Mobile Home Park Mastery

One of the most lucrative ways to get into the mobile home park industry is to buy a property that is “broken” and “fix” it. This concept has long been called a “turnaround” because what you’re effectively doing is taking something that is not performing properly and bringing it back to life. So how does that concept work in real life? In this first part of a five-part series on “Tough Turnarounds” we’re going to take give different parks we’ve bought and fixed over the years, and lay out the game plan from start to finish and what happened along the way. If you’ve ever driven by a rundown trailer park and thought “I bet I could fix that place” then this podcase series is right up your alley.

In this final segment of our five-part series on the Legal Side of Park Ownership, we’re going to discuss some important tips on creating seller financed notes. Since one of the most attractive components to buying mobile home parks is the frequent availability of owner financing, this is a very important topic that we receive frequent questions on. Seller financing is what got us in the business to begin with, and it’s still a very important tool. But to do it successfully, there are some basic insider secrets that you need to know. We’re going to review these items and wrap up our five-part series with a discussion of what you need to know about seller notes and how to construct them

The starting point for buying a mobile home park is the contract. But what are some of the essential items in this all-important document? In this week’s Mobile Home Park Mastery Podcast, we’re going to discuss some of the key components to writing a successful contract, and some strategic suggestions to make the contract more effective. Since the contract is your primary tool in acquiring mobile home parks, it’s worth your time to fully understand the techniques to give yourself an edge.

In this third installment of our five-part series on the “Legal Side of Park Ownership”, we’re going to examine the entire evictions process – from A to Z. And we’ll include some insider secrets we’ve learned along the way to save you money and make the process go smoother. We’re also going to give you our ideas on the moral aspects of evicting and why you should not be judgmental but simply accept the fact that sometimes bad things happen to good people and the act of evicting a resident is a lose/lose. With over 70% of U.S. households lacking even $1,000 in savings, this is a big issue even beyond the affordable housing sphere.

In this second of a five-part series on the legal side of park ownership, we’re going to discuss the SAFE Act and Dodd-Frank, two pieces of legislation that single-handedly deprived thousands of people the America Dream of homeownership. Learn the history of these laws, how they have altered the manner in which park owners can provide housing to customers, their potential repeal, and why it’s probably too late to really make much of an impact without a significant governmental push. If you own a mobile home park, it’s mandatory that you understand these regulations and learn how to navigate them.

You’ve heard of the popular 1960’s television legal drama “Ironsides”? Well, in this case it’s “Ironsides” meets “metal sides” – the legal side to mobile home park ownership. It’s the first of a five-part series in which we discuss what every park owner needs to know about the law. We’re not lawyers, and we’re not dispensing legal advice. We’re just reviewing the things we’ve learned from 20+ years of park ownership and how that relates to issues that pop up from time to time. If you worry about staying out of harm’s way (and who doesn’t) then you’ll appreciate this discussion.

If you want the smallest rate of delinquency, which states would you buy in? What about what areas have the most litigious residents? In this final installment of our five-part series on “Lessons Learned From Our Residents”, we’re going to review the unique attributes of our customers on a macro scale, both regionally and by state. It’s an interesting narrative on how large and diverse America is, and how mobile home parks throughout the U.S. have different challenges and opportunities based on where they are located.

How well do you really know your customers? In this episode of our five-part series on “Lessons Learned From Our Residents”, we’re going to explore the deepest thoughts and goals of our resident base, and discuss how to provide the basic quality of life options that make residents stay for a life time. You will find that the desire for a nice place to live is universal, and the most important thing that any park owner can do is to create a wonderful community that has high levels of customer retention.

The conduit to lot rent is an occupied home. So what makes the consumer choose one mobile home over another? What can you do to make your mobile homes more desirable? In this episode of our five-part series titled “Lessons Learned From Our Customers”, we’re going to examine what the key components are in the buying and renting decision of mobile home consumers. We’ll discuss not only what these hot-buttons are, but even the ranking of priority. If you have vacant homes – or will have in the future – this should give you some great ideas on what’s essential and what’s not.

What makes one mobile home park more occupied than another? What qualities do you need to instill in your own park to make it more desirable? In this episode of our five-part series titled “Lessons Learned from our Residents” we’re going to examine exactly what the hot-buttons are for the consumer in selecting the right mobile home park to live in. Even though the level of competition in mobile home parks is relatively low, it’s essential that you make any property as desirable as possible, and stay away from those that lack the basic raw material to be “in demand”

Why do people live in mobile homes parks? In this first part of our 5-part series on Lessons Learned from our Residents, we’re going to discuss the reasons that 8% of Americans choose to live in mobile homes, and what the key drivers are for them in making that selection. We have roughly 90,000 residents living in our properties -- and we’ve been renting lots and selling homes for over two decades – so this is a topic that we are intensely interested in. Hear what we’ve learned about why customers choose mobile home parks to live in, based on our past experiences

Mark Twain once said “buy land, they’re not making it anymore”. But land is not always what it’s rumored to be, as far as an investment – particularly when it’s attached to a mobile home park. In our final installment of our five-part series, we’re going to talk about the insider secrets to the options with raw land that sometimes comes with a mobile home park acquisition.

