I live in North Idaho, and I own, and manage a large park in Georgia. I need to find a trustworthy, hard working, and knowlegable man to work as a maintenance man/ managerial assiastant in my park. Aside from putting an ad in the paper, and traveling down there to do interviews I do not have any idea how I might get it done. I am in the business of making my life simple, does anybody have any helpfull ideas?
You might contemplate this idea for your large park in Georgia. My standard business plan for a MHP out-of-state is to find someone who understands this business, especially selling mobile homes on terms and partner with them. This person (the entrepreneur) must live relatively close to the park and is required to put some money into the deal.
If you find chose the right person, your park will be a truly passive investment. The entrepreneur will take care of operations, maintenance issues and everything else involved with day-to-day operations.
Something to think about.
Having a large asset and leaving it’s operation to an on-site manager is often fatal in this business. I’ve talked to many motivated sellers who got that way due to this very situation.
Steve
We have found most of our maintenance guys from people that the manager knows or a park resident. I have found that maintenance guys either over promise or like to “milk the clock”. In our latest acquisition in Texas, we found a guy that was working for a rehab company. We offered him 10 hours a week at $8/hr (general maintenance, water leaks, etc.) and then a flat rate for each of the homes to be rahabbed. I walked through each home and we determined together how many days it would take to complete. The average was 4-5 days. We paid supplies and paid him upon completion of the home. The story gets even better as he purchased a home from us that we bought for $2,500 and sold to him for $7,000 (needed work… handyman special). He has already completed 4 homes which has paid for his down payment and first couple month’s of rent.
Maintenance guys are hit or miss. At one park in San Angelo the rehab crew from day one has been great. The other two parks we have gone through about 5-10 maintenance/rehab guys until we found the solid crew that we have today.