A mobile home park is two businesses. Price them like it.

TOH vs. POH: why the mix determines everything

Tenant-owned homes (TOH) are the land business: the resident owns the home, rents the lot, and the park collects lot rent and maintains the ground and infrastructure, with almost no home-level capex. Park-owned homes (POH) are the landlord business: higher income per site, and the park carries maintenance, turnover cost, insurance, and the slow depreciation of an aging housing stock. The mix decides which business you are really buying, and each side gets priced the way it behaves.

Tenant-owned vs park-owned homes (the Evidens POH/TOH Split):

The first diligence question on any mobile home park is the mix, verified home by home, not taken from the broker's summary. Titles, not claims. For the full treatment of why ownership of the homes is the diligence starting point, read Field Notes: manufactured housing diligence starts with who owns the homes.

Separate businesses get separate prices: the land on proven lot rent, the homes on their rental record.

Lot rent verification: not just the rent roll

The rent roll says what lot rent should be. In tenant-owned parks, delinquency can be stickier than in apartments, and removing a homeowner who owns the structure can be slower and costlier than turning an apartment unit. How much slower or costlier is not a national rule: eviction of a homeowner, as distinct from a renter of a park-owned home, is governed by state landlord-tenant law, and timelines, notice, and protections vary materially by state. Price the delinquency risk for the state the park is actually in. The method for proving the income, bank deposits against the rent roll over 12 to 24 months, lives in The Rent-Roll Truth Check.

Then check the rents against the market. Pull lot rents from comparable parks within a realistic drive and adjust for utilities included, home age restrictions, and amenity gaps. The value-add story in most MHP deals is lot rent growth, so the question is never whether rents can go up. It is whether the current residents, in these homes, in this market, can absorb the increase without the occupancy you underwrote walking out the gate. The full sequence, all fifteen verifications in order, is laid out in the free due diligence checklist.

What due diligence looks like on a manufactured housing community (MHC)

Due diligence on a manufactured housing community starts with paperwork other parks do not have. Every home carries a title, and who holds that title decides what you are actually buying. Count the homes from the titles, not from the broker's summary. Note which homes the park owns outright, which carry liens, and which belong to residents who could, at real cost, take theirs somewhere else. A resident-owned home is stability you can underwrite. A park-owned home is a rental unit you will maintain, insure, and one day replace. The land under all of it gets verified the way any park does: the permitted site count, the utility capacity, the real age of the lines. Work the order on the due diligence checklist, then price each side of the split on evidence of its own.

Utility infrastructure: the hidden capex

Many mobile home parks a buyer will see are decades old, and the homes in them skew old as well. National Association of Home Builders analysis of the U.S. Census Bureau's 2023 American Housing Survey found that about 72.2 percent of the occupied manufactured home stock was built before 2000 (see Sources and limits below). That figure describes homes, not park utility lines. For a specific park, the age of the water lines, sewer lines, and electrical systems still has to be proven from permits, records, and inspection, and in an older park those systems may be original. Deferred underground infrastructure is the silent deal killer: invisible in photos, absent from the P&L, and priced in five or six figures when it fails.

Two things are specific to older parks. First, the metering: in a master-metered park where the owner eats the utility bill, sub-metering is a capex item to underwrite where the jurisdiction and utility rules allow it. Some states and localities restrict resale of utilities or require specific metering arrangements, and where sub-metering or pass-through is not allowed, the cost lands differently, as an ongoing owner-paid utility expense to price into the deal instead of a metering project. Second, the pipe: in an older park, water and sewer lines may be original material, and their condition, from inspection reports or a scoped sample, not from the seller's memory, sets the capital plan. The general utility verification, who pays for each system, what it costs, and what capacity is permitted, is worked step by step on the due diligence checklist.

Sources and limits

Source: National Association of Home Builders, Eye on Housing, “Manufactured Homes: An Alternative Means of Housing Supply” (December 2025), an analysis of the U.S. Census Bureau's 2023 American Housing Survey. It reports 7.2 million occupied manufactured homes in the United States and that about 72.2 percent of that stock was built before 2000. This guide uses that figure only for the age of the homes. It does not establish the age or condition of any specific park's utility systems.

Limits: this guide is a diligence framework, not legal advice. Eviction, home title, and utility metering and resale are governed by state and local law and utility rules, which vary materially by jurisdiction. How a home is titled, whether it has been converted to real property, and whether sub-metering or utility pass-through is allowed on a specific deal must be confirmed from the titles, the state's rules, and the utility's terms for that park, with qualified local counsel where the answer matters to the price.

This guide may use AI-assisted research and drafting. Sources, claims, and final editorial judgment remain subject to human review.