Mobile Home Park Investing Newsletter

July 4th is Independence Day, marking the declaration that America was no longer subordinate to England. The desire for freedom from an often unfair authority is a general theme in the U.S. that manifests itself in many different ways, one of the largest being entrepreneurship. By starting your own business, effectively, you free yourself from having to be an employee and conform to someone else’s demands over your time, duties and even dress code. And that’s one of the key attractions to owning your own mobile home park – it gives you many freedoms. One, of course, is financial. But we’ve always found that the freedom over your time to be more important. The ability to attend school events and spend time with family, to us, is priceless. So is the feeling of satisfaction in knowing that all that has come your way was earned through hard work and smart decisions – that you are a truly independent person who controls their own destiny.

Have a happy 4th of July!

We have done some massive park clean-up events, but nothing as large as a recent one in our mobile home park in Farmington, New Mexico. These events are a great way to build a sense-of-community as well as to simply reinvigorate the best in people. We had 100 volunteers and workers at this event, and we remodeled around 50 homes in a single weekend, with the help of the greater community-at-large. So how do you successfully put together an event of this magnitude?

Pick a date

Any planning requires the initial step of choosing a date. We always prefer weekends, as that’s the time when the most people can participate. As long as it’s warm out, then any date will do – the sooner the better. You definitely need weather that is warm enough to paint (over 50 degrees typically). So there’s no excuse not to hold it in 2019.

Pick a meal

You will have higher participation if you offer a free meal. Plus, that’s a great way to promote residents getting to know each other. The favorites tend to be BBQ, Mexican food or hot dogs. And don’t forget the waters and soft drinks.

Let the residents know – and remind them several times

Distribute a flyer to all residents letting them know the event is happening and inviting them to attend. But don’t stop there. It’s also a great idea to put a second notice in their invoice, as well as to post a flyer in the bulletin board at the mailboxes (if you have one) or to even put up a sign at the entrance to remind everyone each day as they leave and return home.

Spread the word to all local non-profits

What really makes these events great is when you bring in other groups from outside the park that just want to offer assistance to people. These include scout programs, college groups, church groups – anyone that is wanting to lend a hand to help people have a higher quality of life. You will be amazed at how many non-profits you can find that love projects like this.

Make the park manager the leader

A great byproduct of these events is the relationship-builder it is for the manager and residents. To help this along, make the park manager the leader of the event. That way they will bond with the largest number of residents possible, and it will reinforce their position as the community leader.

Focus on safety

The #1 priority of these type of events is safety – nobody is allowed to use power tools unless they are professionals. The bulk of the work to be performed is clean-up and painting – relatively safe activities. Even then, provide goggles and gloves and stress safety. If you want to build a deck, you need somebody who is a pro to handle the saw and drill (typically the park maintenance person).

Have a giant gesture

If you want to hold a landmark event, you need to come up with the grand finale – one that people can really get excited about. In this event, we chose to trade a hard-working single mom with two teenage kids her tiny 2-bedroom home for a spacious 3-bedroom – so that everyone got their own bedroom. The entire park was in on the surprise, and it brought a tear to everyone’s eye with the resident exclaiming “you’ve got to be kidding” and then bursting out crying. In a prior event, we donated a used home to a war veteran that was living in a tiny travel trailer without working water.

The owner should attend if they can

The final step to make the event extra special is if the owner can be a part of it. This helps to cement the relationship between the residents and the leaders of the property, and to express the shared goal of making the property the best it can be. If you look closely at the photo you will see Dave Reynolds in the red baseball cap. He spent the day building a ramp for a disabled resident’s home.

Conclusion

There was one final part of this event. Dave gave a special award to a disabled resident that participates as the referee in most after-school basketball games: a very expensive sports wheelchair. The crowd was ecstatic by this gesture and vowed to never forget the outpouring of kindness displayed during the weekend. This type of event is a fantastic way to renovate homes, clean up the park, build resident friendships with themselves and the manager, and to create an atmosphere of benevolence and concern for the well-being of all residents. Most importantly, they rekindle your faith in mankind and the human spirit.

In 2018 we became huge customers of Purchasing Platform – one of their largest. And we suggest any park owner to look at what this new buying service can do in regards to positively impact your community. It’s literally a game-changer.

What is “Purchasing Platform”?

Purchasing Platform is an online GPO (group purchasing organization) and eMarketplace that has been created specifically for the mobile home and mobile home park industries. More than 1,800 MH communities access Purchasing Platform every month to take advantage of their pre-negotiated pricing, single checkout from 40+ vendors, auto expense mapping to their chart of accounts, multi-level workflow approval to provide accountability across their portfolios, etc. They offer 20-30% savings on more than 10 million products and an integrated "Buying Desk" service that acts as a purchasing agent for your community to make sure they always deliver aggregate savings on every order. 

