Hey Everyone!!My wife and I really appreciate this forum as well as the University Course. Thanks so much!We live in the ‘sexy’ state of Montana where a decent cap on a park is 8We are interested in a Retirement Mobile Home Court.*Question: would you guys be willing to buy at a lower cap for a Retirement Court? Are they less headache?Thank-You!
No. They are easier on collections, but the customers are much “higher maintenance” and it’s harder to raise rents. The ideal is a family park that has a diverse mixture of ages – that’s always the safe bet.
Dear norgv, I would be glad to show you the difference even mentor if wanted about the value of two or three outstanding properties owner-operated vr owner- management As an owner of retirement-leisure properties we have RAISED our rents every year for the past ten years (even 2007 and 2008) and WILL continue to raise rents as per CPI and cost of operations. The (CUSTOMERS) residents are not HIGH maintenance and after selling my last family park never again will own one unless the bank wants to dump one on me. Send me a note on my in box and I will tell you about retirement parks for sale that will put a smile on your face and checkbook. My system is almost 180 degrees different than Frank but he has Many investors to dealt with and I will not cast stones on his success and the ONLY investor I deal with is my WIFE.
ngrov -If real estate is ‘sexy’ where you are, then buy somewhere else. Attend the Bootcamp; you’ll then have the knowledge and connections to manage from afar. You can find a MHP in TX, OK, NE, AR, OH, etc. at a 10% cap rate with upside to 14%+, and keep living in MT.My 2 cents worth,-jl-
Well fellas…I have been reading the written conversations between all of you for quite a number of months now. Trying to decide if I and our association members should attend a Bootcamp to expand our knowledge of ownership regarding manufactured home parks. From my extensive reading I have found members educators, community owners and wanna-bee owners to be extremely biased, short tempered, name calling bullies who behave like little men participating in a verbal war with one another. I believe that witnessing how all of your behaviors have been, I will not recommend the Bootcamp or wasting any time with this group of extremely immature people.
Good Day…
Well fellas…the former comment was from Carl’s partner. Not actually Carl!
I’m not sure what forum you’re talking about, but our forum has none of the behaviors mentioned, and is considered the most unbiased and respectful one in existence. If you think otherwise, then don’t go onto it anymore. But don’t go making ridiculous assertions about the people who post their thoughts here. I know most of the people who are frequent visitors, and they are the best people I know on the planet. If you think I take any insults to my peers who post here personally, well I do.
I’m getting a little annoyed that I have to continuously remind people this forum is for LEARNING. Everyone has their own opinion, and are entitled to that. We appreciate having people from all walks of the industry to help us fill in the blanks. That being said when someone posts a question, lets not hijack the post and bash others on the forum. If the forum is not to your liking you can always remove yourself, no one is being forced to reply (except maybe Frank) but he enjoys it. Thank you all for contributing but please keep it positive and not bash anyone! It’s not high school! Thank you!Kirsten
I have what is essentially a retirement community and find it to be the easiest and most pleasurable property I have ever managed in 30 years of owning income properties.
I agree 100% Greg but our opinions are somewhat dismissed since our properties make up less than 5% of the market and we are the owner-operator types that like residents not customers and never need to attend boot camp.
Carl,First of all, I don’t know where you get the idea that we do not like our tenants, or that you like yours any more than we do. Do you hang out with them and send them gifts? Because if all you’re doing is keeping the common areas and vacant lots mowed, the utilities flowing and the roads free of potholes, then you’re doing nothing more than any other operator. As far as going to Boot Camp, you obviously feel that you are the greatest operator on earth and have nothing to learn. But for the sake of transparency, since we are all on this forum to learn, could you please tell us where your park is so we can look at it on Google Street View and see what the perfect park looks like? I have to admit I’m as curious as anyone. Take a look at this park we own in Bloomington, Illinois, called Prairie Place. The address is 3706 Daffodil Drive, Bloomington, Illinois. Here’s the link:Google Maps all doublewides with detached garages, and is considered one of the nicest mobile home parks south of Chicago. You see, we still consider this park to be “affordable housing” because the mobile homes sell for $60,000 while the similar stick-builts up the street sell for $120,000.Does yours beat this one? I’m not even counting the fact that we bought this park for a penny on the dollar.Either put up or shut up with the boasts about your community. There’s no way that your park is anywhere near as nice as probably half of our portfolio of 104 parks.
