We cap the enrollment at just 20 people, and only have a couple tickets left.

This is the last time that we will be holding the event in Dallas in 2010, so if you are convenient to the D/FW Metroplex, this is the event you want to hit to save on travel expense!

For more information call (800) 950-1364 or go to www.Mobilehomeparkstore.com.

“Until now, there has never been a successful roadmap to investing in mobile homes inside mobile home parks” said Dave Reynolds. “To invest in mobile homes, it is essential that the park owner offer certain incentives and formulas to help share the risk and ensure that the experience is a profitable one. Only at the MobileHomer.com can you obtain the list of participating mobile home parks that will make your investment a winner.”

For more information, go to www.MobileHomer.com, or call (800) 950-1364.

When I got in the mobile home park business, many of the sellers I bought from called the mobile homes “coaches” and “trailers”. Roger Miller even wrote a hit song with the lyrics “trailers for sale or rent”. But manufacturers and dealers thought the business needed an upgrade, so they changed the name to “mobile home”. Of course, the name was misleading, because mobile homes are far from mobile. Some can’t survive any movement at all, and moving one can cost $3,000 or more. And I guess they stuck the word “home” on there to make it sound reassuing or folksy (as opposed to saying “mobile unit”), or to give you greater direction on what you were supposed to do with the thing. But I embraced the new moniker, and so did everybody else.

The mobile home is a fine symbol of affordable housing. It represents the collective efforts of manufacturers and the government to build the cheapest detached housing unit in the world. Although it is not always appealing to the eye, and has been a notorious incubator for some of the wildest living conditions in mankind, it is cheap. Sometimes, real cheap. I have seen used mobile homes sell for $1,000 – that’s 94 cents per square foot. That’s about 100 times cheaper than a comparable stick-built house.

Mobile homes were inhabited by people who didn’t earn much – but they were at least inhabited. Nobody expected much besides four walls and a roof, and they were seldom disappointed. If you didn’t have much money, you always felt safe that there would be a mobile home in a park to fit any budget.

But then in the 1990s they decided to re-invent the industry again, this time under the moniker “manufactured home”. Out with the concept of “mobile” and in with the concept of building a thing in a factory. First off, I’m not so sure that you want to beat the customer over the head with the idea that their housing unit was built in a factory. That’s not exactly a crowd-pleaser or reason to boast at a cocktail party “my house was built just like my car”. Most things built in a factory are impersonal, cheaply made and often prone to breaking. Wait a minute – maybe that is a pretty accurate impression.

With the new “classy” name came new pricing for the homes – about two to three times what mobile homes cost. But they still sold O.K. due to impossibly low standards by lenders such as Greentree. Suddenly, mobile homes that cost $10,000 now cost $40,000 as manufactured homes. And therein lies the problem.

Manufactured housing has lost its roots as affordable housing. Now it wants to pretend that it is something more than it is – and make the consumer join in the fun. I think the American public has voted with its pocketbook. Sales of manufactured homes have fallen about 75% since 2000. The sad truth is that nobody wants an expensive manufactured home. They want cheap mobile homes.

There is talk that the industry wants to change the name again. Perhaps “executive mansions on the go” is on the table. I would urge the industry, instead, to go back to the “mobile home business”. Everyone knew what it meant – affordable housing – and they could afford it. Homes sold briskly and parks were full. That demand has not gone anywhere, but nobody can afford, or wants to buy, affordable housing for $40,000. Instead of straining to find out how to build and sell the most expensive manufactured home, let’s refocus the industry on how to build the least expensive. I know it’s not as profitable, but you can make it up in volume.

“Coaches”, “trailers” and “mobile homes” are where the demand is. “Manufactured homes”? Nobody’s interested. And forget any new names – you’ve already embarrassed yourselves enough.

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:

1.Focus on the entrance to the park: A nice sign that says “Welcome to ___________ Mobile Home Community”. Also plant some bushes or trees near the entrance and keep the grass mowed and trimmed nicely.

2.Roads: Your roads don’t have to paved and have curb and gutters, but they do have to be passable. If there are large potholes, patch them immediately. If they need graded, grade them. Before a potential resident ever gets out of the car they will see your entrance and drive on the roads. Make that a good experience.

3.Park Office: with the park office you want to make sure that it looks inviting. I have been to many an office that is not properly marked with “Welcome” or some other inviting remark. Instead it says something like, “if your rent is not paid by the 5th it is late” or “take your excuses somewhere else”. Is that any way to greet a potential resident?

4.Park Office again: I have also been to many parks that as you are walking up to the office you are greeted by a fence with a dog inside and you have to decide whether to enter or not. Other times you knock on the door and then there are 3 dogs scratching at the door waiting to pounce on you. I don’t have a problem with my manager’s home being duplicated as the park office, but I do think they need to take precautions against scaring people off with their own dogs.

5.General Appearance of the Community: once the potential resident enters the park and is satisfied with the entrance and roads, they will encounter the rest of the park. If the park is a complete disaster with trash, junk, high grass and weeds, and so on, do you think this will be a good selling point for potential customers? At least it is not a good selling point for the customers you are hoping to attract.

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.