How big do you have to be to use Purchasing Platform? Can you use it with only one property?

The answer is yes – there’s no minimum limit of properties or dollars spent. Some of the largest industry portfolios use them but the majority of their clients own and operate between 1 and 30 mobile home parks. This is not a service that is only available to the largest owners – it’s one that every park owner in the U.S. can utilize.

Why use Purchasing Platform?

In addition to the obvious cost savings on products and services, use of Purchasing Platform drastically reduces the number of trips your manager has to make to retail stores (time spent not managing your property), eliminates the need for expense classification and receipt transcription while also providing valuable oversight to the owner with workflow approval. They also allow members to load their own catalogs to make sure that managers only can order what they want them to.

Summary of benefits

Here are the main reasons that we have become huge users of the Purchasing Platform:

• Easy to use interface. Not hard at all for any manager to master.
• Single checkout from more than 40 of the industry’s largest vendors.
• Huge savings on more than 10 million products.
• Price Match Guarantee: if you can find it lower somewhere else, they’ll match it.
• Create your own custom catalog.
• On-Demand Buying Desk feature gets you immediate support for volume quotes.
• Comprehensive Workflow Approval functionality to keep you in control of all buying.
• Maps out all expenses to your Chart of Accounts.
• Integrates everything seamlessly into your property management software.

You can try Purchasing Platform at no risk for 90 days

Purchasing Platform allows all park owners to try their system for three months with no obligation to continue. That’s how we got started – we gave it a try and liked it. So if these advantage look good to you (which they certainly should) we recommend you contact Purchasing Platform today at 312-622-6552 and [email protected] and get set up on a 90 day trial.

We think you’ll find this to be one of the big improvements in your operation for 2019.

The 1960s were the decade of the mobile home park. The industry was at its height, with even Elvis living in a mobile home park in two movies (It Happened at the World’s Fair 1963 and Speedway 1968). It was a period in which Stanley Marcus, of Neiman Marcus fame, thought of building a prototype mobile home park located in west Dallas (we toured it in the 1990s and the clubhouse looked just like a Neiman’s department store). Above is a architect’s rendering of our mobile home park in Madisonville, Kentucky, proudly displayed on the wall of our clubhouse, and one of a series of views for obtaining the development permit from the city. This mobile home park was a source of pride for the city when it was built in the 1960s. So how do we make these properties great again?

Background

One unique attribute of mobile home parks of the 1960s was that the best of them were built under a special HUD financing program that offered low fixed rates in trade for the park owner building the development to the government’s standards. These included a mandatory clubhouse, pool, commercial kitchen, commercial bathrooms, laundromat, wide streets, parking pads, and a residential subdivision “feel”. Our property in Madisonville, Kentucky is one of these HUD developments. However, over the years, the mom & pop owners lost all enthusiasm for the property and let it fall into major disrepair. It could have been a tragic end to what was once heralded as a huge asset for the overall community.

Instilling a sense of order

The first order of business in bringing back one of these properties is to regain a sense of order. Professional management presses a narrative that rent must be paid on time each month, and that rules must be obeyed. This “re-training” of the residents can take months, as many don’t believe these policies will stick, having seen mom & pop make similar assertions in the past and then abandon them. Meanwhile, property condition must be recaptured by setting the example with common areas and structures. In the case of the park in Madisonville, the first thing we did was to get all common areas mowed properly and painted, as well as to remove old rusted street signs and replace them with new white vinyl posts and new signs. We removed dumpster loads of trash and debris (mostly tree limbs and leaves) from vacant lots. As we cleaned up the common areas, many residents took notice and started cleaning up their own property.

Bringing back pride

When you let a mobile home park go, the residents start losing pride in where they live. They feel bad giving out their address and are embarrassed when friends visit them. This is a terrible state of affairs, and one of the first benefits to bringing these parks back to life is that it brings back the residents’ feeling of self-worth and pride in their homes and neighborhood. As they regain their confidence in their housing choice, two things happen: 1) they continually start improving their own home and yard, often adding landscaping and sheds and carports and 2) the word of mouth spreads that the park is nice again, and that brings in a steady supply of customers for any vacant home.

