Posted by Maurice on December 16, 2008 at 06:19:33:
I know in an apartment house it is better to have all older people or all younger people if possible. The 2 always seem to cause friction if you try to mix them.
If it’s the same in a MHP your best strategy might be to make your present park more senior friendly and cater to that segment of the market. And buy another park for the family trade.
Opinions, Advice needed - Posted by shawn sisco
Posted by shawn sisco on December 15, 2008 at 17:15:52:
5or6 years ago it occured to me how much greater the retention was for my resident base comprised of emptynesters-seniors were than that of younger residents. Employment opportunities in my area have been and continue to be good for workers, however relocation transfers are prevalent. So, in addition to normal life cycle events that would cause a move-out: marriage, divorce, need a bigger place, move-up to site-built, bought land to move MH onto, I would lose a large portion of working age residents to job transfers.I couldn’t get enough new move-in residents to grow. So, I began to really focus on attracting the older crowd, and made some rules changes (6pm curfew for kids to be inside their house being the biggie)that seemed to be effective in attracting more seniors.Mostly it is a crowd that have owned site-built houses in the past, and they enjoy the lower maintenance and quiet neighborhood.
During this same timeframe, the loose-lending practices for site-built houses really kicked in. This seemed to noticably reduce the number of inquiries from working age buyers. Nobody needed to “settle for” a MH. The people that moved to my MHP did so,because they wanted to.
My questions are:
How to capitalize on an increase in the traditional working age MH buyer now that home mortgage lending has tightened.
How to do so without losing the older crowd.(as they as a group will still stay longer)