February 2009
Newsletter
This issue of the MobileHomeParkStore.com and MHBay.com Newsletter includes:
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This is your last chance to sign up for the bootcamp before prices go up! If you have been considering attending act now! Some Comments from past attendees: Dave & Frank, The event last weekend was terrific in all respects. I was able to see and hear various experiences and the consequences. It provided me with clarity about past mistakes (rental homes) and how best to plan for the future. I know you were concerned about staying on schedule with the book material. To me there was actually two seminars - one in Denver and the other when I get home to re-read the material. I have never paid $3k for a class yet felt that it was an excellent value. In addition, both of you speaking simultaneously was a very dynamic format. Jim B. -------------------- Dave, I like to thank you and Frank for such a wonderful job you guys did. The Bootcamp was really great. We learnt a lot. It was worth the time and money. I had some knwoledge of MHP investments, but after taking the bootcamp, I am more confident and I know what I did wrong with our MHPs. I will recommend your class to anyone without any reservation. In the near future I want to focus on improving the existing parks that we own (from the knowledge gained from the bootcamp). Once I am happy with them, I want look into buying more. Thanks for offering your help. I will be in touch with you. Thank Perry for the great pictures. -Pratap -------------------- My husband and I really enjoyed the bootcamp. You DEFINATELY accomplished your goal of "over delivering!" We are so glad to have come home with all the notes and books as we probably only assimilated 1% of all that! The thumb drive was EXTREMELY GENEROUS! Thank you. The bootcamp was incredibly well organized and delivered in a wonderful, fun, non boring, fascinating way. I loved that the only rule was "no rules" and that we were allowed to interupt with questions and comments at any time. I was completely fascinated by all the first hand experience and stories from people (both you and attendees) really "in the trenches out there" like Brian and I. It, for the first time, made me feel like we weren't the only ones with all these questions and concerns. The almost 24/7 complete accessability from minute one was wonderful. You all were so approachable and it was wonderful to feel that. I really was impressed with having a format where at least 2 of you were up there at all times and it flowed so beautifully back and forth impulsively and what appeared to be among great commrades. High 5. The help you are continuing to offer is much appreciated and needed. Tracy & Brian S. -------------------- The investment for this bootcamp is $1,999.00 for 1 person and $2,999.00 for 2 people. Additional group prices are available. Click Here to Reserve 1 Ticket Click Here to Reserve 2 Tickets |
Smart Ideas For Marketing We all have to be smarter these days when it comes to marketing our product. Your product is your mobile home park or mobile home unit. Your either want to sale your property or get it leased up. But before you can sale or lease your community, you have to get it noticed. Depending on your location, you may have tens of thousand of cars passing by your property each day. Anyone of these people could be a potential buyer or lease. One of the best and most economical ways to capture this traffic is with great looking signs, banners and flags. A great looking banner with a concise message will be read by the traffic that passes your property each day. A sign campaign can capture attention and move a prospect to action. A series of colorful flags on poles running along the front of your community will have people viewing you in a new light. Banner and sign graphics have come a long way. Gone are the days of tacky yellow backgrounds with red letters. Now banners and signs have beautiful and interesting digital backgrounds with a variety of graphics. Photographs showing interior and exterior property pictures capture the imagination of the drive-by traffic. Banners and signs can be easily customized with the important information you are trying to convey. Other segments of the real estate industries like apartments, self storage and retail have recognized the importance of marketing with signs and banners and they have become a staple in the marketing budget. With the updated, eye pleasing graphics, your drive-by traffic will give your property more consideration. For example, say you have a property for sale priced at $ 500,000. To attract a buyer that is qualified, you want your banner and sign advertising to give the impression the property is worth $ 500,000. With today’s digital graphics your sign and banners will project just the right image and get the right buyer.  Carefully consider the message you want to project. What you say will determine how successful your campaign will be. The best campaigns are always the simplest but get out important information. For example, if owner financing is important, then put that on the sign or banner. If you put the purchase price on a banner and sign, you will get lots of interest from qualified buyers. The inverse is true, that those who cannot afford the property will not bother you. Make sure your phone or web address is there so prospects can easily contact you. The sign or banner will help get you noticed, but it is up to you to close the sale.  To keep your occupancy up you must continually market your property. Many owners stop marketing when occupancy is high and then face having many empty spaces in tough times. Keep your name out there year round and have a ready list of prospects so that you do not have dramatic drops in slower markets. Clever, eye catching campaigns will keep the interest up and make your park the first one a prospect calls. Remind prospects that your community is a great place to live. For maximum effect, announce specials that you have. Talking about anything free always generates interest. Shown is a bold starburst design with the message, “Your first month free”. Not only does this banner catch your eye, but will generate an action.  