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

Mobile Home Park Investing
13yFollow

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

Joe Hartman
Orlando, FL · Member since 2011 · 18 posts · 3 votes

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

0Reply
18 views

Most Popular Reply

Jim JohnsonPro Member
Rental Property Investor · Denver, CO · Member since 2008 · 355 posts · 324 votes
13y

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.

2Reply
See this reply in the discussion

6 Replies

Jump to latestLatest
  • Jim JohnsonPro Member
    Rental Property Investor · Denver, CO · Member since 2008 · 355 posts · 324 votes
    13y

    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.

    2Reply
  • Dale Osborn
    Mobile Home Investor · Spanaway, WA · Member since 2008 · 1k+ posts · 578 votes
    13y

    Way back - I put out a few blogs on the duties of a MHP manager. They may still be around.

    0Reply
  • Joe Hartman
    OP
    Orlando, FL · Member since 2011 · 18 posts · 3 votes
    13y

    Dale Osborn - Thanks for the heads up. I found them. Here are the links for anyone else interested...


    http://www.biggerpockets.com/articles/2821-mobile-home-park-manager-duties-part-1-

    http://www.biggerpockets.com/articles/3293-mobile-home-park-manager-duties-part-2

    and here's a link to Dale's uploaded docs that are on topic as well...

    http://www.biggerpockets.com/files/user/Realtyman

    Really appreciate your help.
    Joe

    0Reply
  • Joe Hartman
    OP
    Orlando, FL · Member since 2011 · 18 posts · 3 votes
    13y

    Jim Johnson - How difficult is it to actually find someone that has the skillset to fix things up, as well as the desire to manage a park? @75 pads, that's 150 adults (ballpark). Not the biggest pool to choose from. You seem like the type that already has things already laid out ahead of time (routines to complete, training, etc.), but what would you do if no one was a good fit? I'm sure you could find and train someone by advertising, but would a "non-professional" property manager, who did not live in the park, still work out well?

    A concern of mine is the cost of having full time employee vs part time employee (greeter/maintenance) + contractors (handyman/tree service/electrician). But I guess both models work.
    Thanks for all your help.

    **Side Note** - are you still doing the boot camps? I’m (hopefully) planning on going to the Orlando one coming up in Jan.

    0Reply
  • Jim JohnsonPro Member
    Rental Property Investor · Denver, CO · Member since 2008 · 355 posts · 324 votes
    13y

    Joe,
    When we can not find someone on the inside- we go to craigslist for the right person. Currently I have 3 parks with inside managers, and I found 2 on the outside. I have tried using a manager that lives offsite- actually Dave Reynolds and I shared a manger for a while, and it did not work out very well. So we found someone inside the park again. I just make a list of he skill sets I am looking for, and try to find them in the manager pool. It is not as hard as you might think. Remember- if you build the expense into the front end of the deal- paying for the manager, and all the duties will not affect your bottom line.

    So- bootcamps. Neither Dave or I are doing the MHPS boot-camps any longer. Just Frank is teaching them.

    So here is a teaser- I had talked with Dave for a long time about starting a second bootcamp- more for people that want to hone the operations side. Anyway- I will be rolling out a course in the near future, that will combine online instruction and a onsite course in Colorado. It will combine the two. A student will complete the online classrooms and classwork, and then once on site- it will be no teaching per say- but all live time application of the skills. The on site class will be small- like 10 people at a time. That way part of the time can be in our offices, and we will have a mock setup of the managers offices as well. It will probably have a coaching side to it as well, but I am still working out the details on that part.

    0Reply
  • Joe Hartman
    OP
    Orlando, FL · Member since 2011 · 18 posts · 3 votes
    13y

    Please keep me in the loop. I'll keep a look out for a PM or a follow up post. Might be a little hard to swing 2 boot camps, so hopefully the near future is sooner than later so I can make a choice. Looks like the teaser worked!

    0Reply
Join the conversationCreate a free account to reply, vote on answers and follow this thread.
Log InJoin for Free