Mobile Home Parks - Event or not to Event

There is a lot of conversation (ok there is some, not a ton) out there about under utilized community buildings inside mobile home parks nation wide.  If you own a park, awesome! 

Throw parties! Its great fun and gives some more value to your residents, they appreciate it and in turn tend to stay longer term, keeping your homes filled, rent coming in, and vacancy turns down. 

Everyone likes a great party, especially a free one. So here are some easy tips to get your space used more, and possibly cash in on an extra revenue stream. 

1) Throw parties for your residents.  Do easy things, a Halloween party, Cookies with Santa, Valentines Dance, Summer Carnival, things like that.  Low cost things like peer tutoring after school, a daily coffee and tea bar, popcorn Friday's, family movie night, ice cream socials, ladies' nights, mens' nights, Avon parties, yoga, Pilates, Zumba, table tennis match, meditation circle, bible study, Thursday billiards club, pool parties, etc. You could even add a Sock Hop or a Western Extravaganza (complete with pony rides). Budget and timing are critical, and also you have to test the waters to see what your residents like after a consistent 12 month roll of monthly events, and checking on attendance and expense, you can add or subtract.  I prefer to give out a survey to residents when I first have boots on the ground for a new property to see what was done in the past, and what they would like to have as activities available to the residents, what worked, what didn't, any suggestions on party ideas, etc. 

2) Rent the space out with a set of rules to your residents.  Require them to book in advance, it is a venue after all, and if they don't show up on time, or end late, keep their deposit, but you have to fully disclose that.  You could charge an hourly rate and keep their money anyway.  Make them bring all their own cleaning supplies and make them clean up. It seems obvious but it isn't.

3) Open the club house up to the city community for an hourly fee.  It's harder to manage this if you don't have a staff member that can be present during the events. But if you do, game on. :)

4) Some things we do as a community to give back and also utilize the space are: neighborhood watch, home safety meetings, home repair meetings, community forums, National Night Out, pool and water safety, hiking safety, CPR/First Aid, a food drive, clothing drive, meet the police and fire, coffee with the cops, and we have partnered outreach with our community leaders at City Hall to help our low income residents who are struggling with repair expenses to get the resources they need to get their home safe if it is in disrepair.  Not everyone has big pockets.  Some are on severely fixed incomes and need a little help now and then and pointing them in the right direction to those resources doesn't cost us anything.  If anything it improves the park so the home with the issues is fixed.  

Biggest thing is remove as much as possible in the way of liability for you.  Its up to you whether you want to have your own park events only, or to open it up for in park community use, or full city use.   Just keep it stocked, keep it safe, and keep it staffed.  Also, check out your liability for alcohol consumption on your premises.  The local city might require special permitting and you might also require special insurance for that. 

Party on !