JP’s question “Is the owner motivated to sell?” is absolutely key.
I also found a MH park that I was scared to go into and thought it would make a good investment. It turns out that the owner has only one rule: Pay the lot rent on time.
So the MH park is a lawless, anarachistic dump, but people pay their rent (or get their knees broke, I presume). No way the owner wants to sell this zero maintenance cash cow. It’s MH park slum-lording at its finest.
The park is on the edge of a fast-growing area, so the owner probably plans to sell the land to developers down the road.
R. Smith, I hope your MH park situation turns out to be different and wish you the best of luck. If the owner in your case is not already a ‘don’t wanter’, if you get the city to take action against the MH park(as you suggested)perhaps will become one.
There is a local MH park that is totally run down and absolutely disgusting. I don’t even feel safe driving through it. Another reader of the CRE News Group, Branden Bestgen, suggested that maybe we should purchase this park from the current owner and then clean it up (including current residents.) After it was in better shape, we could see about purchasing some used mobile homes and doing “Lonnie Deals” all day long in our own park.
This idea is definately intriguing, but it’s also a bit overwhelming. So I come to all of you for some support and hopefully some good advice. Specifically I’m trying to get some ideas of what we should take into consideration before entertaining this idea. I’m sure there are people out here with much more experience than I have, so please provide any advice that you can.
Understand that the reason that we are contemplating this at all, is that there is another mobile home park about 5 miles away and in the same town which is doing very well. Believe it or not, they are asking over $35,000 for 15-20 year old 14’ x 70’ mobile homes. Now if we could take over the crappy park and bring in used homes that we find for less than ten thousand bucks, I’d have to believe that we could do very well. I know that the $35,000 is just the asking price, but it gives you some idea of what they are going for around here.
Anyone have any suggestions about how to go about this? Should we talk to the city first, and suggest our idea to them. I wonder if they wouldn’t be willing to provide some sort of incentive either to the current owner to sell, or to us if we do purchase, as it would certainly help property values for the homes near by because the park in its current condition is absolutely disgusting. I can’t imagine that the city is happy with people associating that park with their town.
Any ideas on how we should approach the current owner? Or the best way to LEGALLY enforce a “Shape up or ship out” policy with the current residents. If we did do this, we would probably want to have the lot rent include a fee for general landscaping. This should provide for a consistently nice appearance. We would also want to have strict standards for upkeep of the homes, so that the park maintained a good look.
I would never discuss anything with the gov’t agencies prior to having a contract.
It seems, based on your post, that you are interested in making money on used mobile homes… even if it takes you and your partner going to the “powers to be” and seeing if you can force the current owner to do something; why?
I would consider talking with the owner FIRST. There may not be any need to proceed.
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Re: NEED ADVICE: possible puchase of a mobile home park… - Posted by J.P. Vaughan
Posted by J.P. Vaughan on May 27, 1999 at 08:43:47:
Ernest Tew specializes in turn-around mobile home parks.
His course “Get Rich Helping Others” discusses this
topic in detail and with real-life examples. You can
find a complete description in our Online Catalog.
Is the owner motivated to sell?
The way to shape up a park is to draft tough new Rules and
Regualtions that all residents must sign if they want to
stay there. If they violate the rules, you will have a
legal right to evict them from the park.