Frank, your Prairie Place is an exceptionally nice ‘Affordable Housing’ Community. Thank you for sharing the link!A Big ‘Thank You’ to Frank and everyone on the Forum who offer their help, encouragement, experience and advice!Learning from others is a great thing. We all have different amounts of knowledge and experience, so it is a blessing when others are able to share with each other.My Husband and I are firm believers that each and every day we can learn new things. It does not matter how old we are or how many experiences we have been through…Learning is a daily/hourly experience.
Wow!!! After joining this forum I came here to maybe learn and look into possibly go to the Bootcamp, But after reading some of the groups writings Frank seams to have a very short Fuse when it comes to Owner Operators, To someone asking a very direct question that he won’t Answer. Yes I’am one of the 5%ers ( Owner Operaters ) that take Value in our tenants, Yes we visit from time to time , just the other day helped one our tenants sell their Motorhome, we also enjoy having a cookout a couple times a year and the whole parks invited, what a wonderful way to know what’s going on in your park. Absentee Owners will never experince that, That what friendship is all about. Now that you Frank has 104 Parks , How many if any you Own Yourself or are they all Owned by you and a Group of Investers?? Just Wondering if you have ever experienced what i have as a Sole Owner Operater, Think you might needa Cold Shower and quit slamming us Owner Operaters.
If you think that having an all-park cookout a couple times a year and being personally involved with your tenants is a smart idea, then you definitely have some unique ideas on being a mobile home park owner/manager. Although you will never admit it you DEFINITELY need the Boot Camp worse than anyone else on this forum – we condemn getting personal with the tenants on day one, and give at least 10 solid examples of why that’s the worst way to operate a park. My office was in one of the mobile home parks I owned for ten straight years, so I’m not sure how you can get more “hands-on” than that, and the #1 thing I learned in that decade was that spending that much time with your tenants is a terrible idea and reduces your profitability and efficiency substantially. Absentee ownership is by far the superior system, and that’s why all institutional-grade investors – from ELS on down – use that system exclusively. We buy parks from people who use your management system all the time. It’s one of our favorites. Getting rid of the systems you’re describing is one of our best ways to immediately boost net income. If you want to spend the time and money to make the tenants your personal friends, then that’s your option. But most people are on this forum to make money and not friends.
Frank, I think you kinda missed what i was saying about the cookouts its not for us to get to know our tenants, its for all the tenants to know who their neighbors are. We screen all of our tenants with Back Ground Checks, We don’t get personaly involved with our tenants, we don’t go to lunch with them or hang out with them, or party with them as you emply, Things are alot different when you are a Owner Operator veres Absentee Owners we know our tenants by Name when we see them around the park instead of knowing them by a Lot #, The best part of it is we place more Value on all of our tenants, and they all pay on time. We are able to raise our rates every year without a problem . I’am sure we don’t have the turn over in our parks as you do in yours
OK, now you’ve lost me. So you’re saying that personally knowing the names of your tenants makes them pay better or accept rent raises with a smile? That’s ridiculous. When they don’t pay, you evict them, and when you raise the rent you send a letter to the name in Rent Manager. Memorizing names is a complete waste of time and is of no financial value at all.At this point, I think you’re stretching to come up with your magic management wisdom, and I also suspect that “dctrader” and “carl” are the same person, as your posts read almost identically.As I suggested in an earlier post – whether you’re “carl” or “dctrader” – that you please give us the address of your park so we could see how great a park looks when you know the names of your tenants personally. I gave you the address to one of mine, now give us the address to yours. I live in Missouri – the “show me” state. Enough with the talking, show me your park.
