I have searched the forum for information on this but the search function will not let me go back very far. Looking at the course I can’t quickly find anything pertaining exactly to electric, just utilities in general. I did see a post that someone mentioned to search for posts made by Frank regarding this topic, but could not find it.
Well, master metered electric is in short, a pain. You must rethink your allotment for cap x improvements, and make adjustments in your CAP rate as this kind of park will not cap out as low as a park without the private utilities. I re-powered a 40 space park a few years back and it cost me about $1,500 per space, and I was a blend of overhead power to each meter bank (4 homes) and underground form the meter banks tot he homes. I only had to put down 3 primary utility poles and buy 2 transformers. The more private utility’s you operate the farther the more cap value you bleed, and the more brain damage you will incur in operating the community. I would say private electric for me- this is me- would take a 10 CAP park to a 11.5 or 12 if it was in pretty good shape. If the power was all underground, and all 60 or 100 amp- I would really have to look at the deal at any CAP. Now some of this will be driven by location. If I was in Texas, I would know the homes I am pulling in are probably 200 amp homes, and I would need a pretty deep price discount to do the deal. If the park was a mid west park with limited restrictions, and I could get away with older homes that only needed the 100 amps that were already provided, that is much better. In short- be very, very careful. Have someone helping with your due diligence that really understands volts, amps and load calculations. Engage the power company, city inspector, a few electric contractors and maybe even the state mobile home park inspectors. All might have differing rules on how power is pulled, so while one might allow overhead power, another might not. One final word… the ‘city code’ is not always reliable as ‘fact’. Inspectors use the code as a guideline, but they can make ‘life safety’ calls as well. So the code might say overhead power is ok, but the city might say ‘that much’ overhead is not ok… so you need to know what the code says, and what the inspectors will allow… so… if a inspector changes- so might the allowable parts of the project. We have been caught in this a few times and there is very little you can do… be careful… very careful…