Renting out Mobile Homes

[Patrick Ng]

Hi all, 

Does anyone have any experience owning and renting out manufactured/mobile homes? I am in the San Antonio market and have started to look into purchasing mobile homes and renting them out. It has been difficult for me to find regular SFHomes that cash flow in that market which is why I started looking at some of the manufactured homes as an alternative. I know there has been discussions on BP on buying mobile home parks and owning the land and cash flowing via the lot fees etc, but I am looking for perspective on building a portfolio of mobile homes themselves and renting them out. The homes are cheaper and per sq foot seem to have comparable rents with some of the nonmaufactured homes in the area, so even after lot fees etc they seem to cash flow much better than some of the nonmanufactured properties I have been analyzing over the past year in that market. I am new to this area(manufactured homes), so insight on anything in this realm is greatly appreciated! Some questions I specifically had are:

Do manufactured home owners pay property tax or is that typically included in the lot fees?

Is it generally more difficult to get a tenant in a manufactured home in a mobile home park secondary to things like park regulations etc?

Are manufacted/mobile home parks subject to special assessments like condo HOAs? Like if the pool in the community breaks etc. 

Thank you!

Patrick