Only three tenants live in the mobile home park year round – the others live there only in the winter, and live out of state.

“It’s probably a foot deep inside my trailer. I didn’t open the door because we got sandbags in front of it” said Martinez. At least one resident has moved their mobile home to a competing park that does not have flooding issues.

 
Frank & Dave’s Opinion of This Story:

Before you ever buy a park with floodplain issues, you’ve got to have a handle on what your worst case scenario is and how you would deal with it. Having waist high water is more than a small problem. Destroying people’s trailers while they are out of town is not good for tenant retention. Flood plain is a scientific concept – it’s not subjective. Figure out what the worst case scenario is on any property with flood plain, and see if you can handle it. If you can, fine. If you can’t, don’t take the gamble.

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.

# of Mobile Home Park Lots:115 RV Spaces

Price:Auction 8/26

Contact Person:Dan Falls

Contact Phone:866 921 8883

Contact E-mail:Dan.Falls@williamsauction.com

Description:The Spokane RV Resort is a vacation destination for RV fulltimers and weekend explorers alike. Located adjacent to the Deer Park Golf Club in Deer Park, Washington, the gated 17.80+/- acre resort won Woodalls® 5W rating for both facilities and recreation in 2010 and attracts RV golf and outdoor enthusiasts from throughout the United States and Canada. There are numerous amenities available along with gorgeous mountain and golf course views.  The Spokane RV Resort Remains Open for Business

Link:www.williamsauction.com/deerpark (display)
http://www.williamsauction.com/deerpark?utm_source=RVParkStore&utm_medium=enewsletter&utm_campaign=spokane (actual)

New Sale / Finance Model For Parks and Communities
A very smart, experienced, knowledgeable community owner wonders if, because of the lack of financing, the new way to sell a park/community is for the owner to finance/manage/oversee the sale.  Here’s what his situation is:  For a couple of years he tried to sell his park.  The market was falling and lending was constricting.  After a few deals fell through, he was approached by a buyer and the deal they struck was that the owner/seller would still collect the rent and pay the bills, but the buyer/manager would bring in homes, refurbish homes, market, sell and manage the park.  They have a formula for pricing and executing the closing.  In the meantime, the buyer/manager must meet certain benchmarks for keeping the occupancy stable and ideally increasing it.  It is like a contract sale except that it gives the owner/seller a degree of oversight and safety.  The owner/seller has the right to cancel the agreement if the benchmarks aren’t met, i.e., the occupancy decreases.  Is this the new model for selling a park or community?
Living Smaller
Residential real estate agents report that homebuyers today want a smaller home.  Maybe this is an opportunity for community owners.  Realtors say that baby boomers entering retirement, young adults delaying marriage, and the economy still not doing well, results in homebuyers embracing the idea that less is more.  People are questioning how much “stuff” they really need and paring down and de-cluttering homes.  Less stuff also makes a home feel more spacious.  Perusing the covers of shelter magazines indicates that consumers want to de-clutter, de-junk and re-think what they really need.  For community/park owners that belong to the local real estate board and network with  residential agents, there may be some opportunities—especially for a current homeowner wishing to downsize.  They will have cash from the sale of their home.
Abandoned Homes Solution
A community owner finds that by giving away an abandoned home (after the community owner goes through the legal process to obtain title to the home), they are able to get these homes back on the rent roll.  They require the new homeowner to skirt, side, paint, landscape or whatever tasks are needed to bring the home into compliance with community guidelines.  Once the home is in compliance on the exterior, the new homeowner gets the title.  This  community owner says often the prospective homeowner is a current resident that has doubled up with another resident and just wants their own place.
Best Bets 2010
From the Urban Land Institute Emerging Real Estate Trends for 2010
“Buy or hold multifamily.  It’s the only place with a hint of hope because of demographic     demand.  Scarce new construction (developers can’t get financing to build) sets the stage for a strong rebound in any economic turnaround. There could be a shortage of apartments by 2012″.
Could help the demand for homes in communities?
For Rent
A regional manager says that rental homes have added a huge amount of time to the workload of the onsite manager.  The rental homes are a harder business (if the owner is interested in doing it right).  Advertising (Craiglist, newspaper, website) brings in say 50 calls for one home.  Of those, the manager may show the home 20-30 times, take 10 applications and approve one.  That’s a lot of time to rent one home.  On the one hand there is a market, but going through the screening process, really whittles down the list.
HouseLogic.com
A website sponsored by the National Association of Realtors gives homeowners information on owning, maintaining and repairing a home.  Quite a bit of the information will be useful to Manufactured Home homeowners, for example, looking for signs of energy leaks, how to make an insurance claim, and even how to use green household standbys for cleaning.  Any government programs for tax credits (i.e., energy) are described.  It’s a resource for your residents.
Decent Momentum In New Homes For Communities
An account executive for Clayton Homes is having “decent momentum” on sales of single section homes in Western states.  The community is focused on the $26,000—$30,000 price point plus set up.  What’s interesting is that community owners are putting more money into sets for landscaping, more poured concrete for parking, patios, and sidewalks, and more elaborate decks.
Teach Resident/Homeowner
A Midwestern community owner strives to teach his residents the concept of saving money and paying down more on their home mortgages and contracts.  Homeowners haven’t been taught about compounding and discounting.  They don’t realize that by paying an extra $50 per month on a $15,000 loan at 9% they will shorten a 10 year term by 3 years.  This benefits the community owner, too because the more equity the homeowner has the less likely he is to abandon the home.  Anything the manufactured home business can do to dispel the notion that our homes don’t appreciate in value, helps everyone in the MH business.
Insurance On Manufactured Home Rentals
A community owner with a considerable number of rental homes says that he can’t afford to insure the homes and that many other community owners don’t either.  Is this the next black eye for the MH biz waiting to happen?  Headline:  “Fire Destroys Mobile Home—Landlord Has No Insurance”.

