I’m running into a surprising amount of difficulty getting information on current actuals/averages on MHP lot rents for specific markets. I’ve tried all the major MHP websites, which contain plenty of information on home sale asking prices but not lot rent asking prices. I’m also not getting very good info from Craigslist/Facebook Marketplace. Getting plenty of listings for sales and mobile home + lot rentals, but very little info on just the lot rent.
Is there a resource I should be using? Are there specific filters I should be applying on Craigslist to get this information? Any tips/tricks would be very much appreciated. Thank you!
quickest way to get this info is to higher someone or do it yourself to call around to all the local parks and either act like a potential tenant and ask what is the lot rent, does that include water/sewer, etc.
or you can act like an appraiser and tell them your doing market information for another park, and gather all that same info. both work,
Make sure you don’t call the owner/manager with the same number your doing cold calls with.
One other tip - on CL / FB look for homes for sale already in a park. Just message the poster and ask what they pay for lot rent. There will be some manual sifting through ads (sometimes the pictures give it away, sometimes the ad says it’s in a park), but it works well…
Thanks for the tips. I’m a little surprised that there’s not a better way to view even active lot vacancies / lot rental listings. Obviously this is very easy in the world of apartment rentals. I would have thought that the “Sites” option on the main toolbar at MHVillage.com was intended for this purpose, but I’ve only been getting homes for sale. Shouldn’t this be listed under the “Homes” option?
I’m deducing the main difficulty here is that there are few vacancies to begin with at most parks (overall a good thing for the industry), and because most new tenants start off as home + lot renters, then convert to RTO/Lease Option, so separating the lot rent from the home rent is not often straightforward.
Unfortunately, what you are looking for just doesn’t exist. I have found that data from calling is very limited. The best information is usually found by contacting the parks in person from my experience. And looking at the competition in person gives a better feel for how comparable it really is. If you are looking at a specific area in the Midwest feel free to reach out to me as we may have some data.
Quick rule of thumb: Based on a huge survey, found the average lot rent in almost all markets was 47-51% of the average 2BR apartment rent. That’s average of all 2BR’s, not C class, B class, etc.
Thanks all for the feedback. I’ve heard Frank also mention the rule of thumb that market lot rents tend to trend about 50% of market 2 bedroom apartment rents. This appears to hold true on average in the majority of markets I’ve been evaluating in the Southwest.
I’ve also seen that many of the homes for sale on MHVillage which are intended to remain in the existing park also list the lot rent. This has been a pretty helpful resource for me so far.
My opinion is yes. It is only my opinion. I feel though, that if the market has good solid fundamentals, over time, may err upwards. Some markets just seem out of whack while others, over time, may gravitate towards the medium. Thats my thought on the topic but you really have to know what you have.