Developing spaces in Mobile Home Park

[Jon S Strick]

Hello BP Community. 

I am considering purchasing a small mobile home park. The utilities are private (Well and Septic). The numbers look great (12 cap) with value add potential in that there is additional acreage to develp more spots. 

Has anyone every developed additional spaces in a mobile home park? I will have to install a new septic system, and well for these spaces as well. The the septic will be conventional and a new well only goes 40 feet to good water. (These costs would be around ($15,000). 

What would the cost per site be to develop?

I thank you in advance for contributing. 

Jon 

[Belinda Lopez]

Hi Jon,

  please do a TON of due diligence when purchasing a MHP.  We've found everything from city and county officials who have done some very creative things to work against Park owners.  There can be several layers of regulations you have to contend with; especially with Well and Septic.  One of the sites I love to help is municode.com as it has a great library of ordinances for various jurisdictions.

$15-$20k per space is not unusual costs from raw land to finished spaces. Is the ROI there for that kind of development? Some states also have strict limits on Wells and then you have to have a certain psi per connection. Septic is another area that will greatly limit what you can do. Not sure what state the park is in but for example, in Texas, you are allowed up to 7 homes per acre but then many counties limit you to 1 septic system per acre. That effectively makes it completely unrealistic to develop new MHPs.

Good luck with your project!