Fed raised interest rates 2% overnight! - What does this mean for MHPs ?!?!

Ok , just needed to get one April Fools out of the way and sorry if it gave anyone a panic attack :slight_smile:

Back to your regularly scheduled programming :slight_smile:

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I can’t believe I fell for this but I did. Well played sir.

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And yes - you did actually cause my heart rate to shoot up for a moment.

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This is no April fools. The Fed Rate could be 2% in 2-4 years. It is worth exploring how a Fed Rate increase to 2% would affect MHP investing. The CAP rate in MHP parks is an increment over the Fed Rate. Current CAP rates are 8-10. If the Fed Rate increased to 2% the CAP rates would likely increase to 9-11 or more. Lending rates will likewise increase. Rates are around 5% now. It is likely that if the Fed rate is 2% lending rates will increase to 6-7%. If one creates a hypothetical mobile home park and runs the numbers one finds that Cash on Cash returns will drop by about 2%. Furthermore if one buys now at a 8 CAP but has to refinance or sell at a 9 CAP there is a built in loss on the appraised value. IRR goes down about 2%. If everything else is equal you want to buy at a high CAP and sell at a low CAP.

The good news is stick built homes will be more unaffordable which will be good for MHPs.

Frank always advocates that . People usually say 10 caps for parks but technically its (x% spread on top of your financing cost) . so in theory as caps rise, values drop and future purchase prices can decrease if rents and expenses are stagnant. There is a good chance that rents may rise (depending on market, cpi, economics, inflation etc) and the goal is try and find a park with operational efficiencies. So while there is a risk of value reduction, you are hopefully improving the properties value.

Ideally you want to buy at a high cap and sell at a low cap but timing is not an exact science so you want to control the things you can and recognize what variables are out of your reach. The big risk is when buying on skinny spreads with minimal value adds and locking into short term financing . I would be very cautious about this strategy if you feel that rates are to increase at some point in the near future. You may want to asses current debt and see if it is prudent to lock into desirable , low rate , longer term financing .