Just got acceptance on my offer

mobile home university
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Lesson learned:
It pays to do business face to face.
I made an offer on a park a few miles from my home that had been advertised on Mobile Home Park store, but instead of just calling and throwing numbers out over the phone, I made an appointment and went for a visit with the owner. I spent over an hour talking and learning what he wanted, rather than what I wanted. He was hung up on the listed price because he wanted to carry the note and travel around the country for a few years, and that number would give him the monthly cashflow he wanted. He was wanting to do a 30 year amortization.

I went home and wrote up an offer for $43,000 less than his asking, but amortized it over a shorter period so the monthly payments were similar to a 30 year.

I made a point of driving back by his place and handing the offer to him in person, with a cover letter outlining all the positive aspects of the park, the reasons why I would be the best person to take over the park from him, and explaining why I made the offer I did.

Three weeks of silence went by…

Then I got an email saying he felt he could accept my offer. Upon further conversation with his wife, I found out that he actually had an offer of $500,000, which was $20,000 more than mine. He rejected the higher offer for three specific reasons:

  1. His wife related to me that he liked that I came by and showed interest in the park (he had done most of the build-out himself over the years).

  2. He had a lot of his life invested in the park and knew all of the tenants, many of whom were long term and he felt that I would actually care for the park and the tenants in the way he had. (The park was immaculate)

  3. He noted that I made an earnest attempt to provide what he needed out of the deal.

The person who made the $500,000 offer simply called him and tossed the number out after asking a couple of questions and hung up. It felt cold and impersonal and it was obvious the person on the phone was focused on numbers only. I walked around the park with him and chatted about anything and every thing. H felt so at ease after awhile, he introduced me to his longest-term tenant (7 years).

So…get off the phone and go be a real person…

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This is great…congrats!!! Glad you ended up getting it! Thanks for sharing the lesson too. I think many of us often get so hung up on the numbers that we forget this is a people business too. Kudos

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This can be a tremendous advantage and great to see you took advantage of it. When you can meet and connect with people it knocks the out of area guy off the table ( sometimes ). Good luck with the DD!

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Good info. This type of post is helpful because it gives real life experience advice.

I’m actually in the sellers seat now, not the buyers’s, but still found this interesting.

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Great way to make a deal if the park is close by or you are in an area and can drive to a few. I’ve always said face to face contact can be the best way to work a deal. However with that said it can also be one of the hardests to do.

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I am not the most “people” oriented person in the world. I would have been much more comfortable sending him an email. But I would not now own the park. This park is less than two miles from my home, and was an incredibly lucky find. It is my first, so I was especially keen on “keeping it local”. I did pay a bit of a premium for the privilege, but I still have a healthy cash flow. I have the potential to nearly double the cash flow through bringing in additional homes and rent increases.

My admittedly neophyte advice: Work up deals on every park that falls within your geographic limitations (drive time-mine is a 4 hour circle around my home) and talk to those prospects. Make specific offers in writing to those you are interested in. Hand deliver your offer when possible. People get wrapped up in the aura of the digital communication age…trust me, face time will make you a stand-out.

There is plenty of time to become a nationwide mobile home park mogul…you do not have the resources or organization in place to sustain that now…perfect your management skills and organization locally.

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