Creating a sense of community

One of the most important amenities in any mobile home park is the “sense of community” which is essentially the support network that binds residents as good neighbors. This is the trait that Time magazine raved about in their article “The Home of the Future” in which they declared that mobile home parks are like “gated communities of the less affluent”. We help to establish these bonds by bringing back the community room in the clubhouse (often filled with mobile home parts and debris from mom & pop when we take over) and creating playgrounds and outdoor spaces with picnic tables and grills. These features bring neighbors together and allow them to bond.

Returning the property to its rightful position

One of the most satisfying parts about bringing one of these properties back to life is the sense of accomplishment, kind of like restoring a classic car that was only inches from being sold for scrap. When you walk around our property in Madisonville today, you can feel what the original developer was thinking and see some historical signs of their vision. The attributes of the original plan – kids on bikes and gardeners planting seasonal color – are all around you.

Conclusion

Some of the best mobile home parks ever built in the U.S. arrived in the 1960s. The industry was at its zenith and the sky was the limit. It’s particularly satisfying to renovate these old landmarks and bring them back as successful communities at a time in which the nation’s need for affordable housing has never been greater.

There’s an old concept of tying a string to a dollar bill and buying each item in the vending machine and then yanking the dollar back out and using it again. That’s illegal in most applications, but not in buying mobile home parks. The way mobile home park owners yank the dollar back out is in the form of cash-out re-financing. To accomplish this, you need to obtain a conduit or Agency loan that allows for this to occur. And the master of putting together this type of debt product is M.J. Vukovich with Bellwether. We have been using him on all of our institutional debt (which means deal sizes of $1.5 million or more). If you are working on park financing on deals $1.5 million or greater, you should give M.J. a call at 720-758-9227 to discuss the options, or email him at [email protected]. The call costs nothing and the results may give you huge cash-out proceeds (which are also tax free as they are technically a loan).

This is a photo of a $60,000 Corvette parked outside a $10,000 mobile home in our park in Independence, Missouri. This is a common sight – a car that costs many times more than the mobile home that it’s parked in front of. The New York Times writer that lived in our park in Illinois for a week in 2014 was fascinated by the neighbor next door that lived in a $20,000 mobile home but drove a $100,000 Porsche 911. So why is this phenomenon so common in mobile home parks?

Obtaining credit where they can – and appreciating it when they get it

Many mobile home park customers are always denied credit. They can’t get a loan to start a business or even buy a stick-built home. But they can get a car loan, as most lenders are fairly lenient since they can always repossess the automobile in the event of non-payment. Since this is their one chance to obtain credit on an expensive asset, they often push it to the limit. In the case of the resident with the Porsche, he would probably have preferred a $100,000 home with a $20,000 car in front – but that option was not available.

Different priorities on spending and investing – and who’s to say they’re wrong

The New York Times writer interviewed the neighbor with the Porsche. What he found was that the guy was a retired steelworker living on a pension, and he was a car hobbyist that had far more interest in a car on wheels than a home on wheels. He bought the Porsche because he felt it was a fine automobile and really built his identity around it, wearing Porsche-branded apparel and decorating his home with toy Porsche replicas. Sure, it’s a different lifestyle, but who’s to say that it’s wrong. Mobile home park residents are often unafraid to show their individualism.

A reflection of modern pricing

Mobile homes cost roughly $30 per square foot – about a third of a stick-built home. The average price of a new mobile home in the U.S. is $30,000. Meanwhile, the average cost of a luxury car is around $50,000. The consumer did not invent these prices – they are established by the free market. Assuming the consumer can handle $80,000 of debt, and the residence is priority number one, then the cost of the car is contingent upon the home costs. Since mobile homes are so inexpensive, that leaves more money to apply to the car loan. If that same consumer lived in a $80,000 single-family home, they would be driving a $2,000 used car to make the numbers tie.

In some ways it’s the government’s fault

The U.S. government has done nothing to promote the mobile home industry, such as securitizing debt or pushing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to extend credit to mobile home buyers (although they are doing a small experiment on it this year). So it’s possible that mobile home buyers would actually have preferred to buy a larger home – such as a doublewide – but that option is not available to them. We’ll never know the answer, but it’s a good bet that a more energetic program by HUD to promote the availability of credit to these customers might make the mobile home larger and more upscale and the car less impressive.

Conclusion

Expensive cars in the parking lot of lesser expensive mobile homes is a normal occurrence at most mobile home parks. There are a myriad of reasons for this, but none are negative. It’s simply a sign of the many social and economic issues that are pervasive in affordable housing.

Selling a mobile home is part science and part art form. But there are certain formulas and strategies that create success, even with the inexperienced sales person. Affordable housing demand is strong throughout the U.S., but you have to harness this power to get homes sold. Here are our most important tips on selling mobile homes.

