Homeowners selling homes in park

Im currently looking at one park for sale, however, I noticed 3 mobile homes are for sale right now by their owners in the park with 22 lots. Is this normal? its also not very close to any major city. The numbers are good, however, its on a septic system and water well.

any thoughts?

Chris1, I would ask the current Owners when the last time that they did a price increase on the Lot Rent.

Perhaps the current Owners wanted to increase the value of the MHP, so they did a price increase (which caused 3 of the current Tenants to take action to sell their MHs).

We wish you the very best!

I will.

One other thing that i noticed is that one 2 of the 3 mobile homes for sale the pad rent is less than $30-40/month from what I received on the rent roll by the park seller. I think the owner might be inflating his rent numbers and lowering the actual costs from the spreadsheet he gave me.

Has anyone come across a situation like this one?

This park is troubling on a number of fronts:

  1. 15% of your tenant base is planning on moving.

  2. It sounds like the seller might be cooking the books

  3. You are on private water and sewer, which on a 22 space park is often suicide

  4. You have not yet done a test ad to determine demand in this market

I would definitely be concerned with this deal.

Sounds like you need to talk with those tenants (due diligence) and find the real reason they are leaving.

I don’t know what it costs typically to move a MH, but even if you doubled the rent to $80 per month x 12 months - that is under $1000 per year which I suspect is far lower than the cost to move. Sounds like something else is going on.And you better know what it is

Chris

This business is not anything like the operation of parks in the US.
My community is 33 homes and this past summer 6 homes were for sale at one point in time all for different reasons and nothing to do with the community. I usually average 2 per year but in 2013 and 2014 the market was flat, very few sales were completed and as a result we have 3 years worth for sale this year.
Talk with the residents and get the info you need but keep in mind up here owners do not move their homes and do not walk away from a home they have tens of thousands invest in.
As far as location, water and septic are concerned what you are seeing is standard for the business up here and generally the policy of buying on city water and sewer is not realistic. Due diligence is performed from that perspective.