A great way to keep your name out there is with a sign and banner campaign. The banner can have a positive message with your phone number. Use this on your office or fence line. Tell traffic about your great community amenities such as; sparkling pool, playground, and access gates. Have fun and be creative with your campaigns. Give the drive by a reason to keep looking at your property. You want to keep your marketing fresh. Change the banners and boots as soon as you feel they have done their job. Some owners change their campaigns seasonally. We are showing our popular Seasons campaign as an example of a successful campaign.  Colorful flags have been adding beauty and interest to communities for years. Choose bright colors and interesting styles. The most popular colored flags are the drape style. The flags are 2 ’ wide by 8’ tall and fly from an 18’ White Giant flagpole. Change your flags when they have become frayed and change the colors and styles every time you change your flowers. You can also use colored flags with “now leasing” and “welcome” printed on them.  Great looking signs, banners and flags can really boost your marketing. We have been creating great looking signs, banners and flags for the real estate industry for over 20 years. We have tons of ideas for you and are ready to help create your custom sign, banner or flag. Take a look at our website, http://www.signpuppy.com and see all of our great designs. Or give us a call at 214-357-2969. We are ready to help. |
Mobile Home Park Summit Offers Insights into the Opportunities Created by the Current Recession in the U.S.  We have had numerous comments already that the summit was successful in supplying owners and investors with pertinent information regarding mobile home park investment in the recession. The CD's of the event will be available soon! Go to: www.mobilehomeparkstore.com/mobile-home-park-convention-product.htm & fill out the form if you would like to be notified when they are ready. |
Do Manufactured Homes Have A Shelf Life? Am I supposed to take the roof off and smell manufactured homes to see if they’ve spoiled like milk? Do they have an expiration date stamped on the frame? Can you fit one in a curbside polycart? If not, then why, as a community owner, do I get asked all the time by banks, buyers, residents – even at cocktail parties – how long a manufactured home is expected to last? Is the correct answer “forever”, or are manufactured homes truly temporary and disposable? The construction process A manufactured home is made predominantly out of wood and metal. A stick-built home is also made out of wood and metal. So why is one permanent and one temporary? Sure, the manufactured home is lighter than the stick-built home. This is mainly due to the absence of any masonry (bricks, fireplaces, etc.) and the fact that, by design, the framing is reduced. But the actual materials are the same in a manufactured home as in a stick-built one. Do these materials ever wear out? I live in a 200 year old house. Other than the stone walls, it is made of wood and metal. And I don’t have any doubts it can go another 200 years. I grew up in a house that was 50 years old, and it’s still standing today. In fact, I never hear of anyone who had to abandon a home because the wood and metal finally wore out. It just doesn’t do that. Properly cared for, the components that make up a manufactured home should last forever. So what about the design? Well, the design is not temporary in nature. If anything, the manufactured home design would imply a longer life span than a stick-built home. Rather than a foundation which can shift and crack over time, the manufactured home is on a metal chassis that should last forever. Additionally, the simple roof design, if kept up, keeps the possibility of moisture intrusion lower in the manufactured home. No, there is nothing about the design that would imply a lack of longevity. Use and ability to wear out You live in a manufactured home. You live in a stick-built home. What’s the difference? The regular course of business in a home is to get up, go to work, come home, cook dinner, watch some T.V., go to bed. How is this going to wear out a manufactured home any quicker than it does a stick-built? Many people point to the rowdy lifestyle found in some one-star manufactured home communities. But with the exception of this subset, which would tear up a stick-built home with the same speed, where is the damage going to come from to destroy the manufactured home? From turning the door-knob too many times? From walking the same path from the living room to the kitchen over and over? I can’t see where the stress is coming from to render a manufactured home temporary and a stick-built permanent. Obsolescence At some point in a manufactured home’s life does it wake up to find that it is obsolete? How can that happen? As a dwelling, the general pattern of American tastes has not changed that much over the last 100 years or more. Most people expect bedrooms, bathrooms, kitchens, living rooms, closets and the like in their homes. Are we expecting one day that all consumers demand an in-home movie theater and start to abandon all homes that do not have one? And if that did occur, why would they only abandon the manufactured homes and not the stick-built? If we’re going to be picky, let’s remember that the manufactured home business has only been around since about the 1940s. And HUD code homes since 1976. But there’s a ton of stick-built inventory that is from the 1800s – almost 100 years earlier. If something’s going to go obsolete, it would be that older stick-built housing, right? I live near St. Louis, and there are thousands of dwellings there built around the time of Abraham Lincoln, with tiny bedrooms and bathrooms that were installed later after the outhouse went out of fashion. I think we should be reviewing those in a conversation of housing obsolescence before we even bring up manufactured housing, don’t you? Maintenance cost Well, maybe the problem is the cost to maintain manufactured homes, or the existence of replacement parts. But wait a minute. Manufactured homes are normally built with metal exteriors. That’s going to hold up a lot longer than a frame house. And the average roof only needs to be coated with roofing compound every so often – no shingles