The 9-3-1 rule

It takes roughly three calls to get one showing and three showings to make one sale or rental. So the general formula is that 9 calls = 1 sale or rental. This general rule is pretty accurate, and many of our properties exhibit this equation on a weekly basis. What’s important is that this gives you guideline to how the process works and can be measured.

Run all calls through a tracking system

To determine the number of calls you receive each week, you can’t depend on the manager’s information as a bad manager who doesn’t answer the phone will say “nobody called”. Instead you need to port the number through a service like “Who’s Calling” that tracks and records each incoming call. This means you get a 100% accurate summary of exactly how many calls you are receiving.

Don’t forget the old-fashioned ways of advertising

A recent study found that the old forms of advertising “newspaper, signs, walk-ins” represent 25% of all inquiries but 75% of all closings. In other words, the new internet methods create a lot of calls but they have only a 25% closing rate. So you don’t want to overlook the old-fashioned methods.

Mystery shop

It’s a good idea to call your manager occasionally yourself (after blocking your number) and seeing what happens when a customer calls your property first-hand. You can see the actual customer experience. Another option is to pay somebody on Craigslist (typically $50) to mystery shop in-person and see how that goes.

Exit interview

If you use “Who’s Calling” or a similar service, you get the phone number of every call in. You can then call these customers and find out why they didn’t buy or rent from you. The answers are extremely important, as you will now get real-life data on the manager’s sales ability, as well as the condition of your home for sale and even market pricing.

Homes must be truly ready

Many times the manager will tell the owner that a home is ready to sell or rent when, in fact, it’s not truly finished. To make sure that you are getting the truth, utilize your smart phone and ask for a photos of the inside and outside of the home to be texted to you before the home is put on the market.

Salesperson must be truly ready

Mobile home customers are often not very good shoppers – they are extremely point-of-purchase. They basically buy or rent the first home that meets their needs. As a result, you must be 100% ready to sell from the moment the customer walks in.

Need at least $100 spread between renting and owning

When pricing homes, it’s important that there always be a healthy spread between the cost of renting and buying as this is the correct metric. Owning should always be less expensive than renting and this promotes being a homeowner. We have found that this spread between renting and buying needs to be at least $100 to make it attractive to take the responsibility of having to take care of your own property and locking in such a long-term transaction.

Conclusion

The demand for affordable housing in the U.S. is gigantic. That being said, there are some basic steps required to get a home sold or rented. These tips will get you off on the right foot.

An RV parked in a mobile home park is becoming common. It seems natural enough, as mobile homes and RVs started out life as the same product in the 1920s through 1950s. With 10,000 Baby Boomers retiring each day, and many downsizing their living quarters, some are choosing to live in RVs over mobile homes. But there are some issues with RVs that may or may not make them an acceptable addition to the mobile home park community.

Are RVs allowed and, if so, in what percentage?

If an RV wants to move into a mobile home park, the first question is “is that legal?” If you look up the city code, some places only allow mobile homes and ban RVs from being in mobile home parks. You can resolve this issue by calling city hall and inquiring as to whether or not RVs can be brought in to your park. The other thing to find out is if there is a ceiling on the number of RVs allowed. In some markets, the city may have a restriction of “no more than 20% of lots can contain RVs”. You certainly don’t want to run afoul of city hall on this issue.

Good news on utility demands

One nice thing about putting an RV on a mobile home lot is that you won’t even begin to dent the capability of utility delivery. RVs just don’t use much power or water/sewer. The normal RV connection is 50 amps while the normal mobile home requires 100 amps to 200 amps (the higher if the home is all-electric). In parks that do not submeter water and sewer back to the customer, this is a large savings and makes the RV resident actually one of the most profitable.

A blessing for small lots

A mobile home lot that cannot hold at least a 14’ x 48’ home (the smallest 2 bedroom/1 bathroom) is hard to successfully fill with a home that somebody wants to buy, but RVs can do the job successfully all day long. You can take lots that are too small for mobile home usage and they fit RVs perfectly, allowing the owner to find a productive, income-producing use for lots that otherwise would sit idle.

A wide variety of users

Most people think of RVs as a temporary form of travel for recreational purposes (hence the name “RV” which stands for “recreational vehicle”) but the truth is that there are actually two other main user groups for RVs. One, of course, is the retired household that has elected to retire and live permanently in their RV, often staying in one park for years or decades. With 10,000 Baby Boomers retiring each day in the U.S., this is a sector that is growing exponentially. The other RV user segment are contractors that live in one place but use their RV as a headquarters for their work in the city their job is in. For example, an electrician that lives in Baltimore but live in their RV located in Pittsburgh Monday through Friday wiring a factory, and then returns home on weekends.

