Tweet

How to Evaluate a Mobile Home Park

Guest post by: Dave Reynolds

Article Overview: Of all the barometers of park performance, from a profit and loss statement to the annual license renewal, one of the crudest and simplest is the fine art of analyzing grass. Because you can tell a lot about a mobile home park just from looking at the grass. The simplest first question is: "is there any grass?" If not, you may be in a desert, or under water. But if there is grass present, then here are some of the things to look for.

How to Evaluate a Mobile Home Park

Of all the barometers of park performance, from a profit and loss statement to the annual license renewal, one of the crudest and simplest is the fine art of analyzing grass. Because you can tell a lot about a mobile home park just from looking at the grass. The simplest first question is: "is there any grass?" If not, you may be in a desert, or under water. But if there is grass present, then here are some of the things to look for:

Is the grass green in some areas when it's brown everywhere else (in summer)?

This may be a tell-tale sign of water and/or sewer leaks. Anything that puts moisture in the earth is going to result in healthier, greener grass. When you spot these lush oasis in an otherwise burned out park grassland, you will probably find it spongy and saturated. If the green grass is in the general line of the main (at the back of the trailer) then it may be a break in a main line. If it is near the house, it may be a break in the line that feeds just that one house. The same is true about the sewer line. A clay tile sewer system with a collapse or separation in the line will continually leak moisture and give grass a boost. When figuring out park leaks, green grass is the first place you head.

Is the grass brown in some areas when it's green everywhere else (in summer)?

This may be a sign of an underground natural gas leak. If your park is on master-metered natural gas, and you see brown patches throughout the park, then you may have significant gas leaks to contend with. Had I known this on my very first park, I could have saved a fortune by not buying it, or negotiating for the seller to fix the leaks. Natural gas kills grass.

Is the grass dead in a neat rectangle in the middle of a vacant lot?

That means that a mobile home was just moved out of the lot. Due to the continual lack of sunshine under the trailer that was removed, the soil is relatively infertile and grass won't grow there for some time. When evaluating which vacant lots are already set up with utilities for occupancy, then look for big, dead rectangles. The same is true when you are looking for recent pull-outs and decline in occupancy.

Is the grass un-mowed on each tenant's lot?

That is a good sign that the tenants lack "pride of ownership". This will be a real problem with getting a loan on the park. Banks like to see a park where the tenants respect where they live and keep their lots looking clean and mowed. A park where nobody is mowing means they may also not be observing other key rules, such as paying their rent on time, or at all. You need to put in more diligence on a park with this problem.

Is the grass un-mowed on the park's common areas?

This could be a sign that the park management is not doing their job. Since mowing grass is not rocket science, if they can't manage that effectively, how can they manage more complicated issues like repair and maintenance and collections?

Is the grass around the parking pads missing, and replaced with just dirt?

This is a sign that tenants have more than the two cars the parking pad allows, and are parking at night up in their yards. This is something you would only know if you visited at night. The deader the grass, the more they are parking on it.

Are the tenants smoking grass?

Welcome to the mobile home park business.

In summary, grass is not as stupid as it looks. It knows quite a lot about a mobile home park. Tt is very observant of its weaknesses, even when they remain unseen by the human eye. So take notice of the grass and let it guide you to where the problems are.

Related Articles
  Mobile Home Tenants - Fixing Mobile Home Park Vacancy Problems
  How to Finance a Mobile Home Park: You Can Still Get Zero Down Financing
  Fixing Mobile Home Park Vacancy Problems
  Why Good Looking Mobile Home Parks Have Ugly Returns
  How Mobile Home Parks Make More Money Than Single-Family Home Investing
  The Effect of Litigation on the Mobile Home Park Business
  How to Make Money in the Mobile Home Park Business
  How to Retire on Just One Mobile Home Park
  Mobile Home Parks: How To Dispose of Ancillary Assets
  How to Rent a Mobile Home Park in a Tough Economy
  How to Really Make Money with Mobile Home Parks
  Why Buy a Mobile Home Park as Compared to Apartments and Other Types of Commercial and Investment Real Estate?
  Mobile Home Park Investments - How To Make 10% To 20% On Your Money
  Mobile Home Parks: The Perfect Storm is Building for the Best Deals in Decades
  Don't Hold Your Mobile Home Park Residents to a Unreasonable Standards
  Mobile Home Parks - How to Properly Enforce the Rules
  How to Properly Evaluate Mobile Home Park Investments
  Mobile Home Parks - How to take Advantage of the Greatest Buying Opportunity in Decades
  Finding and Evaluating Mobile Home Park Investments
  Mobile Home Park Selling Tips

