Mobile Home Park Mastery

The mobile home park industry has long faced the question of optimal park size. In this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we’re going to explore the issue of whether to buy one really big property or several smaller ones, as well as the permutations of size on everything from financing to management cost.

Certain critical items in your park run on power and if it goes out, you’re in big trouble. The back-up plan is often a gas-powered generator, but which one do you get and what should you pay? In this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we’re going to explore the facts about power generation.

How the U.S. Postal Service delivers mail to your tenants is not of your concern – until they make it that way. In this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we’re going to review the rules on mail delivery and how the postmaster can often try to manipulate you into exceeding your obligations.

Warren Buffett is no longer in charge of Berkshire Hathaway day-to-day operations, and the new CEO made his first investment ... into the housing industry. In this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we’re going to explore why Greg Abel bought Taylor Morrison Homes and what it means for the mobile home park industry.

One item that we can only guess on as mobile home park buyers is what our prospective tenants are like. There’s no vetting process in due diligence and we typically only know their names and if they’ve paid their rent. But you can actually learn a lot about your customers based on the cars they drive. In this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we’re going to review what can be gleaned by the cars on those parking pads.

Propane is a liquefied gas that is highly flammable – and essential in many mobile home parks to provide heating, hot water, and the ability to cook. In this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we’re going to explore, in detail, everything you need to know about propane and why it can be an essential utility method in certain circumstances.

Sun Communities, a U.S. REIT, lost a rumored $500 million on the purchase and sale of its holdings in the United Kingdom. In this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we’re going to explore what happened and what the lessons learned are for U.S. park operators that dare to venture outside America’s boundaries.

There is no perfect mobile home park. But there is a perfect mobile home park deal. To get there you have to have an item so great that it offsets each deal’s inherent flaws. In this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we’re going to explore the great deal points that can offset the negatives.

To buy a mobile home park requires effort and risk, and you’re not going to go forward unless you feel the profit potential is compelling. In this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we’re going to review some of the standard units of measure that most buyers are seeking – and are attainable.

There’s an old saying that “time is money” but in the mobile home park business, time can be millions made or lost, with time being the key item to navigate with financing and investor commitments. In this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we’re going to explore how much time to budget for the key components to any mobile home park turnaround.

When you’re looking at buying a mobile home park, the seller will always tell you glowing stories of how great and valuable their park-owned rental homes are. They’re lying to you. In this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we’re going to expose the top truths about rental homes that the sellers will never tell you.

Most Americans make decisions on impulse and emotion and then rush to find the logical reasons for doing what they did – and mobile home park residents are no different. In this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we’re going to explore how to do a better job of appealing to both emotions and reasoning.

Just like the Kentucky Derby, you can't jump the gate despite your enthusiasm to start the race. In this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we're going to review the typical protocol of what the buyer should, and should not, do in the absence of a fully executed agreement.

Walmart is remodeling stores in pursuit of households earning $100,000+. Dollar Tree is expanding their offerings to bring in higher - earning customers. And mobile home parks are in pursuit of the same category of shoppers. In this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we’re going to examine the reasons and steps being taken to move up a notch from simply “affordable housing”.

A mobile home park is a bit of a political animal and you have to be able to interpret the degree of danger discussions with city hall bring to the table. In this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we're going to learn the differences between city hall suggestions, requests and demands.

Just like the recent Artemis launch, bringing an old mobile home park back to life involves successfully navigating a number of stages – each with a most basic purpose. In this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we’re going to explore these phases of a park turnaround and what you have to mainly focus on to be successful.

Buying and operating mobile home parks comes with many decisions that are made based on understanding the odds and risks. But there are some things that you must never do because the results can be so damaging that they might end your career. In this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we’re going to review these forbidden things.

Sometimes the best way to get a deal financed is simply to step into the shoes of the existing park owner. In this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we’re going to explore the concept of “loan assumptions” and what you need to know about this often - overlooked option.

Every property will, at some point, have a utility disruption. How you handle this eventuality is extremely important in mitigating the irritation of your residents. In this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we’re going to review some of the logical steps that can help you in better handling this inconvenience.

The Fake Occupancy Trap Most investors think that there are only two classifications for any lot: vacant or occupied. But there’s also a third category that few talk about and we call “fake occupancy”. In this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we’re going to explore the meaning behind this term and how you can prevent your mobile home park from falling into this trap.

There are around 44,000 mobile home parks in the U.S. yet only around 4,000 of these are owned by larger players – the most fragmented of any real estate sector. In this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we’re going to explore the reasons why the “trailer park” industry has still not consolidated.

In virtually every sector of real estate, a big focus of due diligence is market occupancy – except for mobile home parks. Why is that? In this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we’re going to explore the unique reasons that the occupancy of other parks is not always an accurate indication of demand and, for most buyers, is mostly ignored.

Buying a used mobile home is supposed to be a positive step to fill a vacant lot. But sometimes it can rapidly spiral into a nightmare scenario. In this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we’re going to review what can go wrong with a used home purchase as well as how to proactively guard against those issues.

Every park owner wants their residents to feel secure. In this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we’re going to explore options to enhance your park’s safety as well as concepts that have proven to be more of a disadvantage than a benefit.

Maybe you came into a windfall and want to invest a little more money than you budgeted. Or perhaps you want to test an extra enhancement to help your park break through to a new level. In this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we’re going to review things you can do to get that extra edge – if you’re willing to pay for it – and some concepts that are always a waste of money.

