Onsite manager in a park-owned home, or a regional third party. At 3 parks and 148 lots I've now been wrong both ways

In the rural markets I look at there's no third option, because there's no regional third party within two hours of the park. You get an onsite person or you get nothing. So the question for me becomes how you pick one, and the answer I've heard from two old operators is that you never hire the most popular resident. You hire the one who already keeps their own lot clean and doesn't socialize much.

The part of your post I'd worry about is the lost soft information, because that's the difference between a $900 repair and a $40,000 one. Could you keep the third party for money and pay someone $150 a month just to walk the park weekly and text you photos. Splitting collections from eyes on the ground seems cheaper than choosing.

The choice is usually decided by the enforcement function rather than by cost, because the two structures fail differently and the failure is what you end up paying for.

An onsite resident manager gives you continuous observation of the infrastructure, which is worth real money in a land-lease community where your capital exposure is water and sewer under the ground. The structural weakness is that the person enforcing rules and collecting lot rent lives inside the social group they enforce against, and enforcement decays toward whatever keeps their daily life comfortable. That decay is predictable and it shows up as selective collection and unaddressed violations rather than as an obvious problem.

Third-party management gives you even enforcement and documentation, which matters if you ever have to demonstrate consistent treatment. What you give up is the observation layer, and third-party fee structures rarely pay for anyone to walk the park looking for a wet spot in the gravel.

verity's split is the arrangement most operators land on at your size. Keep collections, notices and accounting with the third party, then pay a resident separately as an independent contractor or hourly employee for defined physical tasks with no authority over money or rule enforcement. Whether that person is properly an employee or a contractor, and how a rent credit is treated as compensation, depends on state wage law and on the tests the relevant agencies apply, so that structure needs a licensed professional in your state before you write it down.

One number to track either way: repair cost per lot per year across all three parks. If the two managed parks drift materially above the onsite park after a year, you have priced the observation layer.

Also confirm in writing what your management agreement covers on utility reads, because that task is frequently excluded.