And we wonder why...

[Roger D Jones]

Working at one of my parks all day today and took a lunchbreak to visit a neighboring park that had been purchased four years ago by an out of state private equity group with out of state management.  I was shocked.  Absolutely destroyed.  No oversight, Trash uncollected and piled up. Multiple irrigation breaks.  Talking to residents power has been shut off to the park three times in the last two years while water has been shut off four times- all for non payment by the park.  No repairs made to park owned homes.  Rents have doubled with autopayment mandated via credit cards.  Park management phones and emails disconnected.  City has called my maintanance manager twice to go and solve critical water leaks when they can't reach the new owners.

And we complain about unfair journalism and government oversight.   When our weakest links operate like this we get exactly what we deserve.

[Nathan Gesner]

Quote from @Roger D Jones:

Keep an eye on it. They will eventually reach a point where cashflow doesn't meet their needs and they'll need to sell and scurry off to another get-rich-quick scheme. If you are ready, you may pick it up cheap.

[Scott Trench]

Terrible. The worst part is that the PE guys probably lost all the LP capital (if they are big enough this is pensioners and teachers funds) but generated big fees from acquisition and management.

All we can do is wait for them to be exposed and make the headlines about them ourselves, before the media does.

[Don Konipol]

Quote from @Roger D Jones:

Working at one of my parks all day today and took a lunchbreak to visit a neighboring park that had been purchased four years ago by an out of state private equity group with out of state management.  I was shocked.  Absolutely destroyed.  No oversight, Trash uncollected and piled up. Multiple irrigation breaks.  Talking to residents power has been shut off to the park three times in the last two years while water has been shut off four times- all for non payment by the park.  No repairs made to park owned homes.  Rents have doubled with autopayment mandated via credit cards.  Park management phones and emails disconnected.  City has called my maintanance manager twice to go and solve critical water leaks when they can't reach the new owners.

And we complain about unfair journalism and government oversight.   When our weakest links operate like this we get exactly what we deserve.

The property managers/owners have created a “slum” situation.  The problem is not only that existing tenants suffer, but that local government will be pressured to pass legislation that will be extreme and engulf well run parks into spending unnecessary expense and complying with rules designed to provide residents with services they don’t want.  I financed park acquisitions in the past in which a local operator purchased a neighboring park just to eliminate the bad situation.  
As an example in a different real estate “product”, we owned a 70 unit motel that we had converted to mostly low income housing.  We had a great on site manager, and tenants stayed forever.  Very profitable over the 7 years we owned it.  Next store was a 84 unit motel that was allowed to deteriorate to slum status, and was a drug den.  After 3 or 4 years of the county fighting our neighbor, they passed a very restrictive ordinance that affected both the neighbors property AND our property.  The county decided to “pressure” us into purchasing the neighboring motel!  Their justification was that at one time the properties were a single Holiday Inn.  Problem was that the neighbor wanted about twice what his property was worth.  After we engaged a local attorney to “negotiate” with the county, the county took another tack. They condemned our neighbor, and forced the sale at market value.  The buyer who purchased it made us an offer at fair market value which we accepted.  

[Mike Reynolds]

Quote from @Roger D Jones:

Working at one of my parks all day today and took a lunchbreak to visit a neighboring park that had been purchased four years ago by an out of state private equity group with out of state management.  I was shocked.  Absolutely destroyed.  No oversight, Trash uncollected and piled up. Multiple irrigation breaks.  Talking to residents power has been shut off to the park three times in the last two years while water has been shut off four times- all for non payment by the park.  No repairs made to park owned homes.  Rents have doubled with autopayment mandated via credit cards.  Park management phones and emails disconnected.  City has called my maintanance manager twice to go and solve critical water leaks when they can't reach the new owners.

And we complain about unfair journalism and government oversight.   When our weakest links operate like this we get exactly what we deserve.

 I see this a lot myself. If you’re going to get into the mobile home park business it has to be about more than just money. It also has to be about quality of life. If they are not doing anything to improve that park, no one will want to live there. 

People love our parks. 

[Logan M.]

You're spot on and this is exactly what BiggerPockets should be talking about because if we draw awareness to this we can work collectively to stop it.