Mobile Home Land development

[Lisa Leung]

Hi all,

I just purchased a piece of land slightly over 7 acres of land in SW Florida.  I need some input on how to proceed with development.  It is currently zoned MHC-5, (5 per acre) original owner had a bigger piece of land (35 years ago) and sold individual lots (45) and left 7.5 acres undeveloped.  He then sold it to the current owner 25 years ago.  After this current owner bought it, they never did anything with it and it went into an estate after his death.  I purchased and would like to proceed with development.  Since 35 years have gone by, one side of the land has a huge RV park with a rent charged from $800 to $1100 per month with a 2 year waitlist.  The other side has an older mobile home park for seniors and they rent the lot for $800 per month and the park is 110 spots, completely full.  The same owner developed another park across the street with many amenities and they are also completely full renting at $900 per month. Rest of the land around is zoned industrial and selling about $300,000 per acre.  Our land is 2,000 ft from I75 exit.  The question is should I develop the rest of the lots, around 40, and charge lot rent or should I sell the individual lots?  Also, does anyone know the ballpark amount that needs to be spent to develop 7.5 acres with infrastructure, plat the land, county water/septic hook ups, paved road etc.  I called a mobile home manufacturer and the wait time is approx. 1.5 years to get a singlewide.  Thanks for any input/advise.

[Rachel H.]

@Lisa Leung You'd have to price everything out in order to find out what it would cost to develop the land and put infrastructure into it. To get a rough idea, you may want to start with a few mobile home dealerships in your area. See if they have any referrals on contractors they know who do this type of work depending on what you need to put in (i.e. electrical, plumbing, gas, etc). You'll also need to figure out how long it will take to develop the land including all of the permits and inspections, if need be. 

Most of the time, those who develop land already have the experience and like to do it. In cases like this, if you don't want to take on the project you can always opt to subdivide the land into lots and sell the lots undeveloped. If you can find a mobile home dealership or two to work with, you may be able to work with them with their buyers who are buying homes from them and rolling the cost of the land and infrastructure costs into the financing. 

Hope that helps!