CREUniversity

HUD is about to expand their efforts, more fairly, to suburban and rural markets. Scott Turner – the new head of HUD – is even discussing a name change which eliminates the “U” in HUD since it suggests their mission is strictly “urban”. That’s great news for mobile home parks as they are rarely located inside gritty city centers.

A mobile home without shutters on each window looks as bad as a human missing their eyebrows. You can buy new vinyl shutters for $25 per pair. What will only cost you maybe $200 in parts and labor will make a mobile home look $5,000 better. Never miss this step in home remodeling.

Everything is negotiable. Every expense line item on your mobile home park P&L can be reduced if you only give it a try. Society (and most businesses) depend on people being to chicken to push the envelope. Don’t be one of those people. Try to negotiate everything, and – even if you only save $1 per lot – you’ll be shocked at the cumulative impact.

The Atlanta Fed is predicting negative GDP for Q1. It’s pretty much a given that Q2 will be negative GDP. That means, by July, it may be officially announced that the U.S. is in recession. At that point, the stock market will collapse. Mobile home parks are a great contrarian hedge in which demand gets stronger as the economy gets worse.

Here’s real estate from A to Z.? John Jacob Astor (America’s first real estate millionaire) said in the 1820s “buy real estate when other people want to sell”.? Sam Zell (America’s largest owner of office buildings, apartments and mobile home parks) once said in the 2020s “when others are looking left, look right”.? Successful investors are contrarian. It’s been true for over 200 years

The term “Trailer Park” was originally a compliment. Cities across America opened parking lots for affluent “trailer” owners and put the title “Trailer Park” proudly over the entrance. It?had the status of?a private airport in the 1930s to 1950s. Nobody back then would have ever dreamed it would one day be a derogatory term.

John Jacob Astor was America’s first real estate millionaire. In the mid-1800s, he amassed over $500 billion in wealth. One of his quotes, “Buy on the fringe and wait. Buy land near a growing city!” defined his real estate strategy. It helped that the city he was buying on the fringe of was Manhattan in New York.

Don’t put carpet in mobile homes. Go with “hardwood-looking” vinyl flooring. You will end up ripping out the carpet and pad between each tenant. If a customer prefers carpet, just have them buy an area rug at Walmart. It’s a whole lot easier to roll up and throw away, while the vinyl protects the flooring from moisture and bad smells.

Sometimes, the best way to deal with a problem tenant who finds fault in everything and complains endlessly is simply to say, “Clearly, you’re unhappy here, so maybe you should find someplace else to live”. That turns the tables on them, as they only had power over you because of your “the customer is always right” attitude. Sometimes, the customer is not right.

Mobile homes are like the late comedian Rodney Daingerfield, who always said, “I can’t get no respect.” People are raving over small pre-built homes from Amazon and Boxable when the mobile home industry has been producing the same thing for 50+ years. Has nobody ever driven by a mobile home sales lot on the highway before?