to replace. And the foundation looks good because there is no foundation. To level a manufactured home takes a couple hours. To level a stick-built home takes a fortune. On the interior, you’re talking about paint and carpet. The same as a stick-built home. Sure, I worry about my Dodge Durango one day not having parts available, but that concern is ill-founded with manufactured homes. Government intervention I hear all the time that old manufactured homes will one day be phased out. By who? Cities often have codes now that require certain dates or earlier on new homes coming into manufactured home communities. But that does not apply to homes already sited in them. Those are grandfathered. And let’s be honest. There is a ton of single-family stick-built inventory out there that does not meet current code, either. One of the challenges of remodeling older stick-built homes is not triggering an end to all of the things that were grandfathered, such as inferior wiring, plumbing, setbacks, fire-codes, and the like. Nope, manufactured homes are not likely to be outlawed. So where does the “temporary” concept come from? I suspect from two different sources. First, the U.S. Government. With every modern weather catastrophe, FEMA rushes in with manufactured homes as temporary housing until real stick-built homes can be built and re-built. So they have created the impression that manufactured homes are not worthy of being lived in over the long term. They re-stress this point at least once a year during hurricane season. And they blast it all over the media. The government did the same thing in the industry’s formative years, offering it as “temporary” housing at military bases and, later, colleges on the GI bill. So they have been promoting this negative publicity for virtually the entire history of manufactured housing. The other source is manufactured home dealers, themselves. They constantly advertise and promote the concept of “trading in your old home for a new one”. Just like a car. So the suggestion is that your manufactured home is only good for a few years, and then time to get a better model. When was the last time you saw Pulte or Lennar make this sales push? The dealers also ruin things by putting old, destroyed manufactured homes out on their lots, or in fields next to dealerships, for all to see. These homes are normally trade-ins that are in such poor condition that nobody would ever buy one. But by putting them there in public view, it tells everyone who passes by what a disposable product it is – that it just completely falls apart over time. If these homes were at least skirted and painted it would be different. But the dealers seem to have no problem leaving them there, leaning over to one side with the windows and doors missing and insulation blowing out from underneath. Can you imagine a new car dealer having old wrecks rusting near their entrance? Conclusion As always, the urban legend of temporary, disposable manufactured homes is the result of poor marketing and public relations by the industry, not based on fact. I am sorry to say that I have never seen any literature at any dealer, internet site, or association headquarters that tells the story of why manufactured homes last forever. So why would be expect anyone to know any better? But then again, what would I expect from a manufacturing and retail industry that can’t seem to ever do anything right? Thank heavens I’m in the community side of the business. |
BUYING A MOBILE HOME PARK IS LIKE FLYING AN AIRPLANE Everyone knows that commercial air travel is the safest in the world. But that’s because of the high level of training of the pilots. From the pre-flight checklist, to the flight plan, to dealing with problems in the air, the pilot knows everything about what they’re doing. The pilot who successfully landed in the Hudson River recently, did so because he knew every possible strategy of what to do in an emergency – he knew the options and could make an intelligent decision. To succeed in the mobile home park business, you need the same amount of knowledge as those pilots. We offer educational products designed to give you as complete a picture on the mobile home park business as you will need to succeed – everything from how to differentiate a good deal from a bad one, how to find a park to buy, to how to do successful due diligence on it and operate it successfully. We cover every aspect from day one to selling the park you have purchased down the road. There was a guy in Dallas who saved for years to buy a private plane. But he didn’t want to invest the time or money in learning how to fly it. So he bought it and decided to try and fly it (this is a true story). He brought the whole family out to watch his initial voyage. He got about ten feet off the ground and then crashed and blew up. In the same way, we get calls at the site frequently from people who have bought mobile home parks without any prior training, and are already in trouble with them. When we review the deal with them, we are horrified that they have bought deals that make no economic sense, and there is no possible solution. This is as troubling for us as it is for the site visitor. Mobilehomeparkstore.com has produced these materials to offer you a complete mastery of investing in mobile home parks. These are not promotional materials filled with stories of how much money you will make. These are real-life manuals on the technical aspects of the industry, written by two guys who have bought, operated and sold over $100,000,000 in mobile home parks. If you are going to get into the business, you need to know what you are doing, for the sake of you and your family. This is how to do it: What’s important is that you know what you are doing before you even think about buying that first park. Remember the old quote: “Think like a man of action. Act like a man of thought”. To succeed in the mobile home park business is more than just action. And all of the information you need is right at your fingertips, at Mobilehomeparkstore.com |
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 |
Tell us what you think! Wed 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 MobileHomeParkStore.com 18923 Highway 65 Cedaredge, CO 81413 PH: 800-950-1364 FX: 970-856-4883 |