Helping Mobilehome Park Residents Become Park Owners
Many of you may remember the old story (a science class experiment maybe?) about the frog in the pot on the stove.
If you put a frog in a pot and slowly turn up the heat, the frog won’t notice and you will end up with frog legs (if you like that sort of menu item) for dinner.
An MH industry publisher asked me to write an article on resident ownership and specifically highlight the differences in the ways group use to buy their park.
Recently, I was asked by the publisher of an MH industry magazine to write an article about resident park purchases for park owners, since there are a lot of misconceptions about the process.
The fears of Buena Vista Mobile Home Park residents, who could be displaced to make room for luxury apartments, aren’t theirs alone. In many parks, residents, who often own their homes but not the land under them, are treated as second-class citizens.
Failure is frustrating. I suppose, however, it depends upon your definition of failure. I’m in the Mobile Home Park Resident Purchase Business, and, defined broadly, we have a ton of failures. It takes three basic factors for resident park purchases to be successful – to close with the resident group as the new owner.
There are many factors critical to a successful resident park purchase, but one of the first and most important factors is RESIDENT GROUP LEADERSHIP.
On the one hand, since ‘getting the owner to the negotiating table’ is probably the most difficult task in a resident park purchase, the idea that an owner would contact me about selling his park to the group is really exciting.
Today I want to talk about 2): Park Resident Groups with an immediate problem.
The park owner wants to throw everyone out and close the park for redevelopment.
Yes, I know. It has been a while since my last Blog. In my defense, I have been really (really) busy. The nature of Resident Park Purchase deals is that, when they come along (which is seldom) one really needs to respond and try to determine if there really is a possible deal and if … Read more
I find that when residents contemplate purchasing their mobilehome park, there is a lot of emotion involved – eagerness, fear, concern, excitement, dread, and so fotth.