Welcome to the Mobile Home Park Mastery Podcast where you will learn how to identify, evaluate, negotiate, perform due diligence on, finance, turn-around and operate mobile home parks! Your host is Frank Rolfe, the 5th largest mobile home park owner in the United State with his partner Dave Reynolds.
While most mobile home parks have direct access to roads and utilities, others share one or more of these with a neighboring property. In this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we’re going to explore the concept of shared services and how to navigate that issue correctly.
Listen To Episode 370Baby Boomers are aging and they make up a large segment of mobile home park residents. Will mobile homes meet their needs in the years ahead? In this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we’re going to review if mobile homes can fit the needs of seniors and offer a great living experience for them.
Listen To Episode 369Let’s assume you need to get your property looking good quickly. Maybe you have a bank inspection or a critical date for launching your marketing campaign to fill vacant homes. When you want to make major improvements in property appearance fast, here are some methods that cost very little but have a big impact and, in many cases, will last for a decent amount of time.
Listen To Episode 368All businesses need to listen to their customers in order to better serve their needs–and mobile home parks are no different. In this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we’re going to review the intricacies of getting fair and balanced resident input to help better steer your mobile home community.
Listen To Episode 367There is one rule that defends the rights of mobile home park owners more than any other: legal-nonconformance, also known as “grandfathering”. In this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we’re going to review why property rights are strong regardless of the state the park is located in, and why “grandfathering” is so hard for some city officials to comprehend and enforce fairly.
Listen To Episode 366This year's Presidential election is probably the most stressful of all time as both parties could not be more diametrically opposite with platforms that share no commonality. However, regardless of who wins there is good news: not much is going to change. In this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we're going to review why you will be fine regardless of who win, so you can stop being upset about it.
Listen To Episode 365The original layout for mobile home parks was a simple, straight street with homes placed on both sides of the lane. This is called a "shotgun" park and one of the greatest challenges to these early offerings is to make them attractive. In this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we’re going to review some of the best steps to increase the aesthetics of this style of property to both retain and attract residents.
Listen To Episode 364It should be the goal of every mobile home park owner to make sure that no home ever goes vacant. Part of being the caretaker of the property is to also be the catalyst to a happy resolution to any risk of a resident leaving without warning or the ability to mitigate the damage. In this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast, we’re going to explore the reality of keeping a steady stream of rent from every lot in the park.
Listen To Episode 363In a world in which everyone has abandoned Nikon cameras for cell phones, taking good pictures has become a lost art. And the end result can be poor home sales as you try to fill your vacant lots. In this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we’re going to review how to take great photos and use them as an important tool to get your mobile homes sold.
Listen To Episode 362There is a national push to attack landlords under what many call the “free rent movement”. This woke ideology is that landlords are inherently evil and that housing rent should be controlled by the government or – better yet – forced to be provided at no charge. In this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we’re going to explain, in detail, why this movement is going nowhere, despite what some politicians may promise.
Listen To Episode 361Many park owners use commissions to promote achieving certain management targets. They are designed to be highly effective tools of motivation, but too many owners don’t apply them properly or in the correct amounts. In this Mobile Home Park Mastey podcast we’re going to review the strategy behind effecting commissions to hit your targets.
Listen To Episode 360The United States has entered into uncharted territory regarding the premium it costs to own a home over rent one. From 1973 to 2022 the ratio of cost of ownership vs. renting averaged 1.03. It has now expanded to a mind-blowing 2.8 – nearly three times more. While the Biden administration has chosen to avoid this topic it needs to be addressed as it is going to impact rent levels nationwide and will bring about the largest increases in mobile home park lot rents in history in the years ahead.
Listen To Episode 359As long as mobile homes are sold to fill vacant lots, there will always be a percentage of customers who will not make it to the of their mortgages. And with a recession officially arriving soon, the issue of home repossessions needs to be watched closely and planned for. In this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we’re going to drill down on the real facts regarding home defaults and how to proactively minimizing them.
Listen To Episode 358It’s election season, and there are wild claims hitting the media of how the Federal government can be used to create affordable housing. In this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we’re going to burst the bubble on these reckless claims and explore the two key solutions that nobody cares to talk about.
Listen To Episode 357Roads are an essential responsibility of the park owner. Yet few people understand all the issues regarding what road widths are acceptable and what are not. In this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we’re going to explore and expose the key issues regarding proper road widths as well as some solutions to the most common problems.
Listen To Episode 356In an America that is lacking in accountability, the city official – whether zoning or inspections – is a master at that craft. Yet how you interpret what they say can make the difference between buying the deal or walking it. And often you have to bring in reinforcements to protect you interests. In this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we’re going to explore the science behind interacting with city officials.
Listen To Episode 355Interest rates have risen about five points since 2022 – the fastest and highest increases in over 40 years. That has led many buyers to grow impatient for the distressed deals that many predicted. In this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we’re going to review where distressed deals come from, what the typical timetable is for their arrival, and when we think that period may begin.
Listen To Episode 354Burger King used the tag line “have it your way” in all their marketing since 1974 as a weapon against McDonald’s refusal to customize their burgers. But as a mobile home park owner you want to be much more like McDonald’s and not at all like Burger King in this regard. In this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we’re going to discuss why making exceptions with customers and managers often leads o catastrophe.
Listen To Episode 353Most mobile home parks have a mixture of old and new homes – but some have strictly pre-HUD vintage units. In this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we’re going to explore the good and bad attributes to having nothing but old homes from an era long ago.
Listen To Episode 352Even though the amortization on a mobile home park mortgage is typically 25 to 30 years in length, the balloon comes due around year 5 to 10. Like a relay race, the successful mobile home park owner must make sure that the baton can be seamlessly passed to the next lender. In this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we’re going to review proactive methods to make that transition reliably smooth.
Listen To Episode 351Brokers frequently claim that a market is “hot” which they equate to being of superior quality and therefore worthy of potentially overpaying. But it this a good idea? Should you favor “hot” markets? In this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we’re going to explore this concept in depth and offer some constructive pointers regarding buying parks in these parts of the nation.
Listen To Episode 350Eventually the manager at the mobile home park down the street will inquire about being in charge of yours. Or one day you’ll get jealous that the community a few blocks over is nicer or fuller than yours and you’ll say “I wonder if I should approach that manager to work for me?”. In this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we’re going to drill down on this concept and give you case studies of how that concept typically tuns out.
Listen To Episode 349All borrowers prefer “non-recourse” lending, but is “recourse” really a deal killer? It’s all a matter of perspective. In this Mobile Home Park Mastey podcast we’re going to explore the issue of recourse and analyze the real risk and how to mitigate it.
Listen To Episode 348There are some skills learned during Covid that we don’t need to throw away, and one of them is the concept of “cash for keys”. Born of desperation from the national evictions moratorium, this playbook of paying tenants to leave who can’t come up with their rent is still a win/win solution in many cases. In this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we’re going to explore why this works, how to implement it, and discuss its inherent win/win outcome.
Listen To Episode 347We’ve been trying to unlock the science of mobile home park ownership for three decades, but there are some unwritten rules that are not supported by math and nobody even knows where these supposed “truths” came from. In this Mobile Home Park Mastery podcast we’re going to review the odd certainties that are used by bankers and bureaucrats yet have no basis in actual fact.
Listen To Episode 346