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?

Some things require the owner to be there 16 hours a day to succeed, such as a restaurant. Others mandate that the owner be there 8 hours per day, such as a law firm. But in the world of real estate, no sector requires less time on the part of the owner than the mobile home park. Why is that? There are several reasons.

The U.K. has voted to exit the E.U. That’s a lot of initials. But there’s one more: that’s “O.K.” with mobile home park owners. Indeed, Brexit is a great thing for the mobile home park industry, which makes big gains as a result, with virtually no downside. So if Brexit is thought to be the beginning of the end of the free world – and the stock market is certainly demonstrating that today – then why are mobile home park owners smiling?

If you follow any mainstream news or social media, you have likely seen or heard about the recent Flint, Michigan water contamination crisis. Essentially what is going on is the City of Flint, Michigan, as a cost saving measure, switched their water supply from Lake Huron to the Flint River nearly two years ago. Unfortunately, the Flint River water was more corrosive than the Lake Huron water and caused the metal and lead water pipes to break down. The lead and other contaminants in the pipes then leached into the water stream. Long story short, toxic levels of lead have been found in the City water supply, and residents are alleging they are sick as a result. The City faces class-action lawsuits, fines, and the onslaught of national media coverage. Spoiler alert, there is such thing as bad press.

The Mobile Home Park Investor’s Boot Camp from www.MHU.com is the #1 class and resource for learning how to identify, evaluate, negotiate, perform due diligence on, renegotiate, finance, turn-around and operate mobile home parks in the U.S. This Boot Camp has trained virtually every major buyer of mobile home parks in America, as well as the heirs to the largest portfolios in the U.S. One group that attended the Boot Camp was the New York Times that declared that “…the people involved with Mobile Home U may represent the best thing going in affordable housing at a time when the nation’s need for low-cost places to live has never been greater.”

Roughly 10,000 Baby Boomers per day are entering retirement currently, and many of these are considering downsizing their housing needs and costs as a part of their overall retirement plan. Unfortunately, some may miss an important option to downsize into a manufactured home. While it’s not the correct decision for everyone, there are those who can’t properly analyze the opportunity due to ignorance of the facts. And that’s the case for the Yahoo Finance writer who wrote “Think Twice Before Downsizing to a Mobile Home in Retirement”.

There is an old saying that “those who can, do; and those who can’t, teach”. But there’s a select few who can do both: succeed in their business and honestly teach about how they attained that success. And one of those rarities are Frank Rolfe and Dave Reynolds, who are the 5th largest owners of mobile home parks in the U.S. Their portfolio is valued at nearly $1 billion, but it all started with just one mobile home park and now stands at over 250 parks in 28 states.

It was a close game between the Seahawks and the Patriots. But in the match-up between real estate asset types – from apartments to office buildings – the winner, once again, are mobile home parks. They are, year after year, the highest yielding form of commercial real estate. They score the highest in return on investment, stability, recession-resistance, financing capability; every metric you can imagine. Their returns are often 100% higher than alternative options. So how do mobile home parks win every year?

From the New York Times to Bloomberg, mobile home park investing is starting to be recognized as an attractive real estate sector. So what has made mobile home parks suddenly on the radar screen of the real estate community? The sector has always done extremely well, but investors are finally getting over the stigma and learning to appreciate the power of affordable housing. So what’s so special about mobile home parks?

Many investors are learning that mobile home parks are the best kept secret in commercial real estate. But they often do not know how to get started trying to find the ideal mobile home park to fit their goals. The following are the top five ways to find a mobile home park to buy.

Earnest money is the financial tool that begins the process of buying a mobile home parks; an addition to the purchase contract. You cannot avoid it, so you need to learn all about it. And here’s what we’ve learned in over 200 mobile home park purchased completed in the past 20 years.

Mobile home parks have some uniquely attractive attributes, but one of the most appealing is the many different financing options available to buy a mobile home park. You will find more creative financing options in mobile home park investing than in all the other sectors of real estate combined. And this allows new investors to enter the business with lower risk and less hassle, as well as seasoned investors to take advantage of some extremely attractive structures.

We have literally taught hundreds of individuals the correct way to identify, evaluate, negotiate, perform due diligence on, finance, turn-around and operate mobile home parks. Some people think we’re nuts for doing this, but the truth is that we are far from crazy.

In 2008, on the heels of the disastrous residential mortgage collapse in the U.S., the Obama administration introduced The SAFE Act, which was designed to strike back at “evil” mortgage companies. This was followed by, in 2010, the Dodd-Frank rules, that put even further teeth into control of the mortgage industry. These two financial laws immediately threw into jeopardy the simple creation of mortgages that all property owners had been using for a hundred years or more. And now every mobile home park owner is faced with the question of what to do in light of these changes.

One of the best aspects of mobile home park investing is the availability of creative financing. While traditional bank financing is available for this real estate niche, there are other options that allow first-time buyers to enter the industry without the traditional 20% down payment, perfect credit, or a lengthy resume of properties owned.

Warren Buffet recently released his annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway, Inc. shareholders. What was unique this year was that he based his letter on income properties, not his corporate investments. And Mobile Home U has been teaching these same theories for almost a decade.

I was out looking at used cars one day in the early 1980's. As I walked around the auto lot, looking through the window of a convertible, a salesman came up to me and said “what do I have to do to sell you that car today?” That’s a great attitude. It means that the salesman is going to help me make my wish come true if I will only honestly tell him my circumstances and what I need to get in order to close the deal. Mobile homes are not cars, but that same sales pitch can be used for park-owned homes that the Manager is frequently called on to sell.

We are all born with basic skills, but then we rely on our parents and educational institutions to teach us what to do with those skills. And one skill that never seems to be accurately taught in high school, college or by mom and dad is how to be a good landlord. And this causes many real estate investors to either outright fail, or to miss the full potential of their property.

Mobile home parks all pretty much look alike. So why do some make so much money while others not only lose money but also add on a stack of perpetual management problems? The answer is that there are fundamental differences between successful and unsuccessful mobile home parks, and you can only figure out which type of park you are looking at - a winner or a loser - through a complete property inspection, which is typically called "due diligence". Without using due diligence, you are not really investing in a mobile home park as much as you are gambling with your money.