Back in the 1950s to 1970s, moms & pops often built clubhouses and laundry buildings as needed service facilities for residents who lived in 8’ to 12’ wide trailers with little room on the inside and no washer and dryer connections. However, more modern homes don’t require these amenities, and today these buildings often sit vacant or under-utilized. In this fourth installment of a five-part series, we’re going to discuss the insider secrets on how to make the best of these structures.

The self-storage industry has been a part of mainstream real estate for about three decades, but it takes on a completely different dimension (and playbook) when it’s located inside a mobile home park. And commercial buildings are a lot harder to make money with when they have a “trailer park” address. In this third part of a five-part series on additional assets that often come with mobile home park purchases, we’re going to talk about how to correctly operate storage units and commercial structures inside mobile home parks.

While mobile home parks frequently compete with apartments for customers, what do you do when your arch-enemy is located inside a mobile home park? In this week’s Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast, we’re going to talk about the insider secrets of operating mom & pop’s old apartment complex inside your mobile home park boundary. Back in the day, early mobile home park pioneers would often build an apartment building at the front for either their family’s use or as an extra income source. Today, the challenges – and opportunities – are different. Enjoy this second installment in a five-part series.

Sometimes mobile home parks come with more than just land or mobile homes. So how do you value and work around these additional assets? In this week’s Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast, we’re starting a five-part series on the insider secrets to all those assets that mom & pop often convey with the park purchase, including homes, apartments, self-storage, commercial buildings and raw land. If you ever wondered what to do with the miscellaneous items that come with a mobile home park sometimes, this podcast series is for you.

As the final installment in our series on insider secrets in mobile homes, we’re going to interview Ryan Howerton of 21st Mortgage regarding the CASH program – the only way to fill vacant lots in your mobile home park with zero dollars out of pocket. It’s also a way to finance used homes in your park. Since you can create $20,000 to $60,000 in value by filling just one vacant lot in your community, the CASH program can be a huge engine to create profits. Learn about this exciting program for increasing occupancy and maximizing net income in this week’s Mobile Home Park Mastery’s podcast.

It’s one thing to buy and renovate a mobile home, but that’s of no value if you can’t properly rent or sell it. As the 5th largest owner of mobile home parks in the U.S., Frank is going to discuss his lessons learned from the sale or rental of thousands of homes across 30 states. You’ll learn what the 9/3/1 template is, and other valuable insider secrets that can help you to get your homes out the door and help solve the affordable housing crisis one home at a time. This is the fourth in our five-part series on mobile homes.

If you like watching those HGTV shows like Flip or Flop, then you may think you have a rough idea of how hoe remodeling works. But that’s not in any way representative of mobile home renovations. In this third part of a five-part series, Frank is going to discuss some insider secrets in mobile home renovations, that can save you significant money and keep you on the cutting edge of clever ideas that park owners have learned from trial and error. This is the third in our five-part series on mobile homes, and you’ll find each one of great benefit.

In this second part of a five-part series, we’re going to review the insider secrets to properly buying a used mobile home for your mobile home park. With so many homes to choose from, it’s vital that you don’t make any rookie errors – and there are some that you would never guess. Frank’s bought literally thousands of mobile homes over the past two decades – both new and used – and he wanted to highlight some important points to save you thousands of dollars.

Flat, round and pitched. Mobile homes have evolved over the decades, with each variation having its own benefits and disadvantages. In this week’s Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast series, we’re going to explore what the history of mobile homes really means regarding what type of used homes you should buy for your community. You will learn 20+ years of experience on this subject in about 15 minutes. This is the first part of a 5-part series on mobile homes and their use in mobile home parks.

We’re not talking your average run-of-the-mill ugly deals here, but more like “what the heck were you even thinking” ugly deals. Fortunately, these are not deals that we did, but deals we know of first-hand that make you wonder exactly what the buyer was thinking – or if they were at all. If you think that a bad deal would be one that you took a loss on, try these deals out, where the owner lost everything and then some (including their self-respect). You’ll quickly see the moral to the story. This completes our three-part series on the Good the Bad and the Ugly mobile home park deals.

As the second in a three-part series on “the Good, the Bad and the Ugly”, in this week’s Mobile Home Park Mastery podcase series, were going to discuss bad deals – where they come from and how you can mitigate the issues that jeopardize your investment dollars. We’re going to review three deals that we have done that didn’t work out well, and review what went wrong and what we should have done differently. But these are still not the worst deals. That’s reserved for next week’s podcast on “ugly’ deals.

