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Visit us at www.mhps.com This issue of the MobileHomeParkStore.com and MHBay.com Newsletter includes:
The Marketing Contest: Earlier this month we asked people to write down their best ideas on marketing. Whether it be to fill up vacant spaces in your community, sell homes to potential residents, or sell you mobile home park when it is time to sell. All the entries are below and we need you to help vote for the best one. Just send an email to contest@mhps.com with the number of the entry that you think is best. The winner will get a copy of our new manual on the "30 Days of Due Diligence". Number 1:
Dave, thank you so much for your articles. I am a MHP owner. I have a pretty
large park with 120 spaces. It currently has 40+ vacant spaces, and I don't
have the cash to fill them. With that said, I have found that if I can come up with the cash for a home, (and I have purchased over 30 in 3 1/2 years), I can fill that thing immediately with a type of lease purchase I have created. I have seen lease purchases go terribly wrong here, (not personally), in that when you attempt to evict a non-payer, then the local magistrate may consider there to be equity in the home, and kick it out of magistrates court, and into master in equity. This gets pretty ugly here, as you are then labeled a "predatory lender" and it just goes downhill from there. What I have done is set up a contract, that the tenant buys for a minimum of $1500. In this contract, if my home is say 19,900, I run a 5,7, or 10 year amortization, based on the tenants ability to afford the monthly (lease) payment, plus lot rent. In this contact, I agree to sell them that home for whatever that 12th month payoff would be. Hence, their best deal would be to buy the home in month 1 or 2 of the contact. However, since in SC, a 12 month lease is all that is legal, I tell them that if they honor their lease payments on time, I will renew that contract on a year to year basis, reducing the price annually. So, eventually they will own the home, if they will lease it for enough years to get their purchase option down to 0. This seems to create a "owner" mentality, even though many have walked away. I just wish I could afford to fill my park with homes, and then start going to the tenants who have been in the park for years, and update them to a newer home. Somedays, I wish I didn't own it, but, I keep looking to the future. Gene H. Number 2:
Because water is the most expensive utility I have, I've done two things
that should help. I've written a letter for my manager to distribute to the
tenants saying basically that for every dollar's worth of water they use,
the city charges an extra three more dollars to flush it down the drain.
The sewer cost is a 3x multiple of the actual water use and if they want to
help us keep rents down, keep water use under control, and report any leaks
or running toilets immediately...yakity yak. I have also
put in low flow shower heads. Push button. They're great.
Five bucks apiece at Wal-Mart.
Jim D. Number 3:
Along with the subject of filling empty lots is
creating additional lots. The property I am
purchasing has an additional eight empty
acres. I wouldn't purchase an MHP just for that purpose, but since
I have it, how do I take advantage of it?
David D. Number 4:
My daughter swears by Craigslist.... My
Park needs more owners rather than renters, I need more trailers to
rent... But I was surprised about all the postings for Housing
Wanted, etc. On Craigslist....
It's FREE!
Jane T. Number 5: Dave- They say word of mouth marketing is the cheapest and one of the best ways to sell anything. Why not send out a flyer offering an incentive to present court occupants for referring 'qualified' prospective park occupants? A couple of months free rent always looks good. Ken C. Number 6:
Dave,
Personally, I think that all too often we take our current residence (customers) for granted and don't thank them for their business. These solid customers are the real bread & butter (CASH) of all businesses. There are many, many ways of doing this and the methods will depend on the size of the park(s). For example:
A free B-B-Q & watermelon for the 4th of
July for park residents only Number 7: Hi Dave, After reading all of these send an email with your vote to contest@mhps.com. If you have any thoughts or additions to this list I will post in the next newsletter. Thanks to all that participated. Updates & Other Announcements: We are getting closer to moving all of our websites to a new platform. The web designers have been busy and the new site design should be online sometime in May. The new site structure will have most of the same links and same information but will allow you to search and sort the listings much easier. Also, you will be able to login and update your listings as often as you like. Marketing your Mobile Home Park: By: Dave Reynolds When I am looking to market my mobile home park whether it be to potential residents to bring their homes in or to sell homes in the park, I believe that the first contact with the potential customer is key. This first contact may be via a telephone call to your office, a drive-by by the potential resident, or in many cases could be a referral from a current resident or some other local business (chamber of commerce, dealer, broker, etc). Let's face it, if you or your manager is rude when they call in, they probably will call the next park. If they drive in and the roads are in bad shape, the sign is falling down, or there are dangerous dogs running around, they probably will turn around and look for the next park. And the same holds true with referrals from your current customers. If you current customers don't like living there they will bad mouth you all over town and never refer their friends and relatives to move in. Continuing on to other local businesses that would otherwise refer your community to potential residents, you don't stand a chance if you have a bad reputation. So I think the best form of marketing is to build your credibility in your town, keep your current residents happy, and make sure that those potential customers have a good first impression whether it be a phone call or a drive-by. Before you ever spend one penny on a newspaper ad, a flyer a the local dealer, or some type of direct mailing to apartment complexes, you should make sure that you have everything in place to attract good residents once they respond. Here is my top 5 list of things you need to do first:
Ok, now that we have the entrance, roads, office, and general look of the community ready for new residents, what do we do next? Let's suppose that we are talking about getting new customers to move their home into our park and that we have 25 vacant lots. Now apply one of the best marketing ideas I have ever heard which goes something like this. Is it better to do ONE thing 25 times to fill those lots? Or is it better to do TWENTY-FIVE things one time to fill those lots? I think the latter is the better approach. Maybe in the past you could just bring a flyer down to the local mobile home dealer and watch as he fills up the park. This is not going to happen anymore. You need to to get the flyer down to the dealer, run an ad in the paper, get referrals from your customers, join the chamber, and generally get the word out about your mobile home park. Here is a list of some of my ideas that should get you started.
