TRANSFORM YOUR MOBILE HOME PARK: RAPID PERFORMANCE ENHANCEMENTS WITH TECHNOLOGY By Frank Rolfe

Whether you own a single mobile home park or a portfolio of properties, enhancing performance is essential for creating a welcoming environment and maximizing profitability. Recent technological advancements allow you to instantly pinpoint park inefficiencies and hold management accountable. This guide will provide an expanded perspective on how to leverage technology to swiftly optimize your mobile home park's performance.

Rapid Home Inventory Audit

For a start, give your park manager a call and inform them of an immediate audit for all unoccupied home inventory. Request a minimum of three photos from different angles—outside, inside, and the surrounding yard—of each vacant property. Ask that these images be taken using a smartphone and sent to you within an hour.

Expect some resistance at this point; your manager might claim to be too busy. Insist on its urgency, emphasizing that the task would only take a few minutes. Be prepared for a plethora of excuses, but remain firm that this audit is the day's priority. The resistance likely stems from the manager's awareness of the park's less than stellar state.

When the pictures arrive, brace for the potential disappointment. They might reveal unkempt yards, missing window shutters, or cluttered living spaces. Uncovering these hidden issues is the first step towards improvement. Express your disappointment to the manager, demanding that they rectify these issues within two days, and insist on new photographs as proof. To ensure such negligence doesn't recur, make it a habit to demand updated pictures every one to two weeks. This consistent auditing process doesn't cost anything and only takes an hour, yet effectively puts an end to managerial negligence.

Thorough Advertising Audit

Next, conduct an advertising audit. Your manager may claim that there's a "home for rent" sign or banner prominently displayed. To verify, request an immediate smartphone photo of the sign. Extend this scrutiny to print advertisements—ask for a photograph of your ad in the newspaper. Should they lack a newspaper, instruct them to purchase one and send you a photo. Often, you'll find ads that are missing or poorly executed. By insisting on photographic evidence, you eliminate the room for such oversights.

Virtual Park Drive-through

Make use of smartphone video capabilities for a virtual park tour. Ask the manager to record a video starting from the park entry and continuing down each street. Videos offer a more comprehensive and revealing perspective than photos. They make it harder to hide issues like non-functioning cars or overgrown vegetation, offering a more unfiltered look at the park's current state. However, note that transmitting videos may take slightly longer than photos.

Continual Vigilance

A common mistake among park owners is assuming that a once-caught, lax manager is now reformed. This assumption is often far from the truth. Maintaining regular unexpected audits keeps your manager vigilant and deters complacency. Conducting an audit once and discontinuing the practice sends the wrong message; it conveys tolerance for managerial laziness.

Conclusion

Smartphones are invaluable tools in modern mobile home park management. By employing them relentlessly, you can facilitate immediate improvements in your park's performance without leaving your home. In a single day, you can make strides towards creating a better living environment and ensuring managerial accountability—an instant gratification worth the effort!

By Frank Rolfe

Frank Rolfe has been an investor in mobile home parks for almost 30 years, and has owned and operated hundreds of mobile home parks during that time. He is currently ranked, with his partner Dave Reynolds, as the 5th largest mobile home park owner in the U.S., with around 20,000 lots spread out over 25 states. Along the way, Frank began writing about the industry, and his books, coupled with those of his partner Dave Reynolds, evolved into a course and boot camp on mobile home park investing that has become the leader in this niche of commercial real estate.