Campground ownership/ management

[Daniel Kyle]

Does anyone have experience owning and/or managing a campground. I live in the East TN area and would love to connect and talk numbers! I think they have a lot of potential to cash flow but still need to learn more about all the overhead.

[Mark Lawson]

I have developed a few and have two under contract now. The biggest consideration is what type of park you are trying to build. Do you want a recreational park where people are coming to camp as a vacation or long term renters who will stay for months at a time. 

In 2018 there was a study that over 1m Americans are now living in RV's full time and there are about 16k campgrounds. There are about 42m people that go camping each year in the US so those who are living in them full time are in competition it the rec campers for the spaces. Many of the 16k campgrounds are state or county ran parks which do not allow long term stays (most 3 weeks max) so there is a high demand for long term campgrounds. 

They are nice because you are renting dirt and there is no carpet to change, no walls to paint, ect and the long term parks are less hands on. The key is finding them at a good value because the demand is high and the prices have skyrocketed so you have to look for the undervalued parks that you can add value. With high labor and material cost building them is very expensive.