The MHP Brokers Tips and Tricks Juggernaut Interview with Broker Jeff Dodge and his Mercer MHP sale

In this episode of The MHP Broker’s Tips and Tricks podcast, Maxwell Baker, president of The Mobile Home Park Broker, interviewed broker Jeff Dodge regarding his sale of Mercer Mobile Home Park.

As with every Tips and Tricks podcast episode, this one is brought to you by The MHP Broker’s proprietary Community Price Maximizer. Use this four-step system to get the highest price possible for your mobile home park or RV community when you sell it through The MHP Broker. Guaranteed. Call Max for details.

Here Are the Show Highlights:

• Jeff Dodge sold Mercer MHP, a community also known as Hawaiian Village Mobile Home Park. It’s the third time Max’s company has sold that park over the years. (Max, 0:22)
• The park had certain attractions, including good lot rents, city water and sewer, and paved roads throughout. But there was a downside, culminating in a low 35 percent occupancy rate. Many of the park-owned homes needed extensive rehabbing or removal. The broker’ challenge would be in finding a buyer who understood the problems and could add value and stabilize the community. (Jeff, 1:27)
• Jeff received multiple offers for the park and settled on an investor with which The MHP Broker has successfully done business with on multiple occasions in the past. He paid cash. Jeff knew the investor had the capital and the familiarity with the area to make it work. (Jeff, 2:19)
• Max remembered the park being a rough sale even when he first sold it, twelve years previously. (Max, 2:45)
• The deal was hanging in the balance for awhile, but one thing that incentivized the buyer was when the seller added an adjoining ten acres that was originally not part of the deal. The lesson is to get creative and stay flexible to keep a good deal alive. (Jeff, 4:19)

Even the “hairiest” deals can be kept alive if you have a talented and experienced broker on your side. Contact Jeff Dodge or Max Baker at The Mobile Home Park Broker, (678) 932-0200. You can also drop us a line at info@themhpbroker.com.

Power Quotes in This Episode:

“We sell these types of deals all the time. They’re rough parks. If you can handle the riffraff and the management, you can make a lot of money doing these deals, they just require a lot of TLC, a lot of hand holding, and really running it with an iron fist. So, that’s the only way people could really turn this park around.” (Max, 2:53)

“So if you all have some hairy deals, there is a buyer out there for you, and I can promise you that. And we typically are really good at finding all-cash buyers, if you want to structure the financing, we’re good at getting that structured.” (Max, 2:53)

“It was great to work with reasonable sellers and an experienced buyer and at the end of the day we were able to get to the finish line and feel like it was a win-win for both parties.” (Jeff, 4:19)

00:02

Hello and welcome to the mobile home park brokers tips and tricks. This is the podcast where we talk about mobile home park investing, because that’s what we’ve been involved in for the last decade. Let’s dive into today’s episode. Here’s your host, Maxwell Baker.

00:22 Maxwell Baker

Hey y’all welcome to another epic episode of the mobile home park brokers tips and tricks, podcast. As always, this episode is brought to you by the community price Maximizer. It is our proprietary system that will guarantee you a higher price. When you exclusively list with us, give us a call (678) 932-0200 Today, I am excited to have Jeff dodge here on the closing cocktail line to talk about Mercer Mobile Home Park, aka better known as Hawaiian Village Mobile Home Park, which I think this would be the third time our company has sold this park. We have a lot of history with this park. But Jeff did a an incredible job. sold it to a good buyer that we’ve done a lot of deals with Jeff, welcome to the show. And congrats on closing Mercer, aka Hawaiian Village.

01:19 Jeff Dodge

Thanks, Max. It’s good to be here with you appreciate you having me.

01:23 Maxwell Baker

Yeah, man.Tell us a little bit about the park and the situation that was in and all that jazz.

01:27 Jeff Dodge

Sure. Little background as soon as the good stock market had some good lot rents, city water, sewer paved roads, 43 Lots 29. Park own, however, 16 of those were vacant, along with 12 vacant lots. So as you can see, there was a lot of vacancy, only about 35% occupancy. So that was a little bit of a challenge going in to two partners who owned it. They don’t depart for just over a year, they had some difficulties managing the park from afar. And they weren’t able to add as much value to it as they had hoped. Many of the homes that needed extensive, rehabbing and some of them required removal all together. It didn’t create a tremendous value add opportunity for the right buyer. But this is going to require a buyer with experienced capital to stabilize the park, obviously. So that’s why the sellers reached out to us to help them find that right buyer and Max get the max value for him.

02:18 Maxwell Baker

How did they get financed?

02:19 Jeff Dodge

The buyer actually paid cash for this. Wow, incredible. We received multiple offers. The buyer, obviously, like you’d mentioned, he caught some deals with us in the past. So we’re familiar with him, he had quite a bit of experience with these kinds of deals. And in market actually where this park was, you know, some of the air that he owned. So I made a little bit more feasible for him to manage and put the capital and time in just stabilizing.

02:45 Maxwell Baker

Yeah, I just remember this deal being pretty rough. 12 years ago, when I first sold it.

02:50 Jeff Dodge

It was just starting.

02:53 Maxwell Baker

It’s kind of always been, it’s kind of its badge of honor as a rough part. But hey, everybody listening, we sell these types of deals all the time, they’re rough parks, if you can handle the riffraff and the management, you can make a lot of money doing these deals, they just require a lot of TLC, a lot of hand holding, and really running it with an iron fist. So, that’s the only way people could really turn this park around. I mean, like I said, there’s a lot of history over here, there’s actually two Annapolis parks that are right next to these two deals. Those two massive parks have over the last 15 years have gone in and out of foreclosure. But Hawaiian Village or Mercer is the only one that has never been in foreclosure by a bank, I should say. So, it’s done is pretty well and it’s right next to all the retail. But like I said, these types of deals we do all the time. So, if you all have some, some hairy deals, there is a buyer out there for and I can promise you that. And we typically are really good at finding all cash buyer more if you want to structure the financing. We’re good at getting that structured. So, it’s in your favor. Obviously, we know how to negotiate all of that stuff. But that’s pretty much it. Jeff, do you have any closing comments about Mercer or any words of wisdom of what you’ve learned from dealing with this deal?

04:19 Jeff Dodge

Sure. One thing I would add about in the negotiation with the buyer, we did there was an adjoining 10 acres that wasn’t originally in the deal that we negotiated into it to get the deal done. So that was something that we kind of had to work out and get back and forth on but we were able to ultimately get that done. This was the first buyer we went under contract with and we ultimately closed with, even though we had multiple offers, and it was great to work with reasonable sellers and an experienced buyer and at the end of day we able to get to the finish line and feel like it was a win-win for both parties.

04:49 Maxwell Baker

Yeah. Love it, man. Well, Jeff, thanks for the commentary on it. You all thanks for listening. And as always, give us a call if you’ve got a park that you Want to get a free analysis on or run it through our community price Maximizer, our CPM model that will guarantee you a higher price when you exclusively list with us. We’re very good at identifying the short, small things that you can do to help increase value on your community. So, yeah, call us (678) 932-0200 and ask for Jeff. He is our up-and-coming star that is killing it right now with a lot of new deals coming out, and you can ask him all about it. Thanks for listening and let’s keep moving forward!