How to Find a Mobile Home Park Manager San Diego CA

 Mobile home parks are a very low management type of real estate. Unlike most other forms of real estate (apartments, self-storage, duplex, etc.) not much happens on a daily basis. This is because the “business” is renting small plots of land for people to put trailers. Nothing new ever happens with the land, and the tenant is responsible for just about everything except the water and sewer pipes, and potholes in the road.

  In fact, almost every tenant problem ends in explaining to them that they need to call 911 to resolve the petty issue between them and their neighbor. As long as the water and sewer is flowing, the roads are flat, the common areas are mowed, and the tenants are paying, there is not much for a mobile home park manager to do.   Obviously, the performance hurdle is not high in managing a mobile home park. But you still need to have a “warm body” that can take care of the minor items, and act as your eyes and ears at the property between visits. So how do you find someone?  

The most important quality of a successful manager

  I bet you’re thinking that it’s some certification or personality trait. But it’s not. It’s much more simple: the manager has to live in the mobile home park.   Living in a mobile home park is not something that you would voluntarily throw out at a job interview. But for this job, it is more essential than the “where do you see yourself in five years” question of most interviews. I have never had a manager who did not live in the mobile home park work out. And I don’t think they possibly could, if you think about it rationally.  

There are no regular office hours

  What derails normal real estate management in a mobile home park is that an office that’s open from 9 to 5 is the most inappropriate concept ever. If there is going to be a problem in a mobile home park, it’s always going to be any time other than 9 to 5 on Monday through Friday. Because nobody’s home then. And the real problems only occur when everyone is home. The sewer normally only backs up when you apply new water to a sewer clog. When nobody is home, there is no water usage. Further, the peak water usage occurs at about 7:30 am (getting ready for work and school) and 6:00 pm (washing off after a day of work). The same is true of the peak amount of pull on all the utilities. In some parks, you find master-metered electrical systems. When do they “brown out” or catch fire? Normally after work when everyone turns on their air-conditioning simultaneously. Even tenant disputes among themselves (which the park is not even going to get involved in, except to suggest calling 911) happen at night. And collections, if you give the manager that duty, will not work when everybody’s gone during the day.   So if you are trying to manage a park, 9 to 5 is the worst time to select for on-site management. &nb...

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