Permanent RVs – how long is the stay?

Since what makes mobile home parks unusually attractive is the fact that mobile homes can’t really be moved (either because of age and roadworthiness concerns or the $5,000 price tag on the mover), the concern with RVs is that they have the potential to leave at the drop of a hat (or the turn of a car key). That being said, when a retired person puts down roots, their RV has as little potential of leaving as a mobile home does. We have some retirees that put in carports, landscape, and even skirt their RV. However, the contractor’s stay is a matter of a few months or years, and the true recreational user may stay in the lot for only a few days or weeks. So what’s really at issue is the intent of the RV owner in staying for a short or long time.

Why retire into an RV instead of a mobile home?

Since the average RV is less than half the square footage of the average mobile home, one might wonder why a household would elect to live in an RV over a mobile home. There are, in fact, many reasons. The first one is the simple fact that many of these customers already own an RV, and like staying in it. Another is that RVs often have better build quality, finish out and energy efficiency than mobile homes. But perhaps the biggest reason is simply that RVs don’t have the negative “stigma” that mobile homes do with the average American. RV ownership and usage is considered a luxury and consumer testing shows that the average American has a favorable impression of the product – in stark contrast to the “trailer park” image.

Impact on future appraisal or sale

It’s this temporary nature of RVs that makes them difficult for appraisers and bankers to put their arms around. If there are not that many RVs in the mobile home park, then the norm is for the appraiser and lender to count them the same as mobile home occupants. The feeling is that, even if one or two moved out, the hit to the revenue would not be that great and you could always refill the lot with another user. However, if the RV concentration is significant, it may result in the appraiser and lender counting that income at a higher cap rate to make sense of the transitory risk.

Unique marketing efforts required

It’s also important to note that the marketing required to attract RVs is completely different than that of mobile home customers. While mobile home buyers come from signage, newspaper ads and social media, RV users come from Google searches of “RV parks in _________” and websites, as well as flyers in tourism centers. If you want to bring in RVs you have to make a concerted effort to do so completely separate from your mobile home marketing campaign.

Conclusion

It’s a growing trend to see RVs in mobile home parks. It can work successfully, but you have to be aware of the ramifications of this usage. With 10,000 Baby Boomers retiring per day – and RV sales at the highest levels in U.S. history – this issue will only grow over time.

We’ve all heard about “flyover” states. Cities like Kansas City are brushed aside with that description, yet they are terrific places for mobile home park investing. What makes a market like Kansas City a successful investing location?

Recession-resistant economies

Kansas City is not a sexy market. It does not have a new Amazon headquarters under construction, nor is it the technology hub of the Midwest. However, it does have the largest concentration of government jobs outside of Washington, D.C. It also has a huge number of healthcare and education jobs. The top ten employers are 1) the public school district with 30,172 employees 2) the Federal Government with 30,000 jobs 3) state, county and city government with 24,616 4) Cerner Corporation with 10,128 5) HCA with 9,753 6) St. Luke’s Health with 7,550 7) Children’s Mercy Hospital with 6,305 8) Sprint with 6,300 9) The University of Kansas with 6,030 and 10) Hallmark with 4,600. This is what we would call an extremely “recession resistant” economy.

Steady markets don’t crash

Some markets are best noted for extreme highs and lows in unemployment, which extends on to real estate values. Las Vegas is such a market, where condos can go from $100,000 to $400,000 and back again in one cycle. This puts the park owner at the risk of not only having to be a good operator but a good timer of their purchase so they don’t get caught on the wrong side of the cycle.

Housing prices in the sweet spot for affordable housing

Markets like Kansas City have the right mix of housing prices to foster a huge demand for affordable housing including median home prices over $100,000 and 3-bedroom apartment rents over $1,000 per month. This makes the phone ring off the wall at the park office.

Track record

Kansas City has a number of mobile home parks and they are mostly full and have been for decades. Most of the opportunity in Kansas City revolves around buying these properties from mom & pop owners at low rents and then bringing them back to life and raising rents accordingly. It’s fully unlike some markets where park occupancies decline during extreme recessions/depressions and the new park owner is faced with having to fill huge numbers of lots.

Favorable tenant laws

Kansas City (both Kansas and Missouri as the metro includes both) is built on a very conservative legal framework. Residents who don’t pay are evicted through the court system quickly, and there is zero risk of future rent control or laws that would hurt park owner’s rights. We like markets where are interests are protected by law.