Joanne M. Stevens, CCIM
Park and Community Specialist
NAI Iowa Realty Commercial
Brokering mobile home parks & manufactured home communities throughout the U.S

Although the loan has been sent to a special servicer, it is not currently in default.”The company made to request to implement certain amendments to the loan” said Jennifer Ludovice, an ARC spokesperson. “Due to the structural impediments inherent in CMBS debt, it was necessary for the loan to be transferred to special servicing to facilitate this process even though the loan is not in default.”

Frank & Dave’s Opinion of This Story:

Virtually everyone in the industry has been following the ARC story for over a decade. ARC came on the scene over a decade ago and rapidly bought their way up to 55,000 lots – often seemingly with abandon. Farallon took a huge risk taking over ARC, and this is the news story that will probably garner the most attention in the industry for the next several months.

This is the event in which Frank & Dave, who have owned and operated over $100 million in mobile home parks over the past decade, show you the shortcuts, tricks and insider secrets that you need to know, in a real-world setting -out in the field inside real mobile home parks. It is a complete three-day immersion in the mobile home park business, from how to find parks to buy to evaluating them, negotiating them, doing diligence on them, financing them, closing on them, and operating them.

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

Frank & Dave’s Opinion of This Story:

If you don’t go to our Boot Camp before buying your first park -you’re crazy. We make up the cost of the Boot Camp within the first few minutes of negotiating your contract, or the first month of operations of the park. The biggest names in commercial real estate come to this Boot Camp before jumping off into the park business.

Park owner Kenney Shipley says that the bills are wrong, and have been in error since the city installed a new water meter. Right after installation, his water bills skyrocketed, so he has only paid the amounts for each month that he paid for 2008.

The City of Slaton has tested the meter and found it to be accurate, and says that the money is owed and past due. If they do not receive payment in full immediately, they will shut the water off before the end of June.

Shipley has vowed to keep the water flowing, even if he has to file a legal injunction against the city to keep them from shutting the water off.

Frank’s Opinion of This Story:

The old “my water meter is broken” excuse doesn’t work for your tenants, and it sure doesn’t work for the owner, either. If you dispute a bill, you need to get the meter checked, and also look for any leaks in the system. Many cities will give you a one-time reduction if there was a major leak. But after the test on the meter is completed -and if it is working properly -you better pay your bill. We’re shocked the city let him get away with this for over a year without threatening to shut off the water sooner. Do you think he should hire a lawyer and file an injunction (total price probably $10,000) or just apply those funds to his bill? And do you think he should proactively try to reach a payment plan with the city and put this issue behind him immediately? We do.

During recent flooding, the park had damage, as well as tenants’ personal property. Those tenants have sued the mobile home park. The park is claiming damages which include loss of revenue during the period the park was flooded.

Frank & Dave’s Opinion of This Story:

You don’t see a story like this very often. Normally, it’s the park’s flood plain zoning that is being blamed. But you can have parks that are not in the flood plain impacted by heavy rains as well. Even the best drainage plans rely on storm sewers or creeks that can be jammed with debris and fail to operate. Whenever you buy a park in a low-lying area, particularly near a body of water, you have to make sure that you have 100% awareness of what the possibilities are if some type of flood device malfunctions. You don’t have to be in the flood plain to have liability issues with flooding -as this park demonstrates.

What makes this event so exciting is that almost half of it is held in the field – in actual mobile home parks. You will walk around everything from no-star to 5-star parks and learn how they work and learn the difference between a good deal and a bad deal.

“We really like doing this event in Dallas, as Frank and I have owned so many mobile home parks over the years here and really know this market well” said Dave Reynolds. Some of the parks that will be toured are ones they have formerly owned, as well as ones that they currently own.

For more information go to www.mobilehomeparkstore.com, or call (800) 950-1364.
Frank & Dave’s Opinion of This Story:

If you buy a mobile home park without attending this Boot Camp, you have made a serious mistake. This event will pay for itself many, many times over. We have actually had people who took the Boot Camp and turned around and dropped the deal they had under contract before they showed up, in order to pursue better deals that we showed them how to find. Others have found great deals immediately following the boot camp, using the principals we taught them.

The owner of the mobile home had it listed for sale, and was shocked when they received a deposit refund for removing the home. They immediately called the police.

The mobile home was found at another mobile home park three miles away. Welch had apparently called the manager of the park that the home was originally in to see if she could get the title to the home that was stolen, but the manager turned her away.

The home had already been fully re-painted at the new park.

Welch claims that the park manager had given the home to her.

 
Frank & Dave’s Opinion of This Story:

There’s certainly more to this story than meets the eye. How did Welch get the home moved out of the park it was in without anyone noticing? How did the Manager not notice? Why would Welch have called the old park for the title, immediately identifying herself as the thief? We hate to be so negative on the park manager’s character, but wouldn’t it be more logical that the park manager sold Welch the home, or gave it to her to get it out of the park – and has now conveniently forgot that part of the story?

We’ve had managers dispose of all types of park property, from yard sales of park tools to stealing items from vacant homes such as televisions and VCRs. It is nearly impossible to invisibly move a mobile home. There is definitely more to this scenario than was reported.