RV investing advice needed

[Jeremy Lack]

I’d like to get going in RV parks. Is anyone available for helping with advice on this? Any mentorship or coaching program that you think is a good route? 
thank you! 

[Mark Lawson]

I have about 800 pads in the southeast and here are a few things to keep in mind. 

1. Zoning is your biggest issue to deal with if you are plan to build your own park. Most counties will require A1 (agricultural) or C1 (commercial) but there are often other regulations beside just the zoning type. For example some counties will require at least 10 acres. I had a FL county tell me they had a "pause for zoning" in place and planned to require that the RV parks were in an area that had sewer (not even sure if this is legal). Some also put stay limits on the parks so the people must move every 90 days. 

2. Utilities is a big cost and if you are not in a area with city water you will need to test your well water often. Keep in mind that the city does not have to let you use their sewer and often times there is a tap fee for each pad that can get expensive. In most areas you can get 4 RV's for each 1k gallon septic tank and 7 on a 1500 gallon but that will vary. With power you want to make sure you install 50amp as most new RV's will be 50amp. 

3. Determine what type of park you want to be such as long term tenants or a vacation destination or a resort type park. There is big demand for all of them and areas with a lot of workers do well with long term no frills type parks. Those people are looking for monthly deals vs a nightly rate. Resort type parks will need amenities and they are very costly to build but those type of clients tend to pay weekly or nightly at a much higher rate. 

4. If you are building talk to your county offices because you will find cost that you do not think about and to give you an example some counties will have a fire marshall and sometimes they want you to run fire hydrants and if you are crossing a major state road you may have to tunnel under and that can add $50k to your cost. 


5. The average cost per park right now is about $50k per pad (you can see a list at https://blackwatersouth.com/parksforsale.pdf) and you can build them cheaper than that but the zoning is always difficult in metro areas. The average cost per pad for us is about $22k for a new build not counting the land but some have been as cheap as $12k per pad. The type of surface and sewer will play a major factor. 


They can be very profitable if you can buy them right. Our average return is around 22% to 25% per year. It just comes down to finding the deals. Even as recent as 5 years ago it was mostly mom and pop operators and you could find deals but there are a lot of institution buyers hunting the deals now so it is a lot more competitive.  You have 1m people living in RV's full time and only 600k long term pads and with housing cost going up that number is growing.