Update on my park

mobile home university
1

This is just a copy-paste of my post below, but I thought some people may be interested in an update.

As I said below, Frank runs a VERY grueling schedule at the camps, but if anyone wants to tour my park we can carpool, it is a 50 minute drive each way, but you’d also get to meet the best managers in the USA in the process.

We have a number of homes in varying degrees of rehab also. Below is my post:

Coach62:
To tag onto Franks post of Capital intensive, my park is a major turnaround, but with huge upside. It’s not actually that far from the Orlando boot camp, I’ll probably go to the bootcamp for at least a couple of days.

I paid nothing for the homes, but they still cost me money, a lot of money. I’m spending an average of about $4,500 - $5,000 so far for home rehabs per home, and we’re doing the easiest ones first. Now we’re selling the homes for an average of over $8,000, the highest so far is $10,000. We are increasing prices as the park improves and the reputation of the park improves.

So great, I’m making a killing right? No - I’m getting an average of $1,500 to $2,000 down on a rent credit, so I’m in the hole about $3,500 per home from the outset.

Now $3,500 X 70 homes, you do the math, it takes a lot of capital even when the homes are “free”.

Why an I doing it? Because using conservative math, I’ll increase the value of the park over $1,500,000 over the next 3 years, and up to $2M in 5 years. The other reasons are 1. The demand in this area is absolutely outstanding, we have several homes sold that we haven’t even started to rehab yet. We just show them the end product and they buy from us, even though the park down the street is giving homes away for $2,000. Yes, even “trailer park people” can recognize and appreciate value vs price. 2. It’s Florida, finding opportunities like this isn’t every day, although I’m 4 for 4 in buying low and doubling my money down here, it CAN be done. The other properties were duplexes and condos.

When people complain about our price being 4X the parks just a couple of blocks away, we tell them fine, go down there and check it out, they come back. But we turn away most applicants, fortunately we can afford to be very choosy with the unreal demand we have.

Frank runs a very grueling schedule at the camps, but if there’s time I’d be happy to show anyone my park as well. It’s about a 50 minute drive is the only issue.

2

@Coach62 this is really great stuff, thanks for including us.

I am curious from a funding perspective how you selected to go about your turnaround. Are you using Park income to fund the turnaround and doing this slowly over time, or are you providing cash infusions from outside (or between entities) to jumpstart it?

This sounds like a 50-75 pad Park but can you provide some info on how many tenants you’re having to evict and homes to rehab over three years - would be helpful to provide context.

Look forward to seeing the stories come out of your turnaround, we learn a lot from your pain.

3

Both, I knew it was going to take a lot of capital so I had over $100K to jump start the process. All of the park income goes back into the park. Largely right now because it’s tax return season, and I’m pushing to get as many of them done and sold right now while people are “tax return rich”.

I have 69 homes, about 2-3 are not worth saving, and I have 5 vacant lots I plan on infilling as soon as possible.

I have 2.5 acres of undeveloped land in the back of the park, to be honest the demand is so great that I’m seriously considering developing those after “phase 1” of the turnaround is complete. It would just depend on the economics of course, and how receptive the city is to this. It’s already zoned properly.

I’d love to figure out how to reconfigure the park with the new acreage to get it up to the magical 100 lot number so I could attract new investors come time to sell.

1 Like
4

Oh, this deal is interesting, my brother - manager came up with this creative solution. He sold a handyman special that has a huge section of rotted floor / wall, but could really be a very nice home. He sold it for $6,000 with $1,000 down, but gave the buyer a $2,000 Lowes gift card to fund the rehab (actually 4 $500 gift cards given out one at a time.)

Now - we would NOT normally do this deal, but this particular tenant already lives in the park, and has been doing rehab work for us. He recently finished up rehabbing one home that turned out really nice and was sold before he was done.

The only minor downside is that now he’s not rehabbing homes for me while he fixes up his new home. So we actually will net (assuming it works out) $4,000 for a home we were considering hauling off.

But it also emphasizes just how bad previous management was, they let a water heater leak for years to cause this rot - and the park paid for water. There was at least one plumbing leak in almost every home, and the park was paying for the water.

1 Like
5

Hi Coach are you going to Orlando Jan 2017 boot camp, would like to see your park!

6

I wasn’t planning on it, but if enough people want to see my park I’d be happy to do it. I can arrange for a tour and meeting with management.

This is a true turnaround park for sure. We’ll be implementing the CASH program in the near future.

Where is the hotel where the meeting will be held? Just trying to figure drive time from the hotel to my park.