A park manager told me a tenant just came in and said that her back account was hacked. The tenant told her that all a person has to do to hack your bank account is to use a scanning device and walk close to you in order to get your bank card information. She said her rent check bounced, and she will have her payment in on Friday plus NSF charge of 30.00.
We have a manager that’s a little slow on collections, but always has most of the money in by the end of the month. However, if someone in his park gets a couple of months behind, he goes and tells them “You need to either pay or move out by Friday.” And they do! We’ve never had to evict one of his tenants!
And as soon as that home is empty, he’ll say he has to spend a couple of days cleaning it and then he’s got another tenant ready to move in as soon as he’s done.
This manager is gold!
Just got a call from a tenant asking me where her “rocks” are at because someone stole them and didn’t tell her!
A park manager in Texas had someone come in and want one of the rent to own homes. We drew up a contract and lot lease. Before signing it, the young lady showed up and started putting a few items in the house. The park manager went and asked her what she was doing. The young lady said “My mom will be here soon with the money and to sign the paperwork.” Our maintenance man came over and said “Hey I know you!” They visited for a while about her dad that had passed away. The maintenance man said “She comes from good people.” So against her better judgment, the manager let her continue to move a few things in.
She never signed the contract or lease and no one ever paid a dime.
Now, according to Texas law, since she has moved personal belongings into the house, we have to go through the eviction process to get her out. Even though she never signed a lease or had permission to move in, we cannot just have her kicked out. To top it off, the park had purchased space heaters for the home because it doesn’t have a furnace. She was seen leaving with the space heaters and we’ve also filed charges for theft.
A Florida park manager told an RV owner he had an hour to get out or she would have him towed. He locked himself in with his dog and “Next thing you know, I’m moving.” It was a parking lot, near a highway, but apparently he couldn’t stay there, either. Officers took him to a homeless shelter and his dog to an animal shelter. Local police have asked state lawyers to advise them. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/01/landlord-tows-trailer-tenant-inside-florida_n_1314535.html
We receive applications all day that say their dog is only 30 pounds. Funny thing is the breed of the dog is Lab, Boxer, Great Dane. Managers need to be looking closely at this and it should be addressed before it is sent to us to run the back ground check.
It is very important to verify all information on the mobile homes we purchase as park owned homes. These homes must be insured. With out the correct information that can not be done.
Our rent to own tenant moved out because her brother lives in the park. She let her brother claim her son on his income tax, then she went and claimed the son as well.
Multiple bids;
We always hear get another bid and realize this holds some merit, however on occasion we will use the same vendor because he treats us fair and we have gotten used to them. On this occasion we had a bid from our dependable always fair plumbing company for $2,215.00 for water riser repairs for 3 lots in park, as we thought this was high and decided to get another two bids. Well number two was similar and found out they did not come to park but were just going off managers explanation of problem, same as the first, and the last company came to park and realized no excavating was necessary as the risers were high enough to be cut and new pipe and valves added on.Total cost $248.00.Savings of $1,967.00, well worth that extra call !
Dave C. / District Manager
A female tenant walks into a managers office in Texas, head is shaved and said that she was unable to pay lot rent because she has to pay for her chemo treatment – she has cancer and her husband had a heart attack the month prior. Being sympathetic to the tenants condition, we extended the payment plan. A few hours later, the husband walks in and our manager asked him how he is feeling, he replied “fine, why do you ask?” The manager replied, “ Your wife said that you had a heart attack last month” , the husband responded that he has never had a heart attack. The manager then gave her regards to the husband concerning the wife having cancer – “ My wife does not have cancer”.
Long story short: No heart attack, no cancer, husband boots wife and paid the rent.
………..By the way the husband had been giving the wife rent money all along.
When you have a new manager you must be as paitient as you can! They will call you and ask if it is okay to do everthing they are doing. These managers usually make the best managers, becasue they are not afraid to ask!
We’ve been mystery shopping our park managers for a couple of months. Today, a new employee in the corporate office called a manager regarding a separate issue. He was on it! You said your name is Sara? How do you spell that? How many bedrooms do you need? The employee had to explain she wasn’t looking for a house, just information.
