Mobile homes are an engineering marvel: they are the only form of housing that can go down the highway at 55 miles-per-hour. But even though they have this unique skill, transporting a 15,000 pound object down the interstate can frequently cause minor damage to the home by the time of its arrival. What do you need to know when you order a new home to be delivered at your property?

Closing on a mobile home park can be a very stressful experience. Making it go smoothly requires proactive preparation and strategy. So what are some concepts to improve your closing experience?

Industrialist Andrew Carnegie once said “problems are only opportunities in work clothes”. And J. Paul Getty, the nation’s richest person during the 1950s and 1960s, held the belief that depressions were a great time to make acquisitions and to refine business operations – he, in fact, was only happy when times were bad. Throughout American history, most fortunes were built upon the bedrock of times of economic collapse, when values were lower, distractions few, and the fundamentals of business were easier to enact.

The U.S. government frequently attempts to modify investment and business creation in support of policies that are not profitable. They do this through subsidies – either direct cash or tax savings. The wind turbine shown above – used to create electricity from the wind – are just one of the products or industries that the government has created through artificial subsidies. So what’s wrong with this behavior?

We’ve all seen the Progressive Insurance commercial where they build an “insurance amusement park” called “Progressive Park” and nobody shows up to attend – because without risk it’s not fun. This commercial should be a regular reminder of the needed “test ad” that should be completed during due diligence for every mobile home park purchased.

The media and many politicians are absolutely convinced that low rents are what the nation’s mobile home park residents need to have a happy and productive life. They share this belief because they have absolutely no idea how economics work or the damage their deranged attempts at manipulating markets has on their constituents. Indeed, low rents are the worst thing possible for residents in our nation’s mobile home parks. Why is that?

Perhaps the best way to fill a vacant lot is with an existing homeowner. When someone moves their mobile home into your park that’s called an “organic move” – and it can be a win/win for everyone if properly handled. So what do you need to know about how to properly make organic moves happen?

“How to Build and Operate a Mobile Home Park” was written by L.C. Michelon, the Director of Management Services for the School of Business at the University of Chicago, in 1955. In the book you will find this paragraph: “Much of your income will come from services other than from space rentals. In a mobile home park these include the laundry, the store, the gas station, mobile home services and sales, the bottled-gas franchise, the storing of mobile homes, the hauling of mobile homes short distances, telephone calls, and so on” [from Chapter 14 “Increasing Net Income” page 115]

Many economists predict the next U.S. recession to begin in 2021. Even if that date is incorrect, it’s a certainty that there will be another recession in the near future. It’s been 12 years since the Great Recession and economic cycles are a part of American (and world) history. So what will be the impact of the next recession on the mobile home park industry?

“Baby Boomers” are the generational term for those born between 1946 and 1964 – one of the largest population segments in the U.S. The impact of the Baby Boomers has been felt throughout the American economy for decades, propelling any item that was in demand to this group to record-setting levels of sales and usage. And the aging of the Baby Boomers is about to result in what is now called the “Silver Tsunami” in single-family housing. Here’s an interesting article to read [INSERT LINK HERE]

A road is just a road, right? Wrong. The type of road surface you use in your property will influence a number of factors including potentially the cap rate, lender interest, future buyer interest and customer satisfaction. It’s important that every park owner match the type of road to their goals and budgets, and the universe of options is growing as new types of road construction are tested. So what are the considerations?

Vacant lot preparation is a big deal when filling vacant lots – it can cost as much as 1/3 of the total home in some states. HUD controls the lot preparation requirements in some markets and, while the purpose is to minimize home movement from frost heave, the reality is that it’s a terrible financial burden for the homeowner and a pain in the neck for park owners to perform. But if you have to do expensive lot preparation, what are the options and which should you choose?

For many years, the mobile home park industry had no available information except for a few ancient books like the 1955 “How to Build and Operate a Mobile Home Park” by L.C. Michelon. It was a lonely existence for park owners with nobody to bounce ideas off of or to share experiences. And that’s as recently as the 1990s. Today things have changed. So where can you go to get answers to your mobile home park questions?

One of the key requirements of owning mobile home parks is to provide working utilities. But in many older mom and pop parks there may be problems with old lines that have been denied proper maintenance for decades. Here are some things to think about when it comes to the issue of replacing a utility system.

Texas has been an important part of our mobile home park past. We have owned mobile home parks in Texas for over 25 years – it’s an extremely vital part of our strategy to look at every deal that comes up in Texas that meets our criteria. So do many other investor groups. So why is Texas such as great state for mobile home parks?

In the same theme as the bestseller “The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People” we would like to present our list of the habits of successful mobile home community buyers, along with thoughts on how to create these attributes and what the impact will be.

There are two types of inhabitants of mobile homes: owners and renters. One has a capital investment in the home and the other does not. We feel strongly that every resident in the mobile home park should have the opportunity to be an owner if they so choose. Why is that?

In the quest to create win/win opportunities with community residents, one that has become particularly appealing is called “cable bundling”. It allows you to offer the resident internet, telephone and cable TV inclusive in their monthly rent, at an incredibly low price. So what is “cable bundling” all about and how can it benefit your customers?

A part of every mobile home is that material that visually connects the mobile home with the ground, and that material is called “skirting”. It’s a unique feature of the mobile home product, and no other form of housing shares this one trait. Sometimes made fun of as part of the park stereotype, it serves a useful purpose and every park owner needs to know it A to Z.

We have always found www.BestPlaces.net as a terrific resource for market data. It’s accurate, based on government findings, and clearly presented. However, there are some issues with their data that are not their fault but rather the byproduct of macro issues in certain cities. And these potential problems need to be discussed as they often paint an inaccurate picture of certain markets.

We’ve never been big fans of many of the names for what we do: “trailer park”, “mobile home park” or “manufactured home community”. The reason? It focuses on the home and not our business model. So we would like to make the following suggestion for a new name for our industry: “HD Subdivisions” which stand for “High Density Subdivisions”. Because that’s where this industry is heading over the next century – potentially away from “mobile homes” as we know them today and potentially into another product such as tiny homes or even something yet to be engineered. We do not think it makes sense to limit what we do as landowners in providing the best in affordable housing.

Here’s a common sight in much of America – becoming more common every day. It’s the transport of a new mobile home from the factory to its new geography inside a mobile home park or on raw land. The sales of new mobile homes are increasing virtually every month, and have grown nearly 100% from their all-time lows about a decade ago. But what is fueling this trend?

Many Americans have seen the movie “8-Mile” which is an autobiographical account of Eminem, the rap star. Much of the film takes place in the “8-Mile” mobile home park, which is depicted as a horrible dump that is infested with drugs, alcohol and hookers. The film performed well for the producers, grossing nearly $120 million worldwide. But it wasn’t exactly truthful. Here’s a photo of the real “8-Mile” mobile home park, also known as “A&L”.

So you’ve found a great mobile home park that has a desirable location, solid infrastructure, and a lot of upside opportunity in raising rents and filling lots. How do you convince the seller to give you the opportunity to buy it? There are seven key elements to consider in your discussions with the seller.

After decades of Americans seeking to live in as large a home as they can possibly get financed, which culminated in the Great Recession of 2007, housing tastes have changed dramatically over the past decade. Many Americans are now striving to live in as small a space as possible, with the resulting tiny cost of doing so. This movement is collectively known as “tiny homes” and the strength of this demand has resulted in no fewer than five television shows based on “tiny homes”, such as Tiny House Nation and Tiny House Hunters. So how will this impact the mobile home park industry?