Onsite Handyman in Mobile Home Parks

[Logan M.]

There is a universal rule that you get a handyman from the last owner whenever you purchase a mobile home park. I have had a wide variety of outcomes but I want to give a few warnings from my experience.

1. Don't reduce rent, charge full rent, and pay them outside of the rent.

2. Set clear expectations, when the work will be completed, how often they do it, and what is the compensation.

3. They're not an employee and have no guarantee of work.

4. Avoid using someone who is not licensed or insured.

I have had a few handyman work great and many more that did not work out.

[Roger D Jones]

Quote from @Logan M.:

Quote from @Roger D Jones:

I have all three versions throughout our parks- free rent, partial rent and a W2 employee.   Each park's situation dictates the need.  Our W2 maintanance manager is paid very well but is tasked with maintaining 14 POHs and overall care of the park.  We have honest conversations about his compensation and how it fits into this park's financials.  

Can you go into details on this? I would love to hear about the breakdown.

 Well... we have three parks.  11 space long term RV park, a 28 space all TOH park and a 20 (soon to be 22) space mixed park with 7 TOH and 13 POH rentals.  The 11 space RV park has a manager on site with free pad rental.  The 28 space TOH park has a resident manager who gets $200 off his rent monthly.  On the 20 space mixed park given we own 13 homes we have a W2 hourly maintenance manager who we have at 24 hours per week.  He handles all plumbing, 90% of HVAC, most electrical and all structural repairs.  

With the 13 rentals we get over double the cash flow over our TOH space rentals and we are committed to keeping our POH rentals in top condition.  All maintenance requests are requested through our park website and are handled immediately.  We compensate him very well with a great hourly wage, OT after 6 and weekends, paid vacations, 8 paid holidays and a year-end park performance-based bonus.  Even with this labor expense these 13 sites way over perform our 7 TOH sites on cash flow.

Now I know many on here will think I am crazy to do this but here's the rub.  The park is in a very rural near a couple small towns.  If I need a plumbing, electrical or HVAC repair... I am week's out when and if they ever decide to return my call.   That is not going to work for our tenants who are paying $1000 a month to rent from us.  And more importantly I don't want any phone calls at 1130 at night over a broken water pipe.  

The park is financially strong and performs well.  My wife and I also own an accounting firm and it too does well.  For both enterprises we pay our employees well and we share our success.