Mobile Home Park Mastery

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 prob...

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+ year...

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,...

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 thin...

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 ho...

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 ho...

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...

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 s...

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 p...

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...

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 y...

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...

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...

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 th...

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 h...

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...

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 e...

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 dif...

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...

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’...

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...

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’...

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...

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 Mas...