Can you please share advertisements for offer to move homes from other parks into yours. How do you phrase the ad?
Something like…“Live in a mobile home park and don’t like where you live? We will pay for 100% of moving and setup costs for qualified home owners. Call XYZ Park for more information.”
On a separate note, how much do you typically contribute? 100% of total costs? Does half the costs get tenant’s attention? What are the general rules of thumb?
Is that a road you want to go down - poaching from other community owners? What if they turn around and do it to you? Is your market that weak that this method is necessary?
Hi Ivan. Thank you for replying.
No, I definitely don’t want to go down a road that leads to “poaching” from other communities and the market were my park is located is not weak. However, an offer to pay moving costs for a prospective tenant has been previously discussed in this forum as a method of filling open lots. As any business person does, I would like to consider all options and then weigh the cost/benefit to determine whether or not it’s a viable alternative for my particular situation.
My definition of “poaching” may be different from yours. I would consider poaching to be where a park owner would target specific residents of a specific park and then try to lure them out of that park and into yours by way of offering incentives. While this method would be offering an incentive of paying moving costs to a mobile home owner to relocate from their current location, it would be an open offer to anyone that may be considering moving but may not have the finances to do anything about it. The home may be on “family” land and not in a park, but they are unhappy with their current situation. They may have an interest in moving closer to their place of employment. They may have an interest in relocating to a different school district. Homeowners move all the time due to these very same situations. Mobile home owners are not necessarily any different. They just may not have the financial resources to do anything about.
But you are absolutely correct. I would not want surrounding park owners to view this as poaching. That is why I posted this topic. To gain insight and opinions from others. And I certainly appreciate yours.
I would like feedback from any park owner that has used this method and whether or not they thought it was beneficial, or detrimental. How they phrased their offer. Did they feature the offer on Craigslist, or in a local paper? Did they receive pushback from surrounding park owners?