In Franks World its his way or the Hiway, Because he’s selling CD’s and Books and a Boot Camp, There are other opinions other than your magicial manangement wisdom that might differ from your teaching and Boot Camp, which i’am sure it is great information for first time buyers and people wanting to invest in MHP’s . What ever you might think dctrader and Carl are two different people that believe Owner Operator should also have a space on this forum, You show bias toward owners with your comments to Put up or Shut up, and then brag about buying this park in Bloominton Ill. for pennies on the Dollar, Not very professional, You need to lighten up and give us owners a opportunity to share in this forum, when we ask questions of you about different things you never answer, we just want to give our opinion and be in the converstion, Please Drop the Liberal Bullyness
“Carl” and “DCTrader”.We could go on with this ridiculous argument forever, and I don’t know what the point of it is. I could care less what you think, except that you want to continually insult me, other participants in this forum. or my parks in every post you make. So, while I don’t normally get this tough on people on the forum, I’ll make an exception with you.Some basic research shows me that both “Carl” and “DCTrader” are from the same small town in Oklahoma. I assume that you are the same person, business partners, or that one of you is a tenant in your park. I also looked up your park. I will not post the link here to your website (although it’s not hard for anyone to find) or the Googlemaps locator (although that’s not hard either) but let’s both admit your park is anything but of the quality in appearance that you claim on this forum. In fact, in my opinion, it looks more like a rustic country RV park than a mobile home park. I assume that’s why you will not post the name and address of your park for everyone to see. I understand, because I would be embarrassed to do so myself. So what do I think is at the heart of your continual nasty posts? I think the following is an accurate portrayal:1) Your park is in the middle of nowhere. Dave and I believe that a successful park investment requires a great location with a substantial population base and a diverse economy.2) Your park is on well and septic, which Dave and I both educate people on as the inferior water/sewer system for any park. Parks with well and septic are never valued as high as city water and sewer, nor do they qualify for most of the attractive loan products. The only thing that can offset the negative of well and septic is a terrific location, which your park clearly does not have, in my opinion.3) Your park appears to be mostly RV. We value RV lots at nearly zero, as do our lenders. We only use mobile home park lots in our calculations.Based on these three points, everything that we post on this forum makes you mad as a hornet, because it’s a complete affront to your park and to the value of your investment. For all I know, you may be trying to sell your park right now, and you believe that this forum and the Boot Camp and everything we say and write is killing the chance of finding someone dumb enough to believe your three maxims above. I don’t blame you. If I had a rusted Yugo for sale, I would cringe every time the Yugo made the list of worst 10 cars ever made, or when I see articles that talk about how rust devalues a used car. But here’s the fact “Carl”, “DCTrader” or whoever you are: we will never, ever change our position on these facts about mobile home parks because they are the truth – and your harping on these negatives as being OK is not convincing ANYONE. Your whole plan to sway public opinion on location, septic and RVs is pointless and you are just wasting your time repetitively posting these things on this forum. You’ve said your piece, nobody is listening, and you need to give up. As far as it being “my way or the highway”, you will note that I have been a moderator on this forum since the day it began, and I have never treated anyone on this forum with less than 100% respect until you came along. And I’m not alone, as every time you post, I get emails from people who want us to remove you from the forum. I have held off on doing that because, to date, we have never blocked anyone from posting. But if you continue to abuse the forum, we might change our mind. I’m fairly certain that you’ll now post under different assumed names, but we’ll all know it’s you, and we’ll all know what you appear to be up to.
Well said Frank! I think it’s also important to note, and has been said before, nobody is trying to tell “owner operators” that they are running their business wrong. It’s all a personal choice. And as said before, the negativity comes in when these said operators try to tear other people down.
There is no harm in sharing opinions as most of us would love to hear experiences from both business practices. But stating opinions and being outright rude and nasty are different.
I will probably be once again called a minion haha but as a “wannabe” park owner (I believe that was not one of our moderators that was name calling) it’s very frustrating to come on the board for knowledge and see the less than pleasant comments from Carl and DC etc. You guys can run your business your way, you can even contribute to the conversations without putting people down. That would be much more constructive.
As much as i love me a cup o drama on occasion, I do hope this is the end of all of this and that Carl and DC can get back to giving opinions constructively and pleasantly so we can get back to helping one another and sharing experiences.