I completely understand the value and ease that a good agent brings to the table, but at the same time, leaving that money behind will hinder my ability to move forward with scaling up into a down pmt. on a multi-family or portfolio purchase.

If so, the solution to less taxes would be to channel more money out - hence your ideas to manufacture extra outflow by self-created notes etc.It does not work, mainly because the profit for tax purposes has little to do with cash flow.Example 1: principal payments.

The business of MHPs is not the easiest one, and there are a lot more variables than most other asset classes, so consider starting small so you can learn the ropes on a smaller scale, partnering with someone who already has experience, or spending a lot of time becoming educated. 

Once I started to gain scale, I decided to keep a lump sum in the bank at all times.

@Ariel CohenI've used Buildium for around 5 years now and love it, however I'm nowhere near the scale of @Brian Adams so he will certainly have a different perspective/needs than the smaller operators.I believe I get your request and am thinking the limitation in Buildium would be that you will not be able to set up multiple layers of ownership and am not sure why you would want to?

If you are willing and able to make future loans in their park, that should be of value to them and gives you something to negotiate with.The lesson here is never, never, make a loan on a manufactured home in a land lease community if you do not have a decent relationship with the park owners and a written agreement regarding lot rent and other fees the park may feel is due them.

I wish the manufacturers would stop marketing them as flushable.

I find that the ROI on that property is not nearly as much as if I purchased a property very cheaply (under $50,000) and rehab it, putting $10-$30,000 into it, depending on its needs, so it is an medium to upper scale rental.  

It's long-term vacancy and / or large scale damage that concerns me the most. 

Utility law is outside my area of expertise, but I do understand what being in the business of doing something is, I do know that brokering utility serves is a regulated activity, providing utility services for a profit puts you in the shoes of a utility provider, regardless of the scale of your business may be.