The goal of every mobile home park investor is to buy good deals that offer low risk and high rates of return. But how do you do that? In this week’s Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast series, we’re going to discuss the basic drivers to profitability in mobile home park purchases, along with an example of each one that illustrates the point. You’ll find that success is extremely predictable, and you can tell what will work (and what won’t work) during your due diligence period, based on normal industry metrics. This is the first of a three-part series called “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly mobile home park deals”.

With the Christmas season around the corner (which accounts for 30% of annual retail sales), we thought we would devote this edition of our Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast series to fine-tuning sales – the sales of mobile home parks. We’re going to go over three action steps to maximizing the value and speed in which you can find a buyer, as well as the importance of timing in each step. You can’t buy a mobile home park without wondering how to sell it down the road, and that’s what this podcast is all about.

Most people think that operating mobile home parks must be difficult and complicated. What they don’t know is that successful mobile home park operations are built around simple management systems. In this week’s Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast, we’re going to discuss three of these systems and review the impact these action steps would have on your mobile home park. If you can drive a car – and watch and react to the what the gauges tell you – then you can operate a mobile home park like a pro.

Having turned around over 300 mobile home parks over the past two decades, Frank Rolfe has distilled the plan down to simple action items. Hear three of these important action steps in this week’s Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast series. Find out how you can get the park off on the right foot, and break the old owner’s cycle of poor management, quickly and easily. There’s really no reason you can’t fix even the most screwed up mobile home park in a relatively short period of time if you the right things – and in the right sequence. And that’s what we’re going to discuss on this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast.

Benjamin Franklin is well known for his wisdom. And he nailed the importance of due diligence on mobile home parks when he said “diligence is the mother of good luck”. Indeed, due diligence is the key step to ensuring that the mobile home park you are buying will perform as anticipated, and be devoid of terrible physical and operational problems. We’re going to examine three important action steps to performing great due diligence on a property on this week’s Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast. If you like to only invest in successful properties, then this podcast is for you.

Getting the right price on a mobile home park normally includes some degree of proficiency in the skill called “negotiating”. Webster’s defines “negotiating” as “to obtain or bring about by discussion”. So how do you conduct this “discussion” properly and work with the seller to strike the price that is fair and within your boundaries of making a successful investment? In this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast, we’re going to examine three important action steps to negotiating like a pro.

Finding the correct mobile home park to acquire … it’s one of the most important steps in mobile home park investing. In this week’s Mobile Home Mastery series, we’re going to review the top three action steps in finding a park that meets your investment criteria. You’ll hear what these three steps are, and stories of how they became a part of our personal action plan that has amassed over 300 properties. This is the first in a five-part series on the three action points to finding, negotiating, performing due diligence on, turning-around and operating mobile home parks. These are very specific concepts derived from over twenty years of labor in building the 5th largest portfolio of mobile home parks in the U.S. If you want to hear the facts – and not the fiction – about mobile home park investing, then Mobile Home Mastery is your one-stop source.

We’ve gone over the state of the mobile home park product, as well as what to expect mobile home park investing to look like on paper. In this final issue of our three-part series, we’re going to discuss the mobile home park investment climate today – from the views of city and federal government, to those of lenders, Wall Street and the media. It’s an important glimpse into who the friends of the industry are – and who are not.

In the second of our three part series, we’re going to discuss the current state of mobile home park economics – including cap rates, cash-on-cash returns, the importance of spread and other topics. Think mobile home parks offer higher yields that other real estate sectors? How high? We’ll examine that and other important issues on this podcast.

We’ve talked about the past and the future – so let’s focus on where things stand today. On this podcast, we’re going to go over the stats on where the industry sits at this very moment. And we’re doing this in a three part series reviewing the product, the economics, and the investment environment we are currently in. While history is important – and the future is exciting – it’s the here and now that determines our current returns as mobile home park investors.

One of the big news stories in the mobile home park business today is the renewed interest and support from the U.S. Government. After nearly a half-century of absence, American elected officials are putting pressure on Federal agencies to help with the affordable home crisis in general, and the mobile home park industry in particularly. With proactive products such as new Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loan programs for parks, a new Section 8 voucher program, and even tax incentives for those who do not re-develop their mobile home park into a different use, Uncle Sam is becoming a fast friend of the industry. And there’s more to come under the new Federal directive called “Duty to Serve”.

In this episode, Frank Rolfe discusses the future of mobile home design and how it could impact the demographics and reputation of mobile home parks.

In this episode, Frank Rolfe discusses why consolidation of mobile home parks is a good thing for the industry and the consumer.

In this episode, Frank Rolfe discusses the critical numbers you need to hit when investing in mobile home parks in order to get maximum return on your investment.

In this episode, Frank Rolfe discusses the surprising history of the mobile home park, and its impact on current investments.

In this episode, Frank Rolfe discusses the reasons why people invest in mobile home parks.