Parks that have both Mobiles & RV's

Hello all

This is my first post. I have been following the forum for about 6 months and am looking at several deals hoping to buy my 1st park soon. I noticed that a good percentage of the parks for sale have both mobiles & RV’s. I agree with the concept of being in the lot rental only business and I have several questions, looking for any guidance you can offer. I apologize for the extent of the questions, but I am a little at a loss how to handle the RV part.

1 Can you sell off the RV part…I mean would most cities even allow that.

2 How do banks value parks that have Mobile Homes & RV’s and are they harder to finance than a strickly mobile park

3 Similarly, are they harder to sell than a strickly Mobile Home park

4 What are the various ways you can handle it, such as: combining 2 smaller RV pads for 1 Mobile Home, OR buying RV’s & selling them on a lease-option similar to the way to fill vacant mobile lots.

5 If I decided to sell RV’s and wanted to set them up permanently, what differences in the utilities are there from mobiles

6 I’m curious, how many of you would continue to operate the RV rentals if it was profitable, or if its just too big a pain

Thanks so much for you help & advice

This is a hard question to answer, as every park is different. However, here are some things that we know for sure:

  1. Nobody likes RV as much as MH, not appraisers, lenders, buyers or operators. The fact that they can freely leave without the $3,000 hurdle to move the home is a total turn-off, and takes away one of the key reasons why people like parks. As a result, RV numbers must be packed with fluff and vacancy, and even then have a higher cap rate applied.

  2. RV lots are always smaller than MH, so you will lose multiple RV for every one MH (if you can fit an MH at all, based on topography).

  3. RV lots require lower amounts of electric than MH, so you will have to upgrade the power to put MH in an RV lot. However, a permanent RV requires no different utility set-ups than an overnighter RV.

A particular city might allow you subdivide the RV park from the MH – but is your RV park large enough to work as a stand-alone (have its own manager, etc.). Most MH parks that have RV only have maybe 10 to 20 RV lots, which is not really enough to have an RV operation by itself.

The RV industry is always changing, Right now, with gas prices high, the RV parks that work are called “destination” parks. These offer huge amenities and are near a major attraction (think Yellowstone, etc.). Most MH parks are merely overnighter RV (a place you stop on the way to a destination) and since RVers are driving less, this type of RV use is waning.