Conclusion

We like markets like Kansas City. Those who brush aside “flyover” markets as not worthy of their time are making a huge mistake. We would take these cities over those on the coast all day long as the best locations for mobile home park investments.

One of the biggest things going in the mobile home park industry is the CASH program from 21st Mortgage. If you own a mobile home park, the power of this program is astounding. You can fill vacant lots with zero out-of-pocket cost. You can get customers approved to buy homes with amazing speed and a “can-do” attitude. You don’t have to get in the middle of financing or the SAFE Act. And you can tap hundreds of thousands – or millions – of dollars sitting there in vacant lots. The demand for affordable housing in the U.S. is enormous, and the only thing holding most parks back from 100% occupancy are new and used homes that your customers can qualify for. With the CASH program, those obstacles can be overcome and your occupancy can soar. We are the largest users of this program in the U.S., and we know how great it is.

For more information on this program visit their website or call Candice Doolan at 800-955-0021 ext 1735 or email her at [email protected].

This is a mom & pop owned mobile home park in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It’s also a good test of all the things that some owners get wrong about delivering a quality community. So how many problems can you spot in this photo, and what needs to be done to fix them?

Entry sign fell down

If this park has a name, nobody must know it because it’s laying on the ground. All that’s left is the old wooden frame that used to hold it up. Many moms & pops simply painted the park’s name on a 4’ x 8’ of plywood and these ultimately rot and fall off. Best to leave it on the ground – or better yet put it in the dumpster. Instead, get a nice, new sign made at FastSign or similar vendor, with vinyl letters on a painted metal background. Then hold it up with two white vinyl posts with matching PVC caps. Total cost is around $1,500 installed.

No identity from the street

You want to set a strong first impression for residents, city inspectors, appraisers, bankers, future buyers – basically everybody. This park has no pizazz at all. Install white vinyl 3-rail fencing down the frontage (cost about $10 per linear foot) and maybe a couple feather flags at the entrance (about $150 each). You could make this entire approach extremely desirable for probably $4,000.

Speed limit sign nailed to a leaning post

Although well-intentioned, moms and pops weren’t as big on aesthetics as they were informing the driving public as to the speed limit. While these are still great signs to have, you need to buy a new one and put it on a white vinyl PVC post with cap that matches the entry sign. Total cost for post and sign – about $80 installed.

Pay phone pedestal but no phone

In the 1963 film “It Happened at the World’s Fair” starring Elvis Presley, he makes a series of calls from a pay phone in a trailer park just like this one. But that was in 1963. Pay phones went the way of the Buffalo when they brought out the cell phone. You just need to tear this thing down completely.

Debris on the lots

Every lot in this park has some type of debris on it – both the vacant ones as well as the occupied. It all needs to go. Bring in a roll-off dumpster and hold a “Spring Clean-Up” event and get all of these items (appliances, tree limbs, cinder blocks, etc.) tossed in the dumpster and removed from the premises. The cost of the dumpster is around $1,000 – the labor is up to you.

Trees need to be trimmed

Dead trees and limbs are not allowed under your insurance – ever. In winter it’s hard to tell what’s alive and what’s dead, but winter’s over and you can definitely see what’s going on now. You also need to lift the branches off the tops of the homes and just generally shape things so they’re attractive. Tree trimming is not cheap and it’s impossible to guess the price because it’s 99.9% labor. So get three bids and go with the low one.

Zero pride of ownership

Pride of ownership is when the residents take care of their property because they want to live in a nice place. This park obviously has nearly none. People are not taking care of their homes or yards. To instill this pride of ownership, you need to do all of the above steps. You cannot ignite a sense of pride of ownership without the common areas setting the standard and urging residents to do their part in making this the nicest community in town.

No marketing efforts at all

One thing is for sure about this property – they are definitely keeping their intentions close to the vest regarding what they’re trying to do. Are they wanting to sell home, fill lots or bring in RVs? Nobody would know since there’s not a single “home for sale” or “RVs welcome” sign on the entire property. Not even a general “Manager” sign so you would know who to ask.

Conclusion

America is filled with thousands of poorly managed properties, such as this. And that’s where the opportunity in the industry is – in buying these based on current economics and appearance and then bringing them back to life.

Whether you are simply in need of an insurance quote or you have the unfortunate, yet common task, of filing a claim, Mobile Insurance is ready and waiting to take your call. We’ve used Mobile Insurance for over a decade, and their superior service is known throughout the industry. Kurt, the owner of Mobile Insurance, is a top resource for any park insurance question, and they provide free quotes on parks that you are acquiring. That’s why around 2,000 park owners in the U.S. are Mobile Insurance customers.