Operating a park in a small community can be challenging at times. One issue is finding residents to fill your park, another is finding a quality manager that can do the job-when there doesn’t seem be anyone in the park that can do the job. Adding another challenge is when you don’t want your present manager to know that they are getting fired – where do you find a manager without advertising in the hometown newspaper.
I found one manager by calling around to about 10 churches that were listed in the local phonebook. I was asking if they happened to know anyone that was a good worker that was looking for work or if they knew of anyone that was capable of running a mobile home park. I received a call within a few days, I had found my manager.
We have lost some of our best managers because they never set and enforced office hours with their tenants. The best managers seem to have a hard time saying no and feel they must always be available for tenants. Eventually, they get tired of not being able to watch a movie with their family or enjoy a family dinner. If a park manager does not have an office and must work out of their home, it is important to post their office hours and enforce these strictly – unless it’s an emergency.
We hired a new manager they accept cash for a new applicant. After she realized she was not supposed to she spends it on parts. Felt guilty and confessed. So just remember managers, we do not accept cash for any reason.
The majority of our park managers now have onsite check scanners. These connect to their computer and they login to the bank’s website and deposit checks right in their office. Managers love these – it saves them all those trips to the bank. Here in the main office, we love it too! Managers make deposits more often this way – they’re not waiting until the end of the week so they can take them all at once. If there’s a question about a payment received, we can look it up and see an image of the check so there is no question about what lot it is for. It has been a great system for us and has saved a lot of time on all sides.
One of our tenants received an eviction notice for non-payment. She immediately sent a letter detailing our park manager’s faults. The best one was that she said he is doing drug dills all throughout the park. We laughed all day about him smoking pickles!
Our petite manager has been having trouble with an intimidating tenant for over a year. He pays slow and yells at her. He threatened to burn his house down if we evict him. Today, he brought a partial payment, which she refused. He asked to speak with someone in the corporate office. He told me he tried to pay, but she wouldn’t take his money because she doesn’t like him. I informed him we had directed her to require payment in full or file for eviction. He yelled at me for a while accusing us of taking his home because of $100.
The manager called me later this afternoon to update me on the story. The tenant showed up to pay in full – and had a police officer with him “for protection.” While there, the manager asked for the check so she could write him a receipt. He began yelling and waving his arms around saying he wouldn’t give her the check until she gave him the receipt. The officer looked at him and said “She can’t give you a receipt until she sees how much the check is. I’m sure if you stop yelling and act nicer, this issue can all be worked out.”
You know how some people will fold a piece of paper and place the check in it so you can’t see through the envelope. This lady neatly folds two squares of single layer toilet paper around the check when she mails it to us. Guess she doesn’t want to waste any.
A tenant in a rental home informed the park manager that her furnace quit working. The furnace repair man said the furnace burnt up because every heat vent and return air grate was covered with dirt and debris. He refused to replace the furnace as a new one would also burn up and be a fire hazard.
We sent a letter to the tenant requiring her to clear the home of excess items so that we could replace the furnace. After a month, the manager sent me the attached photos of the home “cleaned up” per the tenant.
We chose to evict the tenant based on “Excess items stored in home, fire hazards throughout home, and failure to provide safe and reasonable access to repair home.”
I was on the phone with a park manager and she says, “Hold on, someone’s standing outside yelling. I swear, it’s like I live in a trailer park!”
Every park manager will tell you the people in their town can’t afford to give you a down payment on their RTO because the people in the area live paycheck to paycheck, or this is a small town, or this is a poor area. Well, that describes all of our tenants because we are in the affordable housing niche. However! There is a reason that banks require at least 20% down before they’ll let you buy a home. For a while, they were lax and were doing loans for 3% down or less. And look where that’s put our whole economy!
The idea behind a down payment is that if someone has to save up some money and put that into a home, then they care more about the home and will take care of it and will think long and hard before walking away from that investment. If we let them move in for less than they’d have to put as a deposit on a rental, then they will never view that home as more than a rental and will resent us every time they have to make a repair.
If you require a 10% down payment, that is not likely to be more than $3,000 or so at the most. This is a pretty low down payment for a family that truly wants to own their own home.