Most mobile home parks have a powerful marketing tool that is rarely used but highly effective – and nearly free of cost. In this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we’re going to explore how to use your road frontage as a successful marketing opportunity on a number of fronts.

We used to have three different population classifications and now we have five. In this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we’re going to explore how and why America added two new types of population classifications and how you can use that to your advantage in finding good mobile home parks to buy.

In bringing old mobile home parks back to life, a common challenge is how to use the existing pieces to create reasonable aesthetics. But some parks don’t even have any pieces to work with. In this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we’re going to explore available methods to make even the ugliest of properties attractive again.

The demand for affordable housing is enormous, and most homes sell fast in today’s market. But if you’ve brought in a new or used home – and it’s not moving quickly enough – then there are some steps you can take to make it more desirable. In this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we’re going to review some of the lessons we’ve learned to help get homes out the door.

Back in the late 1990s – a period in which few investors gave a second thought to mobile home parks – there occurred perhaps the industry’s greatest failure. Known as the “Great Chattel Collapse”, this horrific event resulted in a roughly 70% reduction in mobile home manufacturing and bankrupted many home lenders. In this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we’re going to explore what lead to this event and what the industry learned as a result.

Mobile home parks are often like villages in which residents rarely tread beyond their familiar territory – yet there are huge benefits for park owners in helping to make their connection to the community at large. In this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we’re going to explore how mobile home park owners can expand their residents’ support network.

Imagine a mobile home park as a chess board and every vacant lot as an opportunity to make the right move towards your goal of maximizing park income, value, and ease of operations. In this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we’re going to review the time-proven methods to optimize your move on each and every vacant lot.

Peace and tranquility is not often associated with lending, but the point is to always continue pressing forward towards that goal. In this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we’re going to explore methods to reduce stress and worry and mitigate the inherent risk of fickle lending markets.

"Amenities" are defined as a "desirable or useful feature of a building or place". In the never ending desire of mobile home park owners to provide the highest quality of life for residents, new concepts are constantly being introduced – and many of them are terrible. In this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we’re going to explore the world of bad amenities: features that do not provide a desirable impact on the community.

In the cyclical nature of the American economy, even entire neighborhoods can recycle every so many years. And harnessing these shifts can be very profitable. In this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we’re going to explore the conditions that create gentrification and how to monitor and spot them.

A bad mobile home park manager is often like a cancer that can infect other organs, and you have to know where else to look when it turns out that your manager must be replaced. In this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we’re going to review what needs to be investigated and fixed upon a manager change over, as well as how to proactively minimize the damage.

The mobile home park industry is notorious for jargon that is either politically incorrect or meaningless. In this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we’re going to explore commonly used terms and what the correct versions of them should be. 

Just because a mobile home park is under contract does not mean that you can’t still buy it – you just have to wait for the current buyer to drop the deal. And when that occurs you will have an advantage if you already have an active back-up contract. In this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we’re going to review how back-up contracts work as well as some basic strategies to do them properly.

Woody Allen has never owned a mobile home park, but his quote is as true to the affordable housing industry as it is in Hollywood. Yet many mobile home parks suffer greatly by the actions of managers who fail to show up. In this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we’re going to review the failings of many managers along with strategies to correct these problems.

There are some dangerous parallels between 1999 and current times. We all know that 1999 lead to the “Dot.Com Crash” but what may be developing currently could exceed that recession. In this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we’re going to explore the similarities between 1999 and modern times, as well as predict what the impact on the mobile home park industry might be.

Besides founding the retail powerhouse Amazon, Jeff Bezos has recently been reflecting on some of his fundamental principles for success, of which the "Regret Minimization Model" is the most interesting. In this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we’re going to review what this theory entails and apply that to the purchase of a mobile home park.

Many park owners are also their resident’s news source – at least for a couple minutes a day. In this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we’re going to review how to provide timely tips and content to your community on a recurring basis.

Discussions abound regarding the rumored $10 billion sale of YES communities to Brookfield, a Canadian REIT. While we don’t really know all the facts at this point, there are some certainties that this deal represents, and we’re going to explore what those items are in depth.

There’s a new type of deal construction out there called the “stack”. In this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we’re going to explore this type of structure and identify its strengths and weaknesses. With “creative dealmaking” the key to buying some communities, this might be an option for your next acquisition.

With every mobile home park acquisition comes a survey. And with those surveys there are often issues to address. In this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we’re going to review the most common survey problems and what the typical methods are to fix them.

Mobile home parks have the lowest default rate of any real estate sector, but when they do fail it always seems to be due to the same factors. In this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we’re going to explore the reasons why parks are sometimes unsuccessful and how to mitigate those risks.

Do you have good luck or bad luck? Regardless of your answer, you’re probably wrong. In this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we’re going to review how buyers put way too much emphasis on “luck” without truly understanding its role in making money with mobile home parks.

There are many styles of turn-arounds, but one of the riskiest and most complex is buying a property that has extremely low occupancy. In this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we’re going to review the key elements to the successful purchase and turn-around of mobile home parks with high levels of vacancy.

If you’re buying a mobile home to fill a vacant lot – new or used – there are a few things you have to double-check because if you make the wrong decision the damage can be in the tens of thousands of dollars. In this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we’re going to review those items and explore how to get them right.

Most mobile home park owners are good-natured people who like to be helpful. But most park manager requests for “favors” need to be avoided at all costs. In this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we’re going to review the typical manager requests, why they rarely work out well, and how to fend them off.