Article Tags: mobile home park, profit and loss statement
Referred by: http://www.mrlaundromat.com/



Related Forum Posts
Re: The Mobile Marketing - Mobile Marketing involves communicating with the consumer via cellular (or mobile) device, either to send a simple marketing message, to introduce them to a new audience participation-based campaign or to allow them to visit a mobile website. Some of the tools of the trade and a few of the concepts that will be featured in this Mobile Marketing 101 series are: Multimedia Messaging Services (MMS) Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) Bluetooth, Wireless and Infrared Mobile Internet and Social Media Mobile Applications Mobile connectivity not only enables people to connect to the Internet via a cellular telephone, PDA or other gadget, but also consolidates the different communication channels in a simple, yet effective, medium. Cheaper than traditional means for both the consumer and the marketer - and easy enough for almost any age group to understand and engage with - Mobile Marketing really is a streamlined version of traditional eMarketing.
Home-based Business - signed my first 200 customers while I worked from home. You can make it work. Many small businesses do, i.e. interior designers, AC/Heating Companies, moving companies, Plumbing companies, painters, landscapers, web designers, Mobile car mechanics, Computer Techs, online retail businesses, Pool cleaners, Home Repair, Telemarketers, electricians, Artists, etc
Re: Mobile Marketing - Top 10 trends in the mobile application in 2012 What is most interesting to us mobile marketers is what lands at # 2 and # 3 spots on his list. "Mobile Search", "location-based services," and also, the place n. # 8 is our favorite of my "mobile advertising." last round after this morning's location based on 1020 funding Placecast poster supports the thesis that when it comes to phones, people expect to be able to discover things around them. That makes sense - after all, what good is a mobile device if you can not access the information you need right now? Gartner reports that location services will be "one of the most disturbing in the coming years." Gartner predicts that the LBS user base of 96 million global growth in 2009 to more than 526 million by 2012. "His value to the user high is the result of its ability to meet a variety of needs, ranging from productivity and fullfillment target social networking and entertainment." Mobile Search, which Gartner says is a fundamental purpose "to drive sales and marketing opportunities in the mobile phone," now just need the user experience. Once "the industry improves the user experience of mobile search to get people back again," Gartner predicts it will be the third most popular application in 2012. Getting to # 8, mobile advertising is no joke. Total spending on mobile advertising in 2008 was $ 530.2 million, which Gartner expects to grow to $ 7.5 billion in 2012. "Mobile advertising is an important way to monetize the mobile Internet content, applications and offering free services to end users. The mobile channel will be used as part of the largest advertising campaigns in various media, including television, radio, print and outdoor, "says Gartner. Here's the full top 10 types of future mobile applications, according to Gartner: 1. Money transfer 2. Location Based Services 3. Mobile Search 4. Mobile Browsing 5. Mobile health monitoring 6. Mobile Payment 7. Near field communication services 8. Mobile Advertising 9. Mobile Instant Messaging
Re: Mobile Marketing - No doubt on this.Mobile marketing seems to be a good business now although very few amount of people have knowledge about this.
Re: What are your June Goals? - Nice Evan, congrats on your book draft Finish the goals I didn't finish in May - smiles I want to clean up my primary Gmail account Finish my new websites Continue my 3rd edition of 3 volumes or ..... many smaller new editions Lean more about Penguin Read/re-read a book a day Evaluate Kindle There you go; that is a start since I have never posted goals before


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

SEO and the Entrepreneur

Effective Leadership

Steps For Starting A Small Business

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.