Management for MHP... what's your model?

[Joe Hartman]

Just wondering how people are managing their mobile home parks, assuming that you are not doing it yourself. Obvious answer = it depends on the # of pads, if you are renting the dirt or also renting units, if it has other income like storage units/RVs, if it is a fancy retirement community with rec centers/pools. But how would you asses a property and decide on management structures taking these factors into consideration.

Things I've seen so far,
1) "Greeter" that hand out applications, take applications, watch over and report what's going on in the park
2) "Maintenance person" - mows lawn, fixes up empty units, picks up trash
3) Person does #1 and #2 but has a much larger roll as "manager"
4) "Professional" manager or company that offers all the bells and whistles

Also, I'm assuming everyone's getting Work Comp for all employees?

Are your management people ever collecting rents, or do you have your tenants mail checks to a PO Box or deposit it to a local bank? Some banks have it where you can scan a check or take a pic and send it on your phone, anyone making use of this?

Would it ever make sense to have a "full time" person on staff? Maybe in the # of units that I won't be messing with, but just curious.

Thanks,
Joe

[Jim Johnson]

Joe- I think you hit on almost all of the options.
So we have managers at all of our parks. The greeter model, really pushed by Frank Rolfe of mobile home park store fame, is really managing with more duties back loaded to the corporate office. The duties still exist, it is really- who does them?
So our managers typically do it all. They mow, the fix basic things- like broken water meters, they collect rents, they make deposits, and we also have check scanners. Our managers show houses, in some cases they will rehab houses. We are very picky concerning the 'skill sets' our managers must possess. When buying a park, part of the front end duties is to assess what needs to be done in the park; daily, weekly, monthly and yearly. Then I build a list of tasks, and from that I pull out skill sets. Armed with all of that data- I look for managers. We have one set of full time mangers- the rest do it on the off hours they are not working- evenings and weekends. We use computer programs to track tenants- so they must have computer skills as well.
As for management companies- In the park sizes I deal with- 30 - 100 spaces, they eat all the profit. Unless you find one that will manage based on a % of gross- I would do my best to manage the mangers in house. I bought one of my parks from a guy that was using a company based in michigan to run his park, the 76 space park had a manager, an assistant manager, 3 full time maintenance people and a part time person as well. We use a husband / wife team to do the same workload. Taking it over was a disaster.
As a side note- if I am buying a park, and I learn it is being operated by a management company, I know off the bat I can probably save 10% of the gross by managing it myself through my mangers. One more point- you need to know what the management style of the company is as well. Everyone runs their business in their own way- and I think, in the MHP business you need to be tough- and graceful. I have seen tenants of 20 years- be evicted because they got laid off- had a gap in pay and the park would not set up a payment plan. The same park got the home with a rit, called the owner to tell them they could come to the park to see the home crushed, because it was too old to remain in the park. They could have waited a month, the owner would have caught up and they still would have a tenant. Remember- these are the homes of the tenants- not like an apartment where you own in, they own it. Anyway- I tend to look for the win - win solution, and error on the side of grace.
Each park is a bit different- but we use the exact same systems no matter what size park we are managing.