At what point does it financially make sense to have an off-site manager in addition to one of the tenants acting as manager and just giving them free lot rent and a few extra $$?
At what size park would hat be necessary?
What do you mean by off-site manager? Do you mean a regional manager that would be responsible for managing the managers of several parks? Or an offsite manager for a single park where there is already an onsite manager? If it’s the latter, you should not need two managers for a single park if either manager is any good.
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Hey, thanks for the quick reply, I did mean the latter, how much would be an accepted amount to pay a manager for that size park regardless of whether they live on or off?
That would depend on the number of homes. How many are there?
Factors to consider…
Maintenance… water leaks, sewer repair, park owned homes?
Rentals… are homes tenant owned or are the park owned, which equates to more issues.
The possibilities are endless, and it depends on the property and your business model. If you have one park, I see no reason for outside management except for some administrative tasks done by the owner.
For multiple park owners and corporate owners you may want to reduce your park manager role in certain functions (e.g. accounting) and outsource that to your back office. However, you need scale to do that. You would not want to have a 20 unit park with an onsite manager and an offsite manager. Generally, you personally would be the offsite person.
2 of our properties have under 50 units and we have decided to not have an onsite manager. We pay attendant about $100 per month at each property to look over things plus a bonus for a home sale. The management is conducted by other managers within one hour drive or by our corporate office.
As far as hiring managers in general, I have found that parks with under 40 units are much harder to manage than larger parks. This is due to less budget being available to hire a manager. You have to compromise and find part-timers, who may not always be fully committed. Over 50 units, things are a bit easier. Over 100 units and you can have a manager and a maintenance person making management much easier.
Depending on local labor rates, you can determine full-time salary first, then determine if that budget fits into your particular park. For example, $12 per hour is $24,000 per year. Question to ask yourself is can your park support $24,000 for a manager?
Thank you for that very detailed response, much appreciated.
Gotcha, I guess it will be assessed as a park by park basis.
Ty