I’ve been talking with a broker in Maine with some mobile home parks for sale. Two of these parks were about 50 miles from Bangor, but when I looked at the population numbers I’m a bit confused on how to proceed. The town these two parks are in has a population with just over 4000 people. The next town over has 3000 people. Bangor’s population is 33,000. Portland is the largest city in Maine at 66,000.
And yet, people live in these parks. I’ll do a test ad, but honestly, states with low population… Thoughts?
We recently ran a test ad in a no metro area. The park was in the county seat which contained roughly 7,000 people. County had about 22,000 people in it. The ad pulled roughly 3-4 calls per day. More than enough to establish there was decent demand. Run your ad, it may surprise you.
What you need to get a handle on is the diversity of employment and stability. Bangor also has some pockets of high unemployment so you need to check that as well. Bangor metro is large enough to feel comfortable, but you need to know the town within the metro is solid too.
CharlesD you made a very valid point about employment, all of us should remember to check the ripple effect of layoffs, and dismissals. I have been following the coal story and one county in WV which has no mines, does have a lot of smaller companies that supply goods and services to the mines. County mgmt is expecting a major unemployment hit from the coal regulations.
Yeah, I had to pass on a park deal that had a lot going for it, mainly because no matter how or where I ran a test ad there was just NO response. I mean like 1 a week.
Then I found out that the seller literally could not give away POH’s. I saw his CL ad for handyman specials that weren’t in very bad condition. The ad said free homes and he still go no response.
That’s a deal to run from. It’s still on the website here for sale.
So far, in the last 4 days, I’ve gotten 13 calls/ emails regarding my test ad. Now for my lack of memory, I feel this was in the Bootcamp course, but I had a bit of surgery yesterday and I’m fuzzy - What are considered are considered good numbers on test ad call/email results?
Personally, I’d consider 10 calls per week acceptable. If you figure 3 calls for a showing and 3 showings for a sale, then 10 calls per week is a sale per week, which is fine in my model.
You’re going to have move-outs, but at 1 move-in per week you can probably increase occupancy by one or two lots on net, per month, which is what I would be looking for.