The only thing I changed on a 24-lot park was who reads the water meter

This was my first park and I went in expecting to be busy. Land is what I know, so the appeal was obvious: I own the dirt, the roads, the water lines, and the residents own their own homes and pay me lot rent for the ground under them. No roofs. No water heaters at 11pm.

24 lots, 22 occupied when I bought, $310k, seller financed at terms I confirmed in writing with a lawyer before I signed anything. Lot rent was $255 and the market around it was closer to $340. City water and city sewer, one master meter to the park, which is where the story is.

The park was paying the whole water bill. About $1,750 a month across 22 homes. That is nobody's fault exactly, it's just how the old owner had always done it, and residents had no reason to fix a running toilet. I spent about $9,400 putting individual meters at each lot and started billing usage back. Whether you can bill water back and how you have to disclose it varies by state and sometimes by city, so I had someone local check the rules before the first invoice went out.

Six months in the total park water draw dropped roughly a third, because people fixed their own leaks once they were paying for them. Between the pass-through and a $30 lot rent increase spread over two steps, net operating income went up about $27k a year. I lost one resident, and she was already three months behind.

The part that nearly broke it: I almost skipped a survey of the water lines because the seller said they were replaced in the nineties. They were not all replaced. I found two 2-inch galvanized runs still live under the back loop and I have been budgeting toward those since day one.

What I'd keep: buying a park where the operating problems are boring and mechanical. Metering is boring. It also worked.