Need Help with Mobile Home Park

[Omar C]

First of all thank you everyone for this site, stumbled upon it a few days ago and have learned a lot.

My situation is I inherited (unexpectedly) a MHP in Northwest Indiana that is on 20 acres, 10 of which has 50 pads, a state of the art septic system capable of handling over 250 homes, well water, paved streets and a manager who can do almost anything.

I currently only have 9 trailers and I haven't broke even in the 5 years I have had the property. I have spent money on purchasing 3 trailers at a cost of about $15k each with the hope of selling at least one of them. I ended up having to rent them out for lot rent plus trailer rent since I couldn't find anyone to purchase them. That along with various fines that existed before I took over ate through a lot of my capital that I had allocated.

My question is how can I get trailers on my property with little to no investment, I have people interested in moving in I just can't afford to purchase newer trailers and then only rent them out. Are there any home builders or mortgage companies that specialize in placing and financing homes onsite.
I have spoken to a few local guys and none wanted to move the trailers without my purchasing them beforehand.

Thanks in advance

[Ryan Wanner]

I would be sure not to let one dealer own more than 10% of the homes in your park as you don't want to give them that much power over the park. I have heard horror stories where the lonnie dealer can strong arm the park owner by threatening to move all of his homes out of the park.

Also as far as selling the homes go have you been trying to sell them straight up? If so you could try using a lease option or rent to own strategy to reduce the upfront cost for the tenants. Make sure you get a down payment though. Not a security deposit, a non-refundable down payment. That way if they decide to split in the middle of the agreement you can always resell the house and you have already made a decent profit on it.

Ryan