Hi everyone! I have a question for a park that I am looking at purchasing.
It is a small park (6 lots), and I am wondering what I should do as far as a manager for the park. If I can’t a resident in the park to manage it, should I look for a manager off site, and if so, how do I figure the compensation? I know the average is 10$/ occupied lot, but does that figure also include “small” parks? Or, should I just consider managing it myself as long as I live here, which will be for about 2 years?
@bstevens1 , as per your post:
- “Management approach for a small park”
- “It is a small park (6 lots), and I am wondering what I should do as for as a manager for the park.”
My Husband and I own 2 MHPs.
We manage both of them (30 minutes from our house & 1.5 hours from our house).
You should manage your MHP.
The only person who will completely look out for your investment is:
- You
We manage using the following techniques:
- Get a Cell Phone (with texting) for the MHP
- Get a PO Box (for Monthly Payments for Rent & Fees)
- Place Tenants on Month-To-Month Leases
- Mail Tenants Monthly Bills (including Late Fee Dates & Amounts)
- Gather a List of Reliable and Honest Contractors
- Text Contractors when issues arise
- Evict when legally allowed by state law
We wish you the very best!
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Its tough when you get that small. You are really going to be the goto person . Typically comp is free lot rent and 10 per lot but here if you do that, it cuts into your bottom line a lot. If one of the people is decent , you might offer a small credit to call with any issues or something. Something this small, I would verify zoning as well. We have a 4 space park that was great the tenants owned their homes, all direct bill utilitites off a city street. We got a great deal on it and it was down the street from another park. One house burned down so we ended up replacing it but the city didn’t want to but we are good with it. Other manager drives by periodically and the tenants would call us if there is an issue, rent gets mailed, and there really is nothing to do . I think you have to make sure you are getting a great deal on it with high returns because there is a lot of risk .It can be a good starting point for sure, just know you will have to be active.
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I have a 34 space park that is an hour from me. I have an onsite manager that takes care of rules enforcement, trash pick up, posting right to cure notices, and mowing for the cost of lot rent which is $230. I can’t find someone to keep the park mowed for that so it’s a deal in my mind and saves me a lot of running.
I’m busy with my day job of running a mobile home sales center so anything I can do to offload responsibilities to help me manage my park is my important to me.
For a small park you may want to be hands on for some of the maintenance but I would not recommend you handle tenant communications unless you have experience in the landlord department and know how to stick to your guns. If tenants know you are the owner they will usually push for leniency. I hired an outside person who works remotely through upwork.com. She handles all my tenant communications via email and coordinates maintenance with vendors. She is an excellent communicator and only gets paid when she works.
We also use a remote entry system for our park owned homes to handle showings. My park is an hour from me. Once I had seven people booked for a showing and not a single person showed up. The cost to install the remote entry was paid for by all the gas and time I’ve saved. Now I’m free to do what I love, focus on investing in other properties. Good luck!
I personally handle all high level stuff and deal directly with tenant issues. Rents are either mailed to my po box or deposited at a local bank down the street by the tenants. It’s nice having a manager there to post a late notices and low level tasks. Never have them handle money!
My system for showing homes is to use a realtor lock box(cost $10-$12). I have the prospect text message me a copy of their drivers license and the time they wish to see the home. I then send the lock box code and ask them to lock up. It’s been a good system with no issues for the last couple of years.
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Hi Bruce. What kind of compensation do you give to your onsite manager for these small tasks? I assume they also put the realtor box at the door of the showings?