All Forum Posts by: Matt B.

We do not use a management company as we mange our own, but you could try Fetters, though you may have already tried them. I imagine they are all going to be close in terms of cost. I would try to negotiate the termination clause. 

Another suggestion would be, if you still have contacts there, find a handy individual that you trust to look after it for you, and pay them a little something. If you Facebook, try posting it, to your friends, that you are looking for a caretaker for your rental property.

Either way, you will still need to manage the person that you let manage your property.

Much success.

It depends on what you intend to do with the property, access underneath and how handy you are as to what you can do. If you intend to sell the property, splurge on the licensed exterminator so they can sign off on it. Even so, doing it yourself will take a days labor and a couple hundred dollars worth of insecticide to do it right. 

If you (or your maintenance person) are somewhat handy you can handle it, especially if you have access underneath such as a basement or crawlspace. If you have a concrete slab or concrete around the building, it is probably worth calling the pro as you really need to drill the concrete and use a high pressure sprayer to deliver it.  

Termidor or Phantom work best for termites. Follow any applicable safety instructions. You will need to dig a 6 inch trench around your entire perimeter of your building. The insecticide will need to be mixed in 5 gallon buckets and poured into the trench. Then you need to treat the inside of your sills and joists and any areas that are visibly infested.

I believe domyownpestcontrol used to have a video and guide on how to do it.

Much success.

Good post. I have actually seen orangeburg wrap itself around a tree root (actually the root just squeezed itself into the orangeburg as it grew). Not sure what they were thinking when they invented it.

One you hinted at is the size of your electric lines. An old 60 amp line cannot support a modern 200 amp home. Not really a problem if you are full of older homes, but if you need to start moving newer ones in, it can become a large expense. 

You also never realize what a killer the trash trucks are until you've owned a property for a couple years and start seeing the damage they do. Way beyond the normal wear and tear of your tenants vehicles.

Not really deferred maintenance, but Mother Nature can also wreck havoc on a park. You can have a slew of your homes lost overnight in a powerful storm. We've bought parks that were suddenly vacated to to Mother Nature. Can change your fortunes in a hurry.

Anyway much success.

Filling a park is going to be cash intensive no matter which route you take. It's not for the squeamish or the those that are cash strapped. $15-20k to move a decent home in. The Legacy route is on option, but you will still need around $15k for the downpayment and costs. Upside is you have a new home, downside is can you charge enough to cover your payment on the home. 

Then you need to decide what to do with the home once you have it in the park. It's going to be hard to sell for cash and the only other options are to rent it (not what most park owners want to do) or find someone to finance it, like a small community bank.

Offering to move a home in (either investor or resident) is a viable strategy, but still expect to have close to $5k in it for transportation, setup and utilities. Now you need to decide how quickly you can make that back.

You will probably need to do a combination of all to fill the park. Personally I would rather start with a park that is nearly full of homes, even if they are unoccupied and look like junk. Do a very basic rehab and then give the homes away for next to nothing to a long term lot rental tenant. No Dodd Frank, no rentals, no financing to worry about.

Whatever route you go with, much success to you.

Nancy Neville has one and I believe she posts on this site. Also Mike Butler has one. Just Google either. They may not be specifically for 2014, but there really is not that much difference from previous versions.

Also, if you are doing more than a couple of units, you want the Desktop Pro version, not the online. The online version has less useful features. You can easily manage several hundred units with the Pro with no need for any additional property management type software.

After about 500 units it's time for Yardi or something similar.

They are very similar yet different. The tenant pays everything, unless you own the homes. If you plan on owning the homes, it would be easier to just stick with apartments. Otherwise, typically you are responsible for the roads, common areas and getting utilities to the pad.

Evictions will vary by state, but in parks with tenant owned homes the eviction rate is much lower than park owned homes, apartments or sfr. Normally they will have to be out of the home in so many days and then are given a set number of days to move the home. You would want to work out some form of arrangement to keep the home in the park though.

Unless you have deep pockets and experience, shy away from turn around parks. It is much easier to fill an apartment than an empty lot. That being said, I would much rather own a park, than apartments. If you have a fairly full park and a good resident manager, it will almost run itself.

Much success.

There are countless ways to arrange something. It just comes down to what both parties agree to.

If there are just two parties involved the simplest ways would involve either a joint venture agreement or a promissory note arrangement. With the j/v agreement it would essentially be a partnership, where the friend supplies the funds and you supply everything else. You each then get a percentage of the sale. With a note, the friend is essentially loaning you the money for whatever terms you agree to(usually a fixed interest rate) and you agree to pay it back. The note can either be secured by the property or unsecured.

Either way you want a decent real estate attorney to draft the agreement. If you want to get more creative than you will probably need a securities attorney.

Much success.

Welcome. We actually have a mobile home park in Wichita. Let me know if we can ever be of service.

We actually have a park down the street from there. It's not a bad neighborhood at all.

Speaking of not making sense, we once had someone steal the top off of a coin operated dryer, out of a laundry room, at some apartments we had. It probably took them over an hour to get into the coin box, if they ever did. All for less than $5 worth of quarters. They worked for less than minimum wage.

Ditto on the expenses. The water/sewer alone on 12 occupied lots would probably be $300-400 per month. Also, assuming the tenants mow their own lots, who mows the rest of it? Assuming it snows where the park is located, who pays for snow removal? Not much management needed on 13 lots, but who manages it and how do they get paid? If you do any of these things, do you plan on working for free?

I think it could be a decent deal, just look deeper at the numbers. The plus is, it's nearly fully occupied and the rents seem low. Also, if they have their own meters you can start billing the water back to tenants.

I wouldn't pay cash for the whole thing, unless you cannot get any other financing. Put 20-25% down and see if the seller would finance the rest. If not a small community bank shouldn't have a problem financing a park like that. Much success.