I am looking at a park that has a stick built house in the center of the park. It’s not possible to change the property lines and sell the house. I am trying to get away from the hassles of renting stick built homes and the headaches involved. If I were to buy the park, what is the best option to do with the house? Thanks in advance.
Blake
I’ve had that same problem on a park before. I had a historically important, two-story brick farmhouse circa 1890 in the middle of a park in Denton, Texas. I had a professor at NTU that wanted to buy it, despite the fact that it was in the middle of the park. We devised a strategy of how to sub-divide the property and give him his own entry, but it looked liked a pencil of land coming in from the street and then reaching the house. The city shot it down immediately, saying that it was too awkward. So here I was, stuck with a decent house in the middle of a nasty park. My first idea was to list it with an outside single-family management company, since I don’t deal in stick-built homes. They were unable to rent it because everyone was turned off by the fact that it was in the middle of a mobile home park. So I took it back and put a for rent sign in the yard and the mobile home park tenants started calling me, wanting to upgrade from their mobile home to the house. So I ended up renting it to a mobile home-quality resident, who did the usual damage and reduced the home to an affordable housing dwelling. And it only rented for $200 per month more than a regular mobile home.
In retrospect, I would have been better off taking the home and putting my manager in it, and having the home as a significant part of their compensation. That’s what we now do with fancy homes that are stuck inside our parks – we make those the manager’s mansion, and we get better quality managers with lower cash salaries as a result. In a couple parks, the home is the big driver to the manager wanting the job.
So if you can trim it off and sell it, make it the manager’s home and get your value in that manner.