RV park due diligence checklist.
Fifteen items to verify before you commit capital on an RV park or manufactured housing deal. Work them in order. Every item you skip is a question you will answer with your own money later.
Buying an RV park? Start with the full buyer's verification guide. Looking at a campground instead? Read how to buy a campground.
Work them in order, and nothing about the deal has to be reconstructed from inboxes when the deadline arrives.
The fifteen verifications, in order (Evidens):
01
Rent roll truth check
Prove the income at the bank, not the spreadsheet. The rent roll shows what should have been collected; deposits show what arrived. Any line that does not reconcile is a claim, not income.
02
Paying occupancy, not reported occupancy
Reported occupancy counts heads. Paying occupancy counts money. Pull the delinquency report, age the receivables, and find out how many of those occupied sites are actually current.
03
P&L normalization
Prove the run rate, not the story. Restate the seller's P&L without owner add-backs, one-time items, and below-market expenses, especially management fees the seller never paid themselves. The normalizers own the method.
04
Utility systems: who pays and what they cost
Confirm who pays for water, sewer, electric, gas, and trash on every site type. Get 12 months of utility bills. A utility bill nobody underwrote can blow up a pro forma.
05
Utility capacity
For parks on well, septic, or lagoon: confirm permitted capacity against current and planned site counts. Capacity you assume but cannot prove is missing evidence, not a footnote.
06
Permits and zoning
Confirm legal use with the county or municipality directly. Do not rely on the broker package. Ask whether the current use is conforming, grandfathered, or nonconforming, and what that means for expansion or rebuild.
07
Site count vs. permitted count
The broker package lists a site count. The county may list a different one. Reconcile them before you price per pad.
08
Infrastructure condition
Water lines, sewer lines, roads, electrical pedestals. Get eyes on them or get a report. Deferred infrastructure is a silent deal killer in older parks.
09
Tenant estoppels
Verify income beyond the rent roll. Estoppels confirm who lives there, what they pay, and what was promised. On park-owned homes, confirm the home is actually owned by the park.
10
Floodplain, wetlands, and environmental
Check FEMA maps, wetlands inventory, and order a Phase I if the history warrants it. Environmental issues do not negotiate.
11
Title and survey
Clean title, current survey, confirmed boundaries. Encroachments and easements discovered after close are your problem.
12
Insurance: quotes and claims history
Get real quotes, not the seller's historical cost. Pull the claims history. In some markets, insurance is the line item that kills the deal.
13
Lot rents vs. market
Compare current lot rents against comparable parks within a realistic drive. Know whether the upside you are underwriting is real or aspirational.
14
Seller responsiveness
Slow diligence responses are a signal. A seller who cannot produce basic documents during diligence will not be easier to work with after you are under contract. Absence is the finding.
15
The decision file
Document every claim, every source, and every gap before you go hard. If it is not written down with its evidence state, it did not happen. The file is what lets you walk away with confidence or commit with it.
Working a manufactured housing deal? Items nine and thirteen carry extra weight there, because the homes themselves are part of the purchase. The diligence record for a manufactured housing community lays out what has to be proven on the homes side before capital commits.
Next step
This checklist gets you started.
A checklist tells you what to verify. It does not hold the evidence, track what is missing, or connect the rent roll to the bank deposits to the site walk. What it leaves you with is the honest list: what you proved, what you could not, and what the gap is worth.
