The buyer's view
What buyers look at when evaluating a Tennessee mobile home park
This is roughly the order a park buyer works through a property. It's useful whether you eventually sell to us, to another buyer, or not at all — because these are the items that will be questioned either way.
Park underwriting is less mysterious than it looks. A buyer is trying to establish what the property dependably produces, how fragile that production is, what it costs to improve it, and whether the seller's expectations leave room for the work. Fifteen items carry most of that weight.
01Location
Not the metro name — the ten-minute drive. Where do residents work, is there a grocery store and a school nearby, is the road maintained, and would a family choose this park over the apartment complex across town? A park twelve miles outside a strong Tennessee market often performs closer to the rural market it sits in than to the metro it borders.
02Number of pads
Developed pads set the ceiling on income and heavily influence what kind of buyer can pursue the property. Under roughly twenty pads, most institutional capital disappears and the pool shifts toward individual operators and seller-financed structures. Above fifty, more financing options open up.
03Occupancy
Occupied pads divided by developed pads, then a second look at whether the vacant ones are truly rentable. Occupancy tells a buyer both what the property earns and how much runway exists.
04Rent roll
Site-by-site rents, not an average. Averages hide the two legacy residents paying half, the family rate that was never adjusted, and the four homes rented as houses rather than as pads. The distribution matters more than the mean.
05Net operating income
Collections minus real operating costs, with an honest management line and a maintenance reserve added even if the owner does the work personally. This is the number the price is built from.
06Utility responsibility
Who pays for water, sewer, trash, and electric, and how it's billed. Direct-billed utilities reduce the park's exposure. Master metering shifts consumption risk — and leak risk — onto the owner, and buyers underwrite that risk explicitly.
07Water and sewer systems
City on both is the simplest case. Private well, septic, or lagoon systems bring compliance, capacity, and replacement questions that often determine the price, the structure, and which buyers can even participate.
08Roads and drainage
Surface condition, width, turning radius for home transport, and whether water leaves the property the way it should. Roads are a predictable, sizable capital line.
09Park-owned homes
How many, their age and condition, occupancy, and title status. Home income is valued more conservatively than lot rent because it comes with repairs, turnover, and eventual replacement.
10Deferred maintenance
The accumulated list — lines, pedestals, skirting, trees, tired homes. Buyers translate it into a capital budget and subtract it, with a margin for the items nobody has quantified yet.
11Zoning and permitting
Whether the current use conforms or is a legal nonconforming use, whether density could be rebuilt, whether additional pads are permittable, and whether any code items are open. Common in older Tennessee parks and rarely fatal — but always investigated.
12Expansion potential
Extra acreage inside or adjacent to the fence, unused pads, and whether utilities and permitting could support more sites. Expansion is upside a buyer will explore but usually won't pay full value for in advance.
13Local housing demand
How quickly a vacant pad or home would fill, what comparable lot rents are nearby, and what it costs a resident to live anywhere else in that county. Affordable-housing demand is the fundamental support under lot rent.
14Current debt
Existing loan balance, rate, maturity, prepayment terms, and due-on-sale language. Debt shapes what structures are possible and sometimes creates the most attractive one.
15The seller's desired price AND desired terms
The most overlooked item on the list. A number without terms is incomplete information. A seller who says 'I want $1.2 million, and I'd carry paper at a reasonable rate with 20% down' has given a buyer something workable. A seller who only names a price has given them a hurdle.
How these fit together
None of these items is decisive alone. A park with private utilities and forty percent vacancy can be a strong opportunity if the rents are far below market and the pads are ready. A full park with paved roads and city utilities can be a weak one if the rents are already at the ceiling and the price assumes upside nobody can capture.
What buyers are ultimately pricing is the distance between what the property is and what it could reasonably become — plus the cost and difficulty of that distance. When you understand that, you can see why "what's my park worth" has no single answer, and why the terms you'd accept are as important as the number you'd like.
If you want a specific read on your property against this list, send it over. We'll tell you which of the fifteen we think matter most in your case.
Let's apply this to your park.
Send the property and we'll tell you where it's strong, where a buyer will push, and what structures tend to fit a property like yours.
GET MY PARK REVIEWNo obligation. Partial information is fine — send what you know.