How Many Bedrooms Per Mobile Home?

I’m looking into the finances of buying an older park with 60% vacancy. Looking towards re-populating the park with new homes under the CASH program, is it better to focus on 2 or 3 bedroom new homes? Any advise from seasoned owners? Which is easier to sell?

-Charlene

I’m going to bet most people are going to want to know considerable more information before trying to help with an answer. Try some of these questions:

  • Are you planning a senior community?
  • What size homes will the lots take?
  • What is the market area like?
  • What is the school system like?

Here is an example answer that might not be correct for your situation:

I have a community with shorter lots but wider spaces in a commuting area with lots of retail and other lower paying jobs. Maybe I want to market to older singles who work at a higher level retail job or in a higher level clerical position, because I can market the stability and safety of the neighborhood. Then I am going to want a two bedroom maximum and maybe with a front porch.

We actually did this one except with one bedrooms in a 16’x50 aimed and marketed to older singles with incomes under 30K and took an almost empty 70 site park with a lot of junk in it down to a 50 site park that was full and full (economic occupancy) a year later when we sold it.

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Ken is right about judging your market (seniors want smaller homes), and, of course, you need to be mindful of what size home your lots can take.

That said, we bring in the largest homes our lots can accommodate. (We do not yet own any seniors parks.) We are especially happy when we can bring in 4BR homes. Families that large have very few other options other than MHs (e.g. there are basically no 4BR apartments for rent, so their only other option is to save up to buy a site-built 4BR home). We typically get 25%+ more for a 4BR home than a 3BR home of similar size. Getting a new home configured as a 4BR won’t cost but 2% more, and you can RTO it for 25% more money. Indeed with the CASH program you are not receiving the income stream from the home, but larger families, in our experience, tend to stay much longer and actually do less damage. And you do have to back-stop any defaulted payments in the CASH program. So why not serve the niche that needs affordable housing the most, and have less headache/surprises when you have to take a home back from CASH?

Best,

-jl-

@charlene, as per your question:
"…is it better to focus on 2 or 3 bedroom new homes?"

My Husband and I own 2 Mobile Home Parks.

We actually have large lots in both Mobile Home Parks (we could and do have some Double Wides). Thus, Lot Space is not an issue for us.

For our Business Model we focus specifically on Single Wide Homes (even though we could fit Double Wides).

Currently, we are renting these MHs. In the future we hope to sell them.

In our one MHP we have all 3 Bedroom / 2 Bathroom Single Wide Homes. These MHs have worked well. They rent well and we have a good number of Tenants (not too many) in each one. This MHP has water individually billed to the Tenant from the Utility Company.

In our other MHP we actually have a mix of older 2 Bedroom / 1.5 Bath, newer 2 Bedroom / 1 Bath and newer 3 Bedroom / 2 Bath.

We ‘inherited’ the older 2 Bedrooms / 1.5 Bath in the Sale of the MHP. These have been renovated.

The newer 2 Bedrooms / 1 Bath was a screaming deal that just needed a little TLC.

The newer, 3 Bedrooms / 2 Baths were good deals.

We thought for certain we would get the best Tenants and best bang for our buck with the newer, 3 Bedrooms / 2 Baths MHs.

For this particular MHP we found that the 2 Bedrooms rented better for us. Now granted they were less expensive in terms of rent.

The 3 Bedrooms / 2 Baths Potential MH Tenants wanted to put everyone and their brother in the MH.

For our Lot Rent only we submeter the water.

However, for the Rentals we just roll the water into the Rent. Thus, the more Tenants in a MH the higher the water bill and the lower our profit.

We eventually found wonderful Tenants for our 3 Bedrooms / 2 Baths (one family with children and the other two singles).

However, we found that we did better with the 2 Bedrooms.

We did have the opportunity to purchase a 1 Bedroom / 1 Bath MH for a great deal. We really thought hard about it, but in the end we decided that even single Tenants would desire to have a guest room or office. Thus, we passed on the deal.

We wish you the very best!

We are exclusively two bed room and find we get excellent quality middle age singles and older singles or couples. Three bed rooms will attract young families which we do not want. In our opinion families have less money and have less time and interest in maintaining the exterior of the home.
Singles and older couples live in the community by choice where as your typical young family lives there due to no other option. They are not on a path to move up by purchasing a deprecating liability.

Good thought Greg.

Has to be 20 characters, this is silly

THanks SOO much for all the good advise.

It is not a senior park, and can only take (now) single wide homes, and the city market has Single family homes average at 109K, but the metro area has average of 36K. Biggest employers are 1) GM plant 2)Big hospital #1 and 3)big hospital #2.

I really appreciate all your help!

Charlene