Technology you use to operate mobile home park(s)

[Andriy Boychuk]

I listen to the latest Mobile Home Park Investors podcast episode #31 about Using technology to manage your mobile home park. I thought it would be a great topic to discuss here and share tools we use to operate the mobile home park(s).

What tools do you use? 

How do you use them?

[Jim Johnson]

To operate-

In my office I have a big computer. We track rents and utilities with ParkSidekick. I use Quickbooks for my overall accounting.  Quickbooks flows into Versacheck and I print any checks I need to send or hand out.  To communicate with managers, I use a forum much like this one, very little email. Managers can only ask to discuss things through text- we do not make decisions over text, and the discussion are logged in the forum. I use Teamviewer to log into the managers screens for computer help. Some of our parks have cameras, I use Swann GuardianEye systems. We store zero documents just on the computer, everything flows through dropbox. Most managers use Brother printers, that scan directly into dropbox. In Dropbox every park has its own folder, and all documents are stored there. Each lot has a folder that stores leases, copies of violations, application data etc. We also use an app called Duo, much like facetime but works on android and apple. I create training programs using Cantisa. If I am going to evaluate a park, I use a program called Landlords Cash Flow Analyzer Pro (It is an APOD program).  VOIP through 8x8 and google voice and a hangouts app. My bank of choice is Chase. 

5 parks- 4 States. Closest park is a 3 hour drive, farthest is a connecting flight trip. Nothing in arms reach- so the systems need to be solid, reliable and rebuildable.  When a computer crashes in a managers office, its back online within 60 minutes of being plugged back into internet, and all of the data is backed up inside 12-18 hours depending on the download speed of the managers internet.