We’ve recently purchased a small park (~60 spaces) with mostly older homes. We are trying to upgrade the park by filling the remaining lots with quality used homes.
A local home moving company brought me a lead on a home for sale by owner for a great price. The home is single-wide 1999 3/2 vinyl/shingle and is in perfect condition. I met with the owner and put the home under contract to purchase. I asked if she had spoken with the park management about buying it and she said they had no interest. The park is much larger (~250 spaces) and a town over about 15 miles away. For what it’s worth, the metro we are in has a lot of very large parks that are much nicer and higher lot rent.
Is this considered “poaching”? If so what approach would you take to avoid creating an enemy of a nearby operator?
Being new to the industry I’m interested what thoughts others have on this and how they would handle it from here.
I would call the park office and introduce yourself as the owner of another park nearby. Inform them that there was a home for sale and you are planning to buy if it is OK for them. You may hear that the mobile home owner has a large balance OR it is OK for you to buy the home. So, I would just start by calling the park office.
If you are planning on removing a home from another park there is really no way of avoiding causing issues with them. It is poaching and they will likely feel the same as you would if another park owner purchased and removed a home from your park.
Your best option is to have the home owner ask their park owner if they will match your offer.
Keep in mind they likely have deeper pockets than you and could poach all your homes that come up for sale in the future. The risk of poaching is being poached.
Best to make every effort to avoid starting a poaching war you may not be able to win.
I agree. It is just business sense for us. We actually had one of our contractors pay for a home in a neighboring park to be relocated to our park. I called the owner and they said they will pay the contractor fee and the purchase price. I was happy to let it go and the owner has helped us on countless occasions.
I went ahead and met with the park manager who was very reasonable. I explained the situation and she had no issue with me but wasn’t pleased with the mover who brought me the deal. Apparently, his work in the past was not to the park’s standards and asked I use a different mover.
We agreed we would communicate before hand when homes go up for sale.
Thanks for the advice and of course happy with the result.