How can I very without knocking on doors the true occupancy of an REO Property.
Bank has just taken over the property and does not have an accurate rent roll.
REO properties are normally under-priced, which allows for some room for error on occupancy and other items. You can count how many homes are in the park. You should hopefully have a rough idea of what the lot rent is in the market. You’re going to jack the rents to the market rate probably within 60 days of closing. Nobody can afford to move their home. So what’s really going to happen is that some of the folks in those trailers are going to bail out when you let it be known that they really have to pay rent every month – but there’s no way you can predict which ones or how many. But you know that you can fill every home if you need to (hopefully because you did a test ad and know that there’s 5 calls a day for people wanting to rent or buy homes there). So you need to count up how many usable homes (not burned ones, etc.) that occupy lots, and that’s going to be your occupancy one way or another. Of course, you’ll have to put money into those homes to get them occupied, so make sure to put some padding in for those repairs.
Drive the park at night - around 7 p.m. Everyone is home from work at that hour and watching TV or preparing dinner. At night, it is easy to see which homes have lights on (and motion inside). Count the number of homes with cars infront of them, and/or trash cans infront of them, and/or lights on inside. Homes with any of those 3 ‘signs of life’ are most likely occupied.
Whether they are paying rent or not is another matter… But if you enforce strict ‘no pay, no stay’ almost all of them will pay - especially in nicer parks (e.g. the ones with $250+ lot rents).
But be a good landlord to encourage their paying. You need to mow the lawns, take care of safety issues, etc.
To your continued success,
-jl-