With the raising cost of home construction, mobile home parks have become more populated with retirement-age people and young couples and therefore a sought-after form of real estate investment. In many cases, a mobile home has become a valid alternative to a sticks and mortar home.

Moreover, mobile homes are not your daddy’s mobile home. In fact, most of them are no longer “mobile.” Once placed in a mobile home park, they are tied down, skirted with decorative concrete block, landscaped and have patios installed. In other words, they become almost as permanent on the site as a conventionally built home.

Okay, just in case you want to invest in a mobile home park, let’s see how mobile home park ownership differs from other forms of real estate investments and why mobile home parks have become popular in real estate investing circles.

1. Improvements are minimal - Compared with most other investment real estate, the improvements in a mobile home park are minimal. Other than the streets and possibly a recreation and laundry facility, on site improvements mostly consist of the mobile home pads (or sites) which have water, sewer and electricity, and a concrete slab for the patio area and tie down rings to anchor the home to the ground.
2. Good income opportunities - There are several sources of income potential for a mobile home park owners in addition to the pad or space rental. The park owner can realize a handsome profit by selling new mobile homes when a park has vacant spaces, for instance, or by acting as the selling agent and charging a fee to tenants who decide to sell their home and move. The park owner can also bring in additional profit by selling mobile home accessories such as skirting around the bottom of the home, fire extinguishers, smoke alarms, or from the coin laundry facilities.
3. Operating expenses are minimal - Maintenance requirements are typically limited to the common areas such as swimming pool and clubhouse or, for the sake of appearance, landscaping. Some mobile home parks even include spaces where each space has individual water as well as electric meters, and tenants pay for these services.

Bear in mind that mobile home parks are not travel trailer parks. Travel trailer parks are a completely different type of real estate investment that caters to travelers with motor homes, house trailers and campers and compare, management-wise, with a motel type of investment where renters are coming and going continuously.

Mobile home parks are like subdivisions and many knowledgeable real estate investors are turning to mobile home parks as a real estate investment because they are profitable and easy to manage.

Warehouse and industrial buildings are discussed together as two types of real estate investments because they typically are found in industrial zone locations or industrial parks. Other than that, however, they are not that similar.

In this article, we want to touch on the aspects of warehouse and industrial buildings from a real estate investing point of view.

Warehouses

Rental warehouses are usually divided into bays or rooms ranging in size from less than 100 square feet to over several thousand. The small storage bays used generally for personal belongings and the larger bays for such things as small workshops, manufacturing facilities or wholesale sales outlets. As a real estate investment, it should be noted that tenant stability in the small spaces is probably the worst of all real estate investments because they usually rent on a month-to-month basis and move out at any time. Having said that, however, if you’re in an area where this type of facility is in high demand it may be a very good real estate investing opportunity. So don’t pass on an opportunity to evaluate the numbers (at least).

Industrial Buildings

A building leased to a major industrial or manufacturing company makes an excellent investment because they are large spaces generally leased on longer terms to more stable tenants such as manufacturing plants who need additional warehouse or manufacturing space. Moreover, the tenant usually pays for everything, including maintenance, taxes, insurance and utilities.

If you’re a real estate investor, you might want to consider these types of real estate investment. With any real estate investing, however, remember that one size does not fit all. Whereas a warehouse may be a profitable real estate investment in one area, it might not be that profitable in another area. As always, any real estate investing opportunity relies on the numbers. Be sure to evaluate all the numbers before you buy any investment real estate.

ProAPOD® real estate investment software updated its platinum-grade ProAPOD® 10.0 real estate investment software solution and is available free to active members using version 10.0.

Software Modifications

1. The Marketing Package now computes up to three loans. The original version computed one loan (the primary first loan) only. This change means that cash flow and rates of return the Marketing Package will be consistent with those in the APOD.
2. The APOD now itemizes the initial investment amount. The APOD in the original version showed a lump sum for the initial investment amount.

To obtain your copy of this real estate investment software update, simply login to your account from our website at http://www.proapod.com and click Customer Login. Use your email address and password to login and then simply download the update.The update id FREE to all users of ProAPOD® 10.0 with active memberships.

Although we have gone through great lengths to ensure the integrity of this real estate investment software update, in the event that we missed something, please report it immediately.