 2025. But many investors don't realize that our starting point as a nation may be much different than what the media has conveyed to date. In this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast, we're going to review where things may really stand and what we can expect in the New Year.

When Glenhaven Mobile Home Park in Dallas joined my portfolio in 1996, I was captivated by the stories from longtime residents about its former glory. These tales were bolstered by an unexpected source: my dentist. He reminisced about living in Glenhaven during the 1950s, fresh from the GI Bill, while pursuing dental school. He described a community filled with aspiring professionals in fields like medicine and law, surrounded by British sports cars and vibrant cocktail parties. Although the only physical clues were Scottish street names and remnants of unique infrastructure like concrete pads hinting at amphitheaters, I stumbled upon a late-night movie that painted a vivid picture of the lifestyle in mobile home parks of that era. What I learned confirmed the legends.

In the beginning, there was land. Then people built structures on that land. And from that moment on there were two types of people: 1) owners and 2) renters. Everyone had an equal opportunity to choose which category to fall into, and they knew their decision had a myriad of ramifications. “Owners” had to commit capital, maintain the property, worry about making mortgage payments, sometimes suffer though weather damage, and generally be more responsible. “Renters”, on the other hand, shouldered no risk or effort in maintaining the structure, put up no capital to buy it, and generally had the freedom to run off whenever they chose to do so. Throughout most of American history, there was a premium paid to own (and control your own destiny) vs. renting and this ratio was about 15% more to own than to rent. However, here’s the new reality, straight out of Wikipedia: