Mobile Home Park Mastery

If you talk to mobile home park owners about the best parts of property ownership, most will tell you that it gives them a very high-quality lifestyle. But what does that mean? In this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we’re going to review the top benefits of owning mobile home parks from a quality of life perspective. You’ll see that it’s not all about the money, but something much more that comes with the job.

January single-wide sales of new mobile homes are down 7.5% from last year – and park owners could care less. In this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we’re going to review why there is no correlation between mobile home manufacturing and mobile home park performance. While many Americans believe that mobile home retail is where the money is, that couldn’t be farther from the truth and the future of both segments could not be more divergent.

Warren Buffett has long championed the concept that all great business models share one big attribute: a “moat”. This “moat” protects that business from competition and from other damaging risks to profitability. Mobile home parks have long held the position of having one of the largest “moats” in the United States, and it just keeps getting wider and deeper, to the chagrin of many who find it “unfair”. In this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast, we’re going to analyze why the “moat” keeps growing and why it’s the result of megatrends that nobody has the power to divert.

America is in the grips of an affordable housing shortage so large it seems impossible. But the solution is not a structural one – that’s easy – but a political one that is insurmountable. In this episode of the Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we’re going to talk about why the government is unwilling to make the tough political choices that could solve affordable housing once and for all.

We all know the media’s idea of what the “hot” markets are in America – but what about for mobile home park owners? Our list is very different and for good reasons. In this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast, we’re going to discuss the very real issue of what makes a market “hot” for mobile home parks as opposed to everything from travel to business start-ups. Maybe the problem is that only 44,000 of the 300 million+ people in the U.S. care what “hot” mobile home park market construction truly looks like.

We’ve been filling lots with good paying customers for over two decades, and there are some tricks of the trade we’ve learned along the way. In this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast, we’re going to review some of the top tips we’ve found that make gaining occupancy possible at levels you may have not yet experienced. If you want to increase your park’s revenue, then this podcast may give you some new ideas.

There are around 44,000 mobile home parks in the U.S., but their placement is not uniform. Instead of a standard 880 parks in each of 50 states, the actual range varies from 5,176 in Texas to -0- in Hawaii. But what is there to be learned from this disbursement? In this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we’re going to review the lessons learned from studying the top and bottom ten states for park supply.

Our sales were up 50% this year, and a big part of that is a strict adherence to the “Salescope” report. In this episode of the Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast, we’re going to review what this report is, why it helps get homes occupied, and how it can spotlight management flaws in your operating system. If you want to break records in occupancy, you need this report in your toolbox.

Dale is an 87-year old contractor that made affordable housing possible for nearly 70 families for the past half-century. An innovator. A visionary. A pioneer. And a hero. In this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast, we’re going to celebrate the Greatest Generation figures like Dale that built our industry from scratch and created the only form of detached, non-subsidized housing in America.

America is changing but virtually nobody is following the big news story. The winners and losers in this transition are readily apparent, but only if you cut through the fake news and wrong conclusions that protect those that the media want to coddle. We simply have become a nation devoted to creating lower-paying jobs. And this groundswell in employment change is fueling one of the biggest booms in affordable housing history.

Megatrends are seismic shifts in society that fuel strong business gains if properly anticipated and harvested. Stanford University’s bulletin has recently released a list of their projected megatrends and it creates some interesting observations on how mobile home parks are aligned with these powerful forces. Swimming against the current is never a productive concept and it’s always smart to align your business model with megatrends for maximum stability and profitability.

What are big and green and equally loved and hated by mobile home park owners? The answer, of course, are trees. On the one hand they have beneficial effects both aesthetically and scientifically, and on the other they cause clutter, danger and utility line issues. In this episode of the Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast, we’re going to analyze the good and the bad and make some hard decisions about those big, green objects.

Mobile home parks may just sit on the most valuable piece of land in any city they serve. A bold statement? Not when you understand the rarely-discussed value of holding the key to infinite zoning. In this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we’re going to explore the amazing land value and potential that virtually all mobile home parks possess and give real-life case studies to support this argument. Like a 3-D puzzle, you may be shocked to learn the reality behind this claim and the implications going forward.

Science involves distilling events down to a formula – so what is the simple formula for making money with a mobile home park? In this Mobile Home Park Master podcast we’re going to examine what the key profit drivers are and unveil some simple formulas to help you understand the potential that many properties have to deliver significant gains. Unlike calculus, this is math that you get paid for.

Economists are paid to make predictions – and they make a lot of them. Most of them are fairly off base, but when you aggregate them and take the average you start to get a better picture. In this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast, we’re going to take recent economist surveys regarding the U.S. economy and overlay those on the potential impact to mobile home park investing. Just as it’s “hard to row against the current” it’s important to try and align your mobile home park with the megatrends.

Cars have gone from steam to gas to electric. Planes have gone from propeller, to turboprop to jet. And mobile home parks have also evolved over time. In this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we’re going to review the basic evolution of the mobile home park and how it impacts investing in this sector. Beyond just history, there are significant areas of interest with the era of park construction and how your property will potentially perform as a result.

Economic upheaval. Shuttered businesses. Broken dreams. What’s the impact of what’s happening in America right now on mobile home park residents? In this episode of the Mobile home Park Mastery podcast, we’re going to look into the typical mobile home park residents and how they’re faring in one of America’s most difficult times. As you’ll see, mobile home park residents may just be the best positioned economic group in the U.S. today.

Douglas MacArthur once said “old soldiers never die, they just fade away”. But what about old mobile homes? In this episode of the Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast, we’re going to look into the definition of “old homes”, what their strengths and weaknesses are, and how to determine their future. We’re also going to review some budgeting tips when buying parks with old homes, and why some old homes should just be scrapped. MacArthur was a great General – can you be as good at honestly assessing your old home housing stock?

One of the key ways to increase the value of any mobile home park is to maximize its occupancy. Filling a vacant lot propels you from zero value to $30,000 to $100,000 of equity based on lot rent. And the only way to fill a vacant lot for most properties is for the park owner to buy the home – new or used – and bring it in themselves to then sell or rent. Because homes are capital intensive, the key driver to this activity is selecting the correct financial options to pay for these homes. In this episode of the Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast, we’re going to review the financial options for paying for homes to fill vacant lots. As you’ll see, there are a litany of possibilities in today’s markets.

I unearthed a copy of the 2015 Journal of Manufactured Housing recently and found the lead article was a debate over what the correct name is for our industry. Yes, that’s how little was going on in mobile home parks back then. In this episode of the Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we’re going to revisit the issue of what the correct name for the industry is, with some shocking conclusions. They say that “a rose by any other name would smell as sweet” but is that true for a trailer? Or is it manufactured home?

There’s nothing quite like direct mail. A successful direct mail piece has a 99% failure rate – and that’s considered a success. Do you know any other thing in life that counts 1% as a win? In this week’s Mobile Home Park Master podcast we’re going to discuss one of the greatest ways to find parks to buy: the good old-fashioned direct mail. And we’re going to review what makes them more and less effective in getting the mom and pop park owners to give you a call. If you are not using direct mail to find a park to buy, then you may be missing on a great opportunity – if you do it correctly.

Mobile home parks are one of the big beneficiaries of Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac lending. Coming out of nowhere not too long ago, “agency” debt now represents more than 50% of all new mobile home park loans in terms of total dollars. How will this lending powerhouse help reshape the industry in the years ahead, and how can you take advantage of this opportunity?

Wikipedia defines “excellence” as “the quality of being outstanding or extremely good”. All park owners aspire to excellence, but how do you really achieve it? In this episode of the Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast, we’re going to explore how you can trade-in average performance for something much more profitable. You may be setting your own limitations, and if you put more thought and effort in you can possibly hit stats that you never dreamed possible.

The Covid-19 pandemic has changed many things about the U.S. – but does that include the best places to buy mobile home parks? In this episode of the Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we’re going to examine how changes to America post-virus are impacting different parts of the nation in relation to affordable housing and other challenges. The U.S. is in a state of turmoil on many fronts, but is mobile home park geography one of them?

When a mobile home park has bad financial records or poor occupancy, it’s a pretty good guess that there are other problems lurking. In this week’s Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we’re going to examine some of the typical “skeletons in the closet” regarding poorly managed properties – including items above ground, underground, and regarding the residents. As you’ll see, there is often a chain reaction of problems in a mobile home park when bad management is evident. And you need to budget and plan for these probabilities so you don’t get taken advantage of.

We all know the trends in fashion, from the 1920’s spats to the 1960’s Nehru jacket to the 1970’s bell-bottoms. But do you know the trends in mobile home park design and what they can mean as an owner? In this week’s Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we’re going to discuss some of the most basic mobile home park design trends and what their strengths and weaknesses are. As you’ll see, mobile home park builders changed the product up considerably over the decades – and not always to the good.

In the 1982 John Naisbitt coined the term “Megatrends” to describe the major upheavals in American society that would influence the future for decades. But that was nearly 40 years ago. Since that time, many have already come and gone. So I’m going to make a new list of the megatrends that are ramping up in America and how they may impact the mobile home park as an investment vehicle. Grab your model of the Starship Enterprise because we’re going to look way into the future for direction on what

There are around 44,000 mobile home parks in the U.S., and not all of them are following the same business model. While the vast majority of park buyers and lenders are focused on the “renting land” model, there are some who engage in the “detached apartment” concept. But does that concept work? In this week’s Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast, we’re going to examine this business model and give its strengths and weaknesses, as well as moments in which it might work and settings in which it would fail. Warning: this knowledge may change your perception.

The slang term “skin in the game” is defined by Wikipedia as “one having an incurred risk (monetary or otherwise) by being involved in achieving a goal”. It was made popular by Warren Buffett, who prefers that high level officers in a company have direct money in the venture to ensure their alignment of priorities with investors. So who really has “skin in the game” regarding mobile home park investing, and who is lacking that alignment of interests with you when you write that earnest money check? In this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we’re going to explore this topic in detail, and define who is really on your team vs. those who could care less after the closing has occurred.

“Cash out” refinancing is extremely attractive to all investors, as it allows you to “recycle” your capital over and over to build a portfolio of properties. Or it also allows you to remove all risk from any certain deal and gives you cash to build a financial safety net. Whatever the goals may be, obtaining “cash out” is somewhat of an art form, and there are certain strategies required to achieve it. In this week’s Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we’re going to discuss this game plan regarding “cash out” and what the deals look like that carry that potential.

You may call your mother weekly, but that’s not the appropriate way to check in with the residents of your mobile home park. Instead, there are systems that have been developed to keep in touch but in a structured way that it best for the owner and residents alike. So what are the correct and incorrect way to stay in touch? In this episode of the Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we’re going to review how smart owners stay on top of resident contact.

To get a mobile home from Point A to Point B you have to haul it – and you need a hitch to make that possible. But what about after it arrives? In this episode of the Mobile Home Park Mastery pocast, we’re going to dig deep into the facts about these “hitches” and the best policies regarding them going forward. Until mobile homes come with engines and drivetrain, then hitches will be a fact of life for all mobile home park owners, so it’s time to discuss the topic.

When buying a mobile home park, the most important moment is the transition of the property from the old owner to you, which typically happens at the title company upon signing of a pile of documents. So what can you do to make this transition more smooth and successful. In this week’s Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we’re going to review the key items to do before and after closing to make for a happier and less stressful community ownership change.

We all associate age with wisdom, and rightfully so. Nobody knows more about any subject than those that have experienced it – particularly through many cycles. And I am forever indebted to those older mobile home park community owners who gave me words of wisdom in my early career, and still do so for new investors on a regular basis. So what is some of this old-timer wisdom? In this episode of the Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we’re going to review some of the best thoughts of experienced owners and how they relate to today’s mobile home park industry.

Back when I was an economics student at Stanford in the 1980s, the most important theory that would help on any essay was the law of supply and demand. It’s a simple concept: if you have greater supply than demand then prices go down, and greater demand than supply makes prices go up. Never in American history has this economic treatise had more meaning or more unhappy endings. In this week’s Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we’re going to discuss how supply and demand are shaping all sectors of U.S. real estate and mobile home parks in particular.

President Teddy Roosevelt was a supporter of “Big Stick” diplomacy, which he defined as having five traits. In this week’s episode of the Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we’re going to review Roosevelt’s premise and apply its wisdom to your mobile home park. Although Roosevelt died in 1919 –a decade before the first “trailer” rolled off the manufacturing line – his thoughts are as true today as they were in the early 20th century.

Risk vs. Reward is a huge topic with successful mobile home park owners. In this episode we are going to review what the concept of Risk vs. Reward is, and then go over in granular detail many of the top risks to be concerned about, and what your percent of success or failure might be with that trait. While Vegas offers you riches, it rarely delivers, and mobile home parks are more of a game of skill that always rewards those that used good planning and diligence and have done their best to mitigate chance.

Despite providing a terrific housing product to thousands of Americans, we continue to hear from the media that mobile home parks are a “predatory” business model. But is this true? In this episode of the Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast, we’re going to try to put this issue to bed once and for all, breaking down what “predatory” means and then applying those definitions to the actual methodology of mobile home park ownership and management. Here’s a spoiler: the media is horrendously off-base, based on sheer ignorance, and nobody ever calls them out on it. In this podcast we will.

The television show COPS would suggest that all mobile home parks are community crime centers. The movie 8-Mile, starring Eminem, makes it look like trailer parks are the “go-to” spot for drugs, violence and petty crime of all varieties. But is that stereotype true? The U.S. government answered that question in 2010 with the release of “Trailers and Trouble? An Examination of Crime in Mobile Home Communities” written by Professor William P. McCarty of the University of Illinois, which was part of HUD’s formal “Cityscape: a Journal of Policy Development and Research”. So what did HUD’s research show? Let’s just say that the trailer park crime narrative was more than just a little off-base.

Both Dave and I got into the mobile home park business with smaller properties, and many of our early purchases were tiny communities. Even in recent times we have no issue with buying a great deal with a smaller lot count. However, there are many things about small parks that we have learned over the decades and wanted to share those with you to help you craft the right buying decision. As you’ll see, there are some important tips for buying smaller parks that will make your plan more successful and your experience in ownership more enjoyable.

There’s an old saying that “when the tide goes out you see who was swimming naked”. In this week’s Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we’re going to analyze what real estate sectors were swimming naked in light of the Covid-19 pandemic – and future such events – and which sectors had their swimsuits safely on the whole time. The world may never be the same after the national quarantine and it’s important to evaluate real estate investing going forward based on the new reality.

What were the hot topics a decade ago? Has anything changed over the past ten years? We’re going to review the headlines and articles of mobile home park industry magazines from 2010 to see if there have been any substantial changes to the “trailer park” business model, and use this analysis to make projections for the decade ahead. They say that history repeats itself, but in the case of mobile home parks, is it more like Bill Murray’s “Groundhog Day? That’s the focus of this discussion.

No mobile home park in history has generated as much undeserved negative publicity as North Lamar in Austin, Texas. Nothing we did was good enough for the Austin media. We saved the park from the wrecking ball. We brought the park back to life with new streets, entrance and lot-by-lot TLC. We made its ongoing operation possible by raising rents and fixing resident abuse of water and sewer. Finally, we allowed the residents to buy the park from us and gave them a huge amount of time to put the deal together with the non-profit group ROC. But even after selling it we are still hounded by the Austin media who can’t get over the fact that a capitalist approach succeeded where the city failed and that our business model was so well structured that they could not mess it up despite their endless efforts.

What’s the highest hurdle you can jump over? Can you clear 4’ or more? In this second part of our Mobile Home Park Mastery Podcast two-part series on the “Top 7 Deal Killing Hurdles” we’re going to review the three highest hurdles that any park buyer must face and why they are so difficult. We’re also going to discuss the limited options to scale them and the enormity of the risks involved. If you want to clear these last three you better get out to the track and start working out, as they have destroyed many a park buyers who didn’t know what they were or how to address them.

Webster’s Dictionary defines a “hurdle” as “an obstacle or difficulty”. We’ve all seen runners in races going over hurdles of various heights – some successfully and others not. So what are the “Top 7 Deal Killing Hurdles” that mobile home park buyers have to navigate to successfully invest in affordable housing? In this week’s Mobile Home Park Mastery Podcast we’re beginning a two-part series to review each hurdle, why it is so significant, and some ideas to get over it as a buyer and operator. Since the Summer Olympics was cancelled, this may be as close as you’ll get to a show about hurdles this summer!

The mobile home park industry is filled with a number of time-proven mantras. It has benefitted from various high-profile players that are often quoted in the media, as well as affiliated stories from other sectors of real estate that have remarkable overlap. The sum of this body of work is the collective wisdom of many who have gone before, as well as those who are still an active part of the industry. In this episode of Mobile Home Park Mastery, we’re going to review many of these items and what they mean to all park owners and operators.

In 2014 the New York Times brought out a huge story about Frank & Dave and their success in building one of the largest mobile home park portfolios in the U.S. They even declared that Frank & Dave are the “best thing going in affordable housing when the nation’s need for low-cost places to live has never been greater”. But what else did the writer, Gary Rivlin, find in his research about the industry. In this episode we’re going to review the discussion we had with Gary after the article came out, and share some quotes of his opinions on what we do and how we do it. Since the New York Times is known to not typically be pro-business, there are certain strengths to the mobile home park industry that converted even a self-professed antagonist to be a big fan of “trailer parks”.

We all know that Columbus discovered America in 1492, and that America declared independence in 1776. But do any of us know the interesting dates in mobile home park history? In this episode of the Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast series, we’re going to review these important dates and their relevance to this unique affordable housing product. While it’s unlikely that any high school will ever require knowledge of these moments in order to graduate, that doesn’t mean that smart mobile home park buyers and owners should not be fully fluid in these historic moments.

Like any other science, there are a host of terms that are of relevance to mobile home park investing. In this episode of the Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast series, we’re going to literally review these from A to Z – from “Affordable Housing” to “Sam Zell”. If you want to get a good grasp on the components of brief strategies that successful mobile home park buyer and operates utilize, then this topic should be of great interest.

Back in 1999 there were 400,000+ mobile homes sold in the U.S. with dealers making fortunes. Today, there are less than 100,000 being sold (it’s been that way since around 2000) and most of those same dealers have disappeared. In fact, you never even hear about mobile home dealers these days. Why is that and where did they go? In this episode of Mobile Home Park Mastery we’re going to discuss the rise and fall of mobile home dealers and what the future might hold for them.