Looking at a park in area with some ups and some downs. It had 75 lots but 25 of them have been closed. Of the 50 left there are 20 homes. All TOHs with $300pm lot rent. Park is on city Water but master metered with private septic system. The system was built to accommodate 75 spaces so with only 20 being used is way under capacity. Park is on 14 acres with a 3/2 single family home in front as well. Town pop around 5k but 35k in the county and 15 minutes from Elkhart so jobs not to far. Drain lines are still terracotta for the most part but there are 2 guys onsite that when there is a problem the fix. Property is 40 minutes from my house and I own aplumbing company so could possibly start changing over to PVC. The guys that help out get Lot rent so of the 20, 18 are at 300=64,800 a year gross rent. Asking 200k???
Don’t know the area at all, looks like this will come down to the test ad. I’d look to submeter water right away. Also fits well with your plumbing skill set, will save a lot on upgrades. Could be a real cash cow for you if you can get those spaces filled.
Why were 25 of them closed? And what does closing a site consist of? How old is the septic system?
The property was passed from original owner…who fell ill…to his brother…who didn’t know what he was doing…to that guys daughter over about 20 years. At its prime it had all lots filled and did very well but it slowly degraded as ownerships changed. By the time daughter got it a lot of homes were beyond repair so she removed them and their gas/electric pedestals. With the intention of giving current tenents room she did not plan to refill those 25. She had to get rid of many bad tenents that her father let in and by the time the dust settled she had 20 homes left. There was $100k worth of work done on septic in the 90s but she isn’t sure what that work entailed since it was her aunts then. I know there are 8” terra-cotta mains running from first section to the second. But the vent risers from the lower septic tank and the field are schedule 40 PVC. Like I said above it was sized for 75 homes so not getting used all that much and also her water bill is $400 a month for those 20 homes, so not much water being used either. Not a huge population in area but rents are solid and not likely I’d be able to find 30 homes to bring in all that quickly anyway but it’s a 16 cap at $200k so trying to gauge pros vs. cons
It sounds like a good deal, especially for a local plumber! Get it under contract for $200k if you can and then you can dig deeper.
Filling lots of very time consuming, that will be the management headache for this park. It shouldn’t take two guys to manage twenty lots and 13 acres but if all you have to pay is $300/mo and they are happy to work together it might not be a bad situation. If there aren’t any major issues with the park and the clay pipes are in decent shape, this is a win.
I built a few tiny homes on wheels, just for fun… during my research phase, I came across the practice of using composting WC’s… ! Certainly at first glance I didn’t have a favorable reaction , however upon further investigation and many 1st hand reports I have changed my viewpoint to being open to using them. I wonder if there may be an opportunity for you to see if this could work into your Park’s need?..WC’s swapped-out for composting ones and all other grey water-waste into some sort of minimal treatment/ leaching tank?
Have any Park owners out there know if this could work ??? acceptable to MH tenants?, acceptable to local Health Dept.?.. just an idea that may prove useful to others with similar sewer dilemmas.
Eric
At this point all homes owned by tenents but may have some POHs in near future and may consider if system starts to be overworked. Currently working on seller carry situation…she hadn’t thought about it but now is leaning in that direction. Also lining up homes to start moving in…post DD of course
You may have a unique opportunity there. I’ve deal with a similar situation. Among other things, I moved a home to the park as part of my DD. A different approach, but it helped me answer a lot of questions. Would be happy to share what I know. Message sent.