Hi all, I have a park that is nearly 100% occupied, but the trailers are all mid 80’s to early 90’s trailers. I’ve painted a few of the exteriors of some of the park owned trailers but I’d like to improve not only the aesthetics of the park, but the quality of tenants as well. It’s about 70% tenant owned but they don’t always treat their own home well. The rules I have put in place have changed a lot, the park is far cleaner, they pick up after their dogs now, etc.
I have a few open spaces that I want to infill but determining if I should go with a newer trailer (i.e using 21st/pep, etc.) to bring in a more expensive trailer, or if I should get one of those cheaper homes (mid 90’s) from facebook instead? Obviously a more expensive trailer will look nicer, but not sure if it will actually bring in better tenants if the neighboring homes are much older?
What factors do you guys consider when determining whether to “Upgrade” the year/model of homes in your park? Appreciate the advice!
We had 20+ open lots and 18+ POH in various conditions. We rehabbed the dozen 1988-2008 that could be saved. Cost were about $35sqft for high quality materials, all new roofs, hvacs, plumbing and wiring where needed. Switched all lighting to LED to reduce load on 100amp boxes, installed co2/fire 10yr sealed. We demoed the rest. We’ve been infilling with used 2016 or newer at about 1/2-2/3 new cost and 25% more than rehabs for another dozen homes. We’ve raised rents considerably as we provided more services, lawn care, pest control and vastly better homes…. The rest of them may be new if we don’t find used/repos. We have found dealers to be very friendly especially if you will accept their new “old” stock/floor plan. So a brand new but 1-2yr old inventoried home is usually priced w/out 2 yrs of inflation and the dealers are eager to get new inventory. We get brand new, usually higher quality homes at significant discount from newest price increases.
A simple Example. A 2024 lot home priced then at $75k is now $90k to order and wait 2 months may be able to be bought for $68k. We get the home 2 months earlier and maybe 20% off new.
In the end the community will have 1/4 15-20+yr old rehabbed, 1/4 6-10yr old homes, 1/4 “new” homes by end of year. We keep searching for used and repos’s but want to have a turning stock to keep various rent and cost options for a diverse Ppln of homes and people. The new homes make less than the oldest, but improve the look and tenant credit qualities.