Jin,
I own parks in 4 states. Off the bat, if your not a rockstar in any aspect of this field, find one to help you. I tell people you make your money when you purchase the park, and realize the gain when you sell. So be darn sure if your making a mistake, it is not on the front end of the transaction. So the good new is- there are solutions to every problem- you just have to dig a bit to find them. Off the bat, there are few real estate agents I would use to do my due diligence, actually… none. No offence intended, I just like to do my own dirty work. With that out of the way there are several people I would trust to be the primary set of eyes on a deal. You really have several parts to a deal, and if you come up short on any of them- find a workable solution to team yourself with people in the know.
So first you identify a property, you might find like minded people to you, and ask where they look for properties and why. Once you have found a property, you need to put it under contract. If your not strong in writing and presenting contracts, and then working through the objections, find someone that is. Here is where you begin to look for options. Partners, mentors, consultants etc… Any weak spots going forward, make sure your putting people that teach you on your team. Along with this, comes off site due diligence. If you do not know what to look for, or how to do it- partner, mentor, consultant. These are really critical steps. You might be looking for several people, and maybe one or two to go through these steps. Now you need an onsite visit- again, if you do not understand in infrastructural parts of a park, electric, water, sewer, gas, roads etc- find someone that gets it. Do the walk with them, have them teach you what they see, why it might be a problem and what kinds of issues these things pose in the future. They might drive other local parks with you to assess differences. This onsite visit will be your blueprint for taking any issues to the seller, and will also be your guide for building your operations manual and knowing the skill sets you need as an owner, and your managers will need onsite to operate the park. Now our back to the contact if there are issues to get out of the deal, or ask for modifications in the terms. After this your heading to closing- and now comes the operations. Again, you might be looking for that partner, consultant or mentor to guide you through this process.
In my days of speaking at Dave and Franks bootcamps, this is where I see most people glaze over. I can not emphasize enough, this is the easy part of the whole deal. If you did all of the other steps right- operating across time state or across the country will be a walk in the park. There are great systems that we are all using, tweaking and exploring that make it a snap to manage from afar.
So I advise- your seeking a mentor, consultant or partner. Make it someone that walks the walk. A park owner, if your operating out of state, someone that has out of state parks. If they are not bringing real knowledge, skill and insight to the process- find other people. Your deal might have a few of these people, you might have money partners and operational partners. If you are comfortable operating the property, you might just hire a consultant to get you into the property. You can always hire someone to help if the wheels come off down the road as well.
Good luck to you…