Mobile Insurance can help you engineer the policy you need to cover all your concerns, and their prices are unbelievably low. Being able to contact them when you need them is just as important. We recommend that every park buyer call them first, as we know of no other group that has the same expertise, quality of service, and low prices. Call them at 800-458-4320 or email [email protected].

Mobile home designs are showcased at the annual shows in Louisville and Tunica. And one design that has been a part of these shows for several years now are “accent walls”. In fact, we’ve seen this design element in homes as old as the 1950s. So what is it and why does it work well?

Gives some punch to a bland room

Any room can gain sparkle by having one room with a bright colored wall, or one with an unusual texture. It projects a little extra interest and color into an otherwise boring space. When you look at photos of room with accent walls, you will find yourself drawn to these rooms as superior to the other options.

Inexpensive

To create an accent wall is a very inexpensive affair. All you need is a different color of paint and a paintbrush. In a world of expensive design concepts that are flashed on HGTV throughout the day, accent walls are very simple and inexpensive to create.

Doesn’t have to be just paint

When we’re talking accent wall here, don’t think that it relates only to paint color. You can really use any material you want. Some accent walls feature a “wood look” and other include fabric or wallpaper. What works is simply an inviting design that gives the room a focal point.

Conclusion

Accent walls are a great addition to many mobile home renovations. While some modern homes feature them, they can be of even further help in bringing back to life bland living rooms in older units that you are renovating.

One of the most common tools of the mobile home park restorer is the metal roll-off dumpster. It’s part trash receptacle, part notice of “pardon our dust” and partly a sign of hope to residents that better times for the park are coming.

What is a “roll-off dumpster” and what do they cost?

A roll-off dumpster looks like a metal shoe box without the lid. They’re around 20’ long and you can see them when you first enter the mobile home park as they’re as large as some of the RVs. You can throw virtually anything into the roll-off dumpster – furniture, trash and even demolished mobile homes. The cost of a roll-off dumpster is around $1,000 which includes both delivery and pick-up. Some trash companies bill based on weight, but most mobile home park applications don’t weigh much compared to other industries.

When do you need them?

Most mobile home parks need a dumpster for two different purposes:

• For park clean-up initiatives. For example, if you are going to hold a “Spring Clean-Up” event, the first step is to deliver a roll-off dumpster or two so that all of the accumulated debris – from appliances to leaves, tree limbs and trash – can get easily removed by just throwing it over the top and in. It also is like a giant metal billboard that says “we’re cleaning up the park and we need you to put all your junk in this giant metal container”.
• For the demolition of abandoned homes (after you obtain title) or existing park-owned homes that you determine to be not worthy of the capital investment to repair. In that case, the demolition company will crush the home with a bobcat or similar equipment and throw the pieces (some fairly large) into the dumpster.

When do you not want them?

Here’s the problem with dumpsters:

• They attract trash from outside your park. There are unfortunately many people in the construction and landscaping business that want to illegally dump their byproducts when the day is done. They look for unsecured dumpsters, and a mobile home park roll-off is perfect. They back up their truck, toss everything into the dumpster, and drive off. This actually brings more trash into the park, and often in their haste they dump a ton of it on the ground.
• Roll-off dumpsters are not cheap. At around $1,000 per trip, every person that illegally dumps into your dumpster is costing you a lot of money.

Other important tips

We’ve been using roll-off dumpsters for around 25 years and there are some things we’ve learned along the way:

• You have to be very careful with manager abuse of these things. For some reason, managers love to order these in, not realizing how costly they are. You should never let the on-site manager be capable of ordering in dumpsters without some type of control in place so you can ensure that they don’t spend a lot of your money unnecessarily.
• They can damage your roads as they are picked up and delivered on a truck that puts all the weight on some wheels at the back of the dumpster. This can cause damage to your asphalt. One more reason not to go crazy with bringing in any more dumpsters than you need to.

Conclusion

Roll-off dumpsters are an essential tool in managing a mobile home park. However, they do require thought and cannot just be randomly brought in by the manager without higher authority approval.

How many deals have you seen go down the drain because your attorney stacked up a million roadblocks to even the simplest problems, and then failed to offer any path to solve them? This is called “deal killing” and some attorneys do this so that they take no risk – if the deal never happens, they can never be criticized for missing a deal point, or for not spotting a flaw in the contract. The problem with this, however, is that you can’t get anywhere. At the other end of the spectrum are the “deal maker” attorneys that recognize real problems from trivial ones, and strive to solve these roadblocks using common sense and legal experience. And the best of those type of attorneys is Dave DiMarco from Woods Oviatt Gilman. We once had a deal go south in a big way – the very driveway into the property was determined to be on somebody else’s property. Any other attorney would have said “well, that’s it, the deal’s dead” but Dave DiMarco sprung into action. We located the owner, negotiated a purchase, personally handled the details, and the deal went forward. And all that over a weekend, no less. And that’s why we love Dave DiMarco and you should, too. If you need service like that, then consider using Dave DiMarco on your next transaction. You can reach him at (585) 987-2833.

