Like most property the Seller usually wants an excessive amount and the purchaser really wants to pay inadequate for a ‘recreational vehicle’ park. Certain buyers might have different motivations for getting a certain park (1031 money, capability to obtain better financing, conversions with other uses, as well as placement to their current address). In this book we are going to only look only at the need for a camper park with the typical buyer who can continue to operate it a camper park.
Anyone which has seen an appraisal using a house or most types of real estate investment will have heard hitting the ground with 3 ways to determining value of that real estate property. They are the Cost, Sales, and Income Approach.
Unless you might be coming up with value of a brand new camper park or one that’s predominately vacant, I do not go to whichever reason to utilize the cost approach. It is not likely a new camper park will likely be built nearby and exactly what it would cost to develop a new park isn’t going to even evaluate the amount of time, effort, and cash it takes to fill that park with occupied and paying residents.
As far as being the Sales or Market Comparison method of value, this can be highly suspect. This is according to comparing the sale with the subject property along with other recent sales and adjusting for differences that you could or might not exactly know about. Problems with this strategy include varying expenses, rents, and management. Whether you happen to be an investor or appraiser I would just use this process as potential information and never draw any conclusions from this. Here is a quick example from the improper use of this process from my experience:
Examples
Property A: 50 lots, 100% occupied, Lot Rent of $179.00. Lots will hold a maximum home sized a 14′ x 60′ – Water and Sewer is submetered returning to residents – NOI of around $75,000.
Property B (10 miles from Property A): 53 lots, 10 vacancies, Lot Rent of $150.00. Lots will hold 16′ x 80’s and doublewides. Park pays water and sewer – NOI of $45,000.
Property B is sold in December of 2004 for $425,000.
The owner of Property A(considered one of my LLC’s) visits the bank to refinance the exact property in January of 2005. The appraiser appraises it at $400,000 and places probably the most emphasis on the Sales Comparison Approach as Property B just sold also it was a superior property when it comes to size, appearance, and. In fact within the appraisal report, he claims we were charging a lot of and that our numbers were inflated.
After arguing with the financial institution and appraiser to get a couple of weeks, there we were refunded our money to the appraisal. In the meantime, we had been approached by another investor who made us a package of $645,000 for that park therefore we accepted as well as the sale closed in the end of March 2005. I really desired to send the appraiser a copy in the closing statement having a nice letter but decided against it.
The point is even though one park may look really good, take a better location, and possess so much more choosing it at first glance, will not mean it’s worth more per space or maybe worth the maximum amount of per space as a possible inferior looking park.
As a side note, once I determined that property B was sold for $425,000 I was in contact while using new owner and aimed to buy the park from him – I offered him $50,000 in excess of he had just paid and that he didn’t want any kind of it. He knew he just developed a tremendous buy and is raising the rents and commencing to get his lots filled up.
The third way of value will be the Income approach and I learn that this is really the most beneficial and only strategy to evaluate a camper park correctly. I have come track of a basic formula through which I value the park based on what it really is currently doing, what it really should be doing, and just what it will do once I implement basic changes and run it more effectively.