Mobile Home Park Construction

[Luke Leslie]

Hello there, first time posting in BP.

Does someone have any info regarding building a mobile home park?  I have land and have spoken with different mobile home park owners but wanted to hear what you guys had to say.  Any advice would be greatly appreciated.  Looking to do 1/2 acre lots per home.  In tracks of 49 lots at a time.  Thoughts? 

[Ken Rishel]

Originally posted by @Andriy Boychuk:

@Ken Rishel just curious. Are there any national generic number per pad cost to build a new park? 

 Not really. Land costs vary wildly even within a single state. Add to that that labor costs also wildly vary, and that regulations regarding construction also add to cost and what you can do even 40 miles apart are sometimes very different. To get true numbers one also needs to add in the costs of obtaining proper zoning which is even more variable and depends greatly on the political skill of the developer.

It is also going to depend on what kind of community (or planned residential development - my preferred term) the developer is planning because that will affect density.

Like I said, this is complicated, which is why many in our industry rightly avoid development. It is also why I recommended hiring an expert if one is serious about moving ahead on a new development.

That said, at the low end for a brand new development, $35,000 per pad would be on the low end, and I would not even consider to venture a guess at what it would take in California coastal areas. Redoing an existing community would be somewhat cheaper depending on the current infrastructure. 

All of that said, George Allen may have some starting numbers nationally and I expect that Don Wesphal would also have some numbers as a starting point. It is also possible that Data Comp/MH Village may also have some data as they have been accumulating some very esoteric information the last few years.