It is important to explain this to park managers or they will undermine you every time a nice family walks through the door and will cajole you into accepting a lower down payment.
When a tenant moved out, the park manager went to inspect the home and noticed that he failed to take his pit bull with him. She asked the neighbor who was standing outside if the previous tenant had left the dog and he said no he let me have him, he is my dog now. The park manager said okay well you need to move that dog over to your side of the yard and you need to provide insurance for that dog as soon as possible. And he stated that he would do so.
A week later the maintenance crew are working on a busted sewer line and the pit bull came running towards them and attacked a maintenance worker’s dog who follows him everywhere. They could not get the pit bull off our worker’s dog and the maintenance crew’s foreman killed the pit bull. So the park manager contacted the animal services here to come and make their report of the incident and our worker’s dog is very badly injured.
I reminded the park manager that pit bulls are only allowed if they were in the park when we bought it. If the tenant that owns the “grandfathered” animal moves out, the animal must go with them. If it is given to another tenant, it is no longer grandfathered and is not allowed in the park.
I was sent an email that we were missing two mobile homes on our insurance schedule, which both homes had been in the park since before our purchase of the park over a year ago. I searched my list and rent manager found one home that had been insured by the tenant but I could not find the other. I thought to myself, how could we loose mobile homes, something of this size is not easy to loose? I had the manager check the park and any home of the same make and nothing matched up. I informed our insurance agent that I was having a hard time finding one of the homes and her reply had me laughing, “I can see this going out over the police scanners now….be on the lookout for a missing home….last seen going South for the winter….”. I did figure out that we had the wrong year of the home and the HUD number instead of the serial number listed in the park records and rent manager. Oddly enough, this is not the first time I have had the issue of missing mobile homes.
A tenant owned a home in our park, but failed to pay lot rent. They went to court for eviction, but the writ of eviction was not filed because they talked the park manager into accepting a payment arrangement. The tenants promised to pay a substantial portion of the past due balance 2 weeks after the court date. The day before this payment was due, the home burned down, charred black from front to back.
The park manager waited a couple of days and then began cleaning up broken glass and debris around the trailer. The tenants showed up and accused him of stealing, so the park manager stopped removing anything.
Two weeks later, we receive a letter from the tenants’ attorney that accuses our park manager of stealing their valuables.
Our attorney wrote a response outlining the amount the tenants still owed to the park, requiring them to remove the trailer and debris within 2 weeks or we will charge them for the cost of removal, approximately $2500.
We had a tenant purchase a home for $1,000. The home was abandoned when we purchased the park and we’re working on obtaining the title. The purchaser was given a bill of sale. 8 months later, she stopped paying lot rent. After breaking several promises to pay, she left. She took the water heater, the electrical panel, all copper wiring, plumbing, and gas line. After she was gone for a couple months, the manager decided the home was abandoned and went in, hauled out all the furniture and trash, and replaced all the necessary items. Then, the manager sold the home again, for $600 this time. Again, the purchaser was given a bill of sale and no title as we do not have it yet. Next day, the tenant shows up and asks why we sold her home. She claims the items she took from the home were hers to take and should not be considered vandalism. The owner of the company had to return her $1,000.
3 bids.. We always try to get at least 3. One recent example of this. Closing on a park that has a lift station. The station has 2 pumps and one of them is bad. If the working pump goes out we would have less than 24 hours to get it fixed before things start backing up. On a side note here… Make sure you understand what your risks and time frames are on any private utility. Some parks also have lift stations even when on city sewer. I called 4 different septic companies for bids to replace the pump. One of them was the company the previous owner had been working with for years. I received prices from $8,000 – $14,000. The company the previous owner had been working with wasn’t the highest but did come in at $12,000. So by taking the time to make phone calls – about an hour, we saved $4,000.
Once you find a reasonable and reliable contractor that doesn’t mean you don’t keep them in check for future projects either. At least once per year redo the bidding process. It also never hurts to negotiate. Tell the second lowest bidder what the lowest bidder was and see if they will drop the price and then repeat with the lowest bidder if possible.