is it possible to buy a property and rezone it to Mobile Park?

[William Howley]

Hi, I live in Tampa, FL where mobile home parks are fairly common in some areas. I was wondering if it were possible to buy a house with like 10 acres or so, and then attempt to get the property rezoned to a mobile home park (MHP), to then transform it into profitable real estate. My question is, has any one attempted something like this and is this even worth pursuing? 

I figured my best bet would be to look at the future planned use zoning of the county, and make that a starting point since it would have a high likelihood of rezoning success.

The other question is how could I even structure a deal like this, because buying a property and then zoning falls through would leave me with a bad investment. If I made an offer on a property contingent of the rezoning success, which could take 90-180 days, I am assuming I would only be able to structure a deal like that if I had cash only, assuming that I would not be able to do FHA financing etc, since something like this is too complex.

Any experience and tips would be helpful thanks-

[Michael Haynes]

@William Howley, Hello, I have a half acre on Dale Mabry Hwy, just before Interbay Blvd. at 6305 S. Roberts Ave. 33616, that I wanted to put Trailers on there, but, they don't allow that anymore in the City of Tampa. You still can do that in the County as far as I know. The other option would be a Mini-Storage business, but, I balk at the thought of spending a million plus and having to manage it for the rest of my life. Obama Care and all the new rules and regulations, with Code Enforcement making unreasonable demands, like making me paint the same eaves on a rental, twice in six months and here comes Hillary and all her new rules and regs and taxes...give me a break. Traverse Townhomes just built 8, two story townhomes around the corner on Interbay Blvd. on the same size property and mine is much better as I have 220 feet fronting Dale Mabry Hwy. on Roberts with an unobstructed view and access on Mango St. because I own the corner. The simple way to find out is to go to the City of Tampa, Planning and Development Department on 1400 N. Boulevard and talk to one of the Professional Plans personnel. I just ran some ideas by them with the Roberts property for an Investor from Brazil. If you make up an Elevation Study, you can pay them to send it through a Quick Approval Path where all the different departments can take a look for any glitches and identify any questions that would need to be answered before they would sign off on you proposed plan. That way you don't have to own the property, before you know what you can do with it. Another person to try and get a meeting with if you have a property development idea is John Lum at LIST Developers on 1501 S. Dale Mabry Hwy. John has all the Agents and all the Builders contacts out of his office and has built many houses around where we just sold a property in Hyde Park area. He also built another ten houses near Old Port Tampa. If I were going to back into the business, after the next downturn, I would think of buying a Trailer Park as they can be the best Cash Cows and you can Rent the Trailers, the Lots, Sell the Trailers financed by the Owner, where you usually would have them go into Foreclosure during bad times or if they are owned by Military personnel who don't usually stay more than two years on a Base etc. Your idea of planning to build in the Path of Progress is something you could talk over with John Lum as he was something like the City of Tampa's Development Councelor. My friend used to be a waiter at the meetings where the Mayor and all the Builders and Lawyers would get together and plan out this future Path of Progress and that leads into the Good Ole Boys Club and all the Deals that the Big Guys are able to make that us on the outside are not privy to. That Buying in the Path of Progress, when you have time to wait, starts with buying Four Corner sites and like I did on the Roberts property. where it is now time for me to Sell as we are experiencing an explosion in Demand for buildable lots near the AFBase on the East and West side of Dale Mabry Hwy. You could do a Google Search for all the types of Trailer Parks in the three County area. There may be youtube videos of How to Build Trailer Parks. Here is something I found on my first Search 

http://www.ehow.com/how_6600421_build-mobile-home-...

I know someone who started when I did 30 years ago in Tampa and his Path was mostly with individual Trailers on single lots, outside of the City, small abandoned Trailer Parks and Apartment buildings. He Accumulated enough of the single houses and then Trailers on single lots out in Lutz until he had enough Cash Flow to start a big refinance effort that led him to Bundle groups of properties into Jumbo Loans for better rates and more Cash to buy Trailer Parks and he had 90 Trailers about ten years ago and wouldn't stop his efforts to expand. He would buy a destroyed box for $3000 and completely rehab it with my handyman and set it up on a vacant lot if he had to. Just had to be in an area where that was allowed and he would immediately begin to collect a few hundred cash a month on each Trailer. The Newbies on BP never look at starting with the smallest entity to invest in that can give you some kind of positive cash flow and then just don't stop. That friend is a hands on Landlord who collects his own rents and drives around 24/7 with ten thousand in his pocket as he runs the errands and gets the materials and looks at new properties and meets his obligations. He started working for the guy who owned all those mini gas stations in Tampa, managing rentals for his company that owned 500 rentals about 30 years ago. The question is, "How do you make a Million Dollars?" You find something that everyone wants to Buy for a Dollar and just sell a Million of them. Duh...oesn't have to be as big and complicated as Real Estate Investing seems to be in the beginning. Same with the Flippers. I remember there were two girls, when I started, who were buying apartments in those first high rise buildings on Bayshore to fix up and flip and making a killing. Doesn't have to be a whole House. Like there is a 2/2 Condo with a shed for Short Sale, behind the Home Depot on Florida Ave. for $32K. I know you can rent it for $800 a month. When I was a kid the Concrete company had a slogan...Find a Hole and Fill It!