Newbie Question Re: "Asking for Financials" on First Park

My partner and I are thinking about making an offer on our first park.

We signed an NDA and non-circumvent, got the basic info packet from the broker, and it looks good enough that we want more information.

Per the bootcamp advice, we want to ask for “the financials”.

Can I just call up the broker and say “please send me the last 3 years financials”?

Will he/she give them to me at this stage of the process?

What exactly is included in the financials? - a P & L for the park? Balance sheet for the park? Owners tax returns?

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

You’ll have to call the broker and they’ll talk you up about the property. You can ask any questions you want. I would expect them to already have this information for the past year in the offering memorandum – they may or may not have already collected this from the seller. You are much better off talking your way into your comfort zone then demanding documents.

Then you decide if you want it or not, and submit a contract. Once you have it under contract, you can get whatever you need to do your DD.

The “financials” means that you want to

(1) Know about the gross rental income. Does it make sense (=lot rent * occupancy)? Is there any trend?
(2) Know about the non-rental income streams (are you paying money for them?)

(3) Know about the REAL expenses and/or build your own estimates. How the park was run in the past is going to be indicative of … something. Many brokers will give their own wildly optimistic “pro-forma.” That may be great when you have stabilized and you’re running the ship just perfectly, but EVERYONE makes mistakes about something, and you will too. Build your own “pro-forma” using common sense. Ask the broker for anything you want more info (how is the water, pool, sewage, maintenance, anything special, related party deals, discounts, whatever you want.)

(4) Figure out a price that makes sense to you and submit an offer.

(5) If you get a contract, verify income actually comes in. Verify expenses are really (as low as) they say. Verify everything. If there is something you don’t like, evaluate the risk of worst-case and your comfort zone. Can you afford it? Can you protect against it? Is the reward (income & possible capital appreciation) worth the risk, to you?

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Lee, Would you all be interested in adding another partner to your mix?