I have Ray’s book but no Ernest Tew’s book. I am interested in bootcamp but my fund is tight and I want to use that as my initial investment on my first park. I don’t know if this will cause me any griefs later on but nothing is perfect. That’s why I will look for a small park, hopefully with a nice lady PM like yours.
However I might use Ernest or other expert service for DD or others just to be sure I get the right deal.
I have been reading the old posts and will be re-reading Lonnies book. The area I live in - NY is pretty high$ with few parks. I am thinking of looking out of state for a small park to buy to start with. Are MHPs easy to own from afar as compared to single fam homes? Seems to me that a park manager could take care of alot of things. I would not look further than a days drive.
Thanks
bob
Posted by jp (in pc) on April 23, 2006 at 18:59:52:
We’ve owned a park out of state for about 6 months now and our manager hasn’t had too many issues so far. Having a good manager is what made the long distance ownership possible in the first place.
Posted by JP (in PC) on April 25, 2006 at 17:00:51:
I wish I was as wise as most of the folks who post here but I won’t pretend to have that much knowledge or wisdom. We were looking for a park at the right place and time for our needs and that’s about it.
We found our park on Loopnet. Nothing special about how we did it. It just happened to be where we wanted to relocate (Indiana) when I retire from the military this year. We got it under contract at a price we could live with then bought Ray Alcorn’s “Dealmaker’s Guide to MHPs” book, that coupled with Ernest Tew’s “Mobile Homes and MHP’s book”(I highly recommend them both) give us the confidence to do the due diligence without missing anything too huge. (we did miss an infrastructure issue that is going to cost some to fix but that’s another story and it wouldn’t have stopped the sale had we known.
As for the manager, she was managing the park for the seller and wanted to stay on. She came with a good recommendation from the seller and after we met with her a couple of times and saw how she handled herself with the residents it was really a no-brainer that we keep her on. She has made owning the park easy, she handles the day to day stuff and we do the big picture, stategic planning type stuff. My wife talks to her as required about the goings on there and so far it has been a good partnership.
If I had to do it again (and I hope to sometime in the near future) I would read (or reread) both of the books I mentioned above. I can’t speak personally for any of the others but from what I have read in the posts there are some quality products concerning this topic here on CRE other than the ones I mentioned here. I would go to a MHP bootcamp if I had the time and the funds. I’ve read some good things about Tony’s bootcamp and I’ve also heard the same about Steve Case and Corey Donaldson’s bootcamp. Either camp would put you ahead of where we were when we jumped in and if you can’t make a bootcamp the reading is very helpful.
Anyway, I’m done rambling. We’re learning as we go and we always know we can ask questions here and someone who is wiser in the ways of MHs and MHPs will give us an answer.
Good luck to you and if there is anything I can help you with please let me know.