1.Flyer to all Mobile Home Dealers in a 25 mile radius – On the flyer, offer some form of move in special (free 3 months, lower rent, etc).

2.Join the Chamber of Commerce – then in all of your flyers and ads you can put that you are a member of the Chamber – builds credibility.

3.Entrance Sign – it works for you 24/7 and make sure to put your phone number on it!

4.Sponsor a Referral Program to your residents – if they refer someone give them a nice reward (not a $5 discount on the rent).

5.Talk to local Real Estate Brokers – if they have a customer that can’t qualify on a house, maybe they will send them your way (give them a referral fee as well).

6.Advertisement in the paper or papers – make your ad different from the rest of the ads in the paper – not the simple… mobile home lots for rent, call ???. Instead, try something like… Incredibly Large and Spacious Mobile Home Sites… We will pay you $1,000.00 to help with moving costs! The first five callers will also get the first 3 months Rent FREE! – you get the point, make it stand out and make it enticing.

7.Start a Community Newsletter and send out the best stories from your newsletter to the local paper to have published. Most local newspapers have a community or local section and are always looking for good stories to publish. Also, if you get the email address from all potential prospects, you can send them this newsletter every month so when they think about moving they won’t have forgot about you.

8.Signs on Vacant Lots – put nice signs on your vacant lots with a phone number for people to call.

9.Banner signs at entrance – big move in special or discounted rate or we pay you $1,000 to move your home to our park type of banners around the perimeter on high traffic areas of the park.

10.Telephone Book – make sure that you have an ad in the phone book as this is where many of your potential customers will find you. In the ad, you might want to include something about your move-in specials or direct them to your website to find out the move-in special of the month.

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.

The Problem

Most mobile home parks were built in the 1970s or earlier, at a time when mobile home park residents dreamed of having their own private jukebox and pink flamingos in the yard. They were the very essence of tacky. And the park names matched the customer. Some were clever take-offs on the mobile home concept, like “Roll-A-Home”. Many were rustic sounding like “Wagon Wheel”. But rarely were they created with any marketing strategy involved. Some are so bad that you have to wonder if the owner was trying to make fun of his tenants or the whole concept of trailer living. Some parks don’t even have a name, just a 4′ x 8′ sheet of plywood with a phone number or “Mobile Park” crudely painted on it. Just like the grave of the unknown soldier, they are nameless plots of dirt where tenants live and die and don’t even know how to identify themselves.

The Early Creators

Many of moms and pops that still own parks in America don’t know diddle about naming a property. They might be good with a carbine in WWII, or great with laying their own sewer line (until it flows backwards the first time around), or building parking pads with asphalt out of the back of their pick-up truck. But when it came to marketing, they were at the bottom of the class. Just look at the marketing materials from these folks even today. A professional quality flyer is a Xeroxed sheet written by hand with a marks-a-lot (both capitals and lower case letters interchanged). These folks ruled over cheap pieces of farmland with new infrastructure and some trailers, and were not serious real estate investors. They never dreamed their parks would be worth anything some day. The bottom line is that while they may have attractive mobile home parks, they have no idea how to name a property properly. Is it appropriate to have a lousy name on an expensive park?

The Cure

Naming a mobile home park is very easy. Virtually any name you choose will be better than the current one – you are probably 1,000% more marketing savvy than the person you bought the park from. You certainly have more at stake than they did. But there is a strategy to derive the ultimate name if you put a little work into it. Here’s the process:

ïWhat is the number one sales point for someone moving to or living in the park?

ïReduce this sales point to one or two essential words.

ïAdd the name “Estates” at the start or end of these words.

For example, if your park has huge pine trees on it that everybody loves, then the appropriate name would be “Pine Tree Estates”. Or if it’s the frontage on Lake Forest, then it should be “The Estates of Lake Forest”, or “Lake Forest Estates”. It’s that simple.

Why a classy name? Because people in mobile home parks don’t want to be reminded of the fact with a lousy name that they have to use among the rest of the world who does not live in a trailer park. What kid at school wants to tell his friends, “I live in Roll-A-Home”? Nobody. Everybody wants to feel important and equal. Give them that opportunity!

Enacting the New Name

Once you have settled on a name, it’s equally easy to put it into practice. First, notify the city of what you are doing, and make sure it is legal to change before you begin. I have never seen a city that had a problem with changing the name. Then, it’s time for a new sign for the park. This time around, get a decent quality one from a professional company, at a cost of about $2,000. Then send a letter to all the tenants about the name change. And you’ll have to change the marketing materials at all of the dealers. The final change is your yellow page ad – so keep watching for that renewal notice.

That’s all there it to it. That’s not too hard now, is it?

The Benefits

A new, classy name will have multiple benefits to your property:

ïThe name alone delivers your sales message to potential customers (remember to put the key sales point in the name).

ïThe residents will have more pride of ownership when they can take pride in the name of where they live.

ïA new name erases the park’s past ills

ïA new name is a turn-on to lenders who look at financing it (remember that the name will be throughout your loan application documents).

ïA classy name will help you get a higher sales price when you go to sell the park someday.

Conclusion

The benefits of changing the name of your mobile home park are priceless. The cost is nominal. There is no excuse not to do it. So start immediately. You will be very happy you did. And so will your tenants!