Discussion
Closed on a fourplex in April and I thought that was the thing eating my headspace, but this RV park I've been circling in Ashtabula County keeps pulling me back. Forty-one sites,…
Discussion
He was looking at a 38 site park I passed along to him just to get a second set of eyes, nothing I was seriously pursuing. Revenue was around 210k gross, almost all of it June thr…
Story
Lender called it a bridge loan, operator called it a capital infusion, and I called it gap because that is what I do, but none of those words told me where I sat if the deal went…
Discussion
Here is a scenario that comes up more often than it should in this asset class. Say a buyer closes a 28 site park outside Hocking Hills in September at 410k, and the dump station…
Happening Now
Had coffee with a broker Friday who's sold maybe a dozen campgrounds in the northeast over the last four years. He said a lot of seasonal tenants at the parks he's moved treat the…
Story
So I've been circling this for about eight months. I'm not an operator, I have never run a campground, never bought a park outright. What I have done is read probably forty decks…
Poll
Take two RV park candidates of similar size and similar price, with income built in opposite directions. Park A has 58 sites near a well trafficked outdoor area, with about 85 per…
Loss
Take a 40 site RV park, mostly nightly stays, run with one live-on-site camp host receiving a free full hookup site plus $1,400 a month. On paper the role covered cleaning two bat…
Poll
I'm starting from zero and reading listings I can't buy yet, and the two that keep showing up in my saved list are opposites, so I want to know how the room splits. One is a 34 si…
Happening Now
Take a 110 site park with 8 cabins putting out a request for a season contract covering cabin turns, two bathhouses, and two camp host couples. Stated budget is 96k for the season…
Loss
I paid 61k for 9 acres about two miles from the entrance to a state park, thinking I'd put in 20 sites eventually and sell nightly stays. Two years later I sold the land for 58k a…
Happening Now
This is the first thing I have ever looked at seriously, so apologies if the question is obvious. A 15 site campground came up at 340k. Ten sites with water and electric, five ten…
Discussion
My agent told me flat out that the policy on my acreage won't extend to paying guests, and that I'd need to be rewritten commercially. Fine. Then he asked what amenities I'd have…
Happening Now
Deep in diligence on a 120 site park at 4.2M, seller's NOI 372k, so call it 8.8 going in. Good corridor location with a state park eight miles away. The revenue side holds up unde…
Poll
A seasonal RV park in a mountain market two hours from a metro is a useful case for how badly a broker's pro forma can diverge from trailing revenue. If two years of monthly data…
Discussion
62 sites, full hookup, near a national forest entrance. June through mid September we're effectively full at $58 a night. April, May and October run about 22% occupancy, and the f…
Happening Now
Consider a 42 site park in a lake town, about 25 minutes off a state highway, under contract at 1.35M. Mix is 18 full hookup pull throughs, 12 water and electric only, 12 tent sit…
Happening Now
I have two offers I could write this week and they are so different I am not sure I am comparing them correctly. One is 56 sites on a travel corridor, ten minutes from an intersta…
Discussion
Asking $2.9M. 58 full hookup sites plus 6 rental cabins, T12 gross $640k, split roughly $410k site rent, $120k store and propane, $110k cabins. Seller's NOI is $232k, which is exa…
Win
A ground lease on a small campground is worth flagging for anyone new to the sector, because a single clause can carry more weight than it looks like on first read. The structure:…
Loss
Take an operator closing on a 54 site park, 38 seasonal sites and 16 nightly. The seller's package shows 38 signed seasonal agreements at 3,200 for the season, roughly 122k of wha…
Discussion
Take a 28 site park that currently runs on a wall calendar and a cordless phone, the kind of setup a buyer often inherits. Price the software for it and the answers come back wild…
Happening Now
Consider a 30 site park with a flat cleared area at the back, about 2.4 acres, that already has a gravel loop from a previous owner who apparently started and stopped an expansion…
Happening Now
The goal for a lot of buyers looking at small parks in the 500,000 to 900,000 dollar range is income that does not turn into a second job, and the appeal is that the land is what…
Poll
Two ways of underwriting the same kind of asset can produce very different numbers, and it's worth understanding why. One approach treats an RV park as hospitality: revenue per av…
Happening Now
Reviewing a deck for a 3.5M raise, two parks in one recreational market, 190 sites combined. Structure is an 8 percent preferred return, 70/30 split above it, five year hold, 2 pe…
Discussion
Looking at a listing for a small park on a state highway about 20 minutes from a lake. The sheet says 40 full hookup sites, 12 pull-through, rest back-in, and then in smaller type…
Happening Now
A grounds and small systems maintenance contractor gets asked by a 90 site park about two hours from a national forest to bid the whole season, April through October: mowing, pede…
Poll
Take a 20 site campground with about 25k available for improvements before next season and three things that want it. It is the kind of decision that produces strong opinions that…
Win
This isn't mine on paper. My aunt owns a 26 site campground on a river, an hour from a decent sized city, and she asked me to run the books and the bookings two years ago because…
Poll
Take a 46 site park in a mid tier destination market with a real summer and a decent fall through the third week of October. The recurring question every winter is whether to shut…
Poll
I've been pricing two paths to roughly the same 40 site outcome and I don't trust that they're converging. Path one, buy. Small operating parks in the corridor I'm watching trade…
Loss
Take a 285k first position note against a 31 site RV park, sized at 62% of appraised value, 24 month term, monthly interest only. Structures like this are common and often perform…
Poll
I've been reading two small park listings side by side for a month now and the difference that keeps stopping me isn't the site count. One has a three bedroom house at the front,…