Finally, when you are out there doing your marketing, it is important to test what is working and what is not working. If you run ads in the paper and get no calls... then stop running that ad and try a different one. If none of your park residents are referring people to move in, find out way and up the ante. 3-28-08 3-21-08 3-13-08 3-11-08 3-4-08 (4 Days After Posting the Ad) 3-3-08 3-2-08 Are you a manufactured home owner or community owner with homes or lots for sale or rent? If so, then you can list your new and used mobile homes for sale or rent and lots for sale or rent for FREE at MHBay.com Q&A with Dave Question: Dave, Along with the subject of filling
empty lots is creating additional lots. The property I am
purchasing has an additional eight empty
acres. I wouldn't purchase an MHP just for that
purpose, but since I have it, how
do I take advantage of it? So I'm
thinking, how do I calculate the cost of developing
additional infrastructure (roads,
electrical, water, sewer, pads, etc.),
purchase used homes (I've got
your book on this), are bank loans available for all
this, attract lot-renters, and generate revenue quickly
enough to cover new expenses? Answer:
David,
This is a good question. You are correct that you should not base a park purchase on the additional acreage in most cases. I have expanded a few parks in the past but only if I knew the demand was there to fill the vacant lots. I would make sure the current park was full and I was receiving calls or had access to good used homes to put in to the new section to sell. As to calculating the cost of developing the additional lots it will depend on the requirements of the city/county and other things such as availability of the water/sewer, tap fees. We had a park in Tyler, TX that had about 40 units. The water and sewer line was already there so all we had to do was to dig trenches to connect to the existing line. The electric company put in the meters at no cost to us. We had to put in roads which cost about $50,000. We added base and driveways to each lot and for about $100,000 we had 30 more lots. That was about 8 years ago. It would probably have cost $150-200K in today's dollars. Since you will already have the park you will have time to get estimates from contractors and utility companies to find out what it would cost to expand. I would guess it would be somewhere in the $5,000 to $10,000 per lot range. As far as getting money for the expansion, I have had the best luck with local banks. I am not sure if you could separate the acreage when you purchase the park so that it is clear of any mortgages but that would be a plus if you are looking to get a construction loan. You would have that piece of land to put up as collateral. If you can sort the financing out, the key will be to know your market and absorption rate. It is tough in most areas of the country right now but I have parks that if I could expand I would because I have a waiting list for people to get into. Another thought would be to create land/home packages on the 8 acres where you buy the home set it up and sell it as a land/home. I have done this and in the right markets you can make $20-40K per home. Hope this helps. Dave Question: Hi Dave, Answer: Andrew,
Dave: Answer:
Doug,
2. Show him on paper what it
would cost for you to go out and buy homes similar
to the ones in the park (ie: 1990 home down the road
for $10K plus $2K moving and setup equals $12K).
Then ask him why you should pay him more than that
for his homes that are in similar condition. Question: Dave Answer:
Rick, Mobile Home Park Bootcamp Frank and I are in the process of preparing our first ever bootcamp for mobile home park owners and investors. The first bootcamp will be held in Colorado in June of 2008.
Watch for
more details to come soon. Tell us what you think!
We'd love to hear what you think of this issue!
We need your articles and press releases - send your articles to dave@mhps.com to be included in upcoming newsletters. Where else can you put your press releases and articles in front of thousands of people for FREE!
Please send your comments, questions, articles, and
ideas for upcoming issues to us at:
dave@mhps.com
Your feedback matters to us!
Visit us at www.mhps.com or www.mhbay.com Until Next Time! Dave Reynolds |
October 22nd - 24th
Columbus, OH