Over the past 25 years we have been fortunate enough to work with some terrific managers. Many of these individuals had never managed a mobile home park before, and brought with them their own style and learned from experimentation. Here are some things we’ve learned from these industry-best managers.

The importance of resident relationships

Our best managers have a strong bond with the residents and garner their respect as a result. They take efforts to know their names and life stories and do everything possible to be inclusive rather than exclusive in all community events. You can feel this quality when you enter the property – everyone seems happy and respectful of their neighbors. When the manager treats the residents poorly, it disturbs the ecosystem of trust and appreciation, and makes people not try hard to keep their property up because it’s their sign of rebellion. Great managers are like the mayor, chamber of commerce, and cheerleading team all rolled into one.

You can get a lot more done with kindness than unpleasantness

When a resident fails to follow the park rules, the good manager goes to them quietly and talks to them as to why such an issue is happening. They listen to the customer’s side of the story, and take efforts to get it remedied while at the same time not shaming the resident. A bad manager would post a nasty notice on the door, possibly yell at the resident in public, and generally attempt to coerce the resident through shame. This is a terrible way to conduct business and doesn’t even solve the original issue. The great managers know that kindness is the best policy in solving rules issues.

Word-of-mouth is the best advertising

Great managers realize that what keeps the property full is providing a great product at a great price. They want every resident to be an ambassador that spreads the word that the best housing choice in town is the mobile home park. To accomplish this – to create an army of ambassadors – you have to make sure that all residents are happy. You see this when you walk the property with a great manager, as they ask every resident “is everything going good today?” This attention to detail sets them apart and makes the park well-known throughout the community.

Set your office hours on the residents’ needs, not your own

Great managers know that the worst office hours for a mobile home park are the standard 9 to 5. This eliminates those who work those hours from ever interacting with the manager (which is one reason many bad managers set these hours). Instead the manager should be open until 7 on some days as well as on frequent Saturdays. Accessibility to the manager is a key component of all good managers’ mission.

The Golden Rule

It can’t be emphasized enough that all good managers are well aware of the concept of treating all customers exactly as they would want to be treated themselves. They understand that there can be hardships and bumps in the road for all residents in their journeys through life, but they always treat them with respect and watching for win/win opportunities. The resident that might be facing eviction today may never pay late again once they get their feet back on the ground, and even the grouchy resident might be that way for legitimate reasons. Great managers don’t exacerbate problems, they solve them in a dignified way.

Tough love is often required – and needs to be delivered in that way

That being said, great manager are also well aware of the concept of “tough love”. For example, if a resident is allowed to get behind on their rent, they will never get caught up and will ultimately become homeless. And the resident that is playing loud music at night is destined to be removed from the property unless they change their ways. A great manager is not afraid to interject and enforce the rules to make sure that the resident can stay on in their home and that the interests of the neighbors are always maintained.

Conclusion

We have been very fortunate over the past 25 years to employ some outstanding managers. These are the traits that set them apart, and you should watch for people who display these actions and – when you find one – try hard to never let them leave.

The New York Times called Frank a human encyclopedia of all things mobile home park and, if that’s true, then Mike Renz is the human encyclopedia of all things under the ground. You see, when it comes to Phase I Environmental Assessments, nobody in the industry is more knowledgeable than Renz. He’s our go-to guy for all things pollution-oriented, from Phase I reports to simply asking questions on what we see going on next door to the property (or even inside that concerns us). We were once walking through a property and saw a brown colored solution oozing from the property. Within minutes, Mike had pulled up the data and figured out what it was (rusty water from an iron-ore- rich artesian spring). That’ the kind of information that we find invaluable in today’s litigious world of environmental condition. On top of that, we’ve had Phase I reports that failed for existing pollution, and Mike Renz has been able to solve them by using common sense and technology, like the time he proved the EPA wrong by doing a simple core-drilling to prove that a supposed landfill on a mobile home park did not actually exist (it had been phoned into the EPA by a former manager who had a grudge against the owner). If you want that level of expertise on your side, then you need Mike Renz to be your Phase I Environmental provider. That’s who we use, and he’s amazingly good.

You can contact Mike Renz at (614) 538-0451.