Have a horror story from your Mobile Home Park Ownership days

[Colton T.]

What's the story from your MHP ownership experience that would be your go-to tale when speaking with a new MHP buyer? 

[Frank Rolfe]

My first mobile home park was built in 1951. I bought it from the mom and pop owner and it was a complete dump that needed emergency surgery to keep it alive. It was half vacant and was filled with the worst clientele you can imagine. I bought it for $400,000 with $10,000 down and they carried the balance. I self-managed the property while I turned it around, with the office in a small old trailer. I had everything from rental mobile homes to rental lots to RVs, plus a couple laundry buildings.

Shortly after I took over I got a repair call from a resident who was renting a mobile home in my park. They told me the toilet didn't flush. I called a plumber and they went down to the trailer and came back and told me to come look at the problem. They pulled back the skirting and showed me that the toilet was not even connected to the sewer line at all. For all those years the sewage had just been falling on the ground under the mobile home. It had finally built a pyramid of poop that was 14' x 14' x 3' high and had capped itself off with that final flush. We always thought that the terrible smell near that trailer came from the creek beside it. However, over a period of months all of these terrible issues were solved and things became peaceful. And I ultimately filled the park up and sold it for around $1 million more than I had paid.

The moral is that you have to stay alert when you buy an old worn-out mobile home park -- there are decades of deferred maintenance that you have to deal with. Some of it can be pretty gross. But the good news is that you can make a ton of money if you have the guts to bring old parks back to life.