Two Tampa mobile home parks sell for $11 million
By Ashley Gurbal Kritzer
Tampa Bay Business Journal
Published: Jul 9, 2014

Two mobile home parks near Brandon have sold for more than $11 million.

Illinois-based Lakeshore Communities Inc. paid $11.18 million for Davpam Mobile Home Community and Oak Grove Mobile Home Park, according to a Hillsborough County deed recorded Wednesday. General Electric Corp. provided a $13.65 million mortgage for the transaction, according to Hillsborough property records, which could mean that Lakeshore has plans to develop new lots or improve the existing communities.

The seller was Charles Springer of Brandon, who owned the properties under different corporate entities.

Mobile home parks have become a white hot target for investors, who are drawn to the steady supply of tenants, many forced out of their previous homes in the economic downturn. Bloomberg took an in-depth look at the phenomenon in April, quoting Frank Rolfe, one of the top mobile-park investors in the U.S.:

The beauty of a trailer park -- for its owner, anyway -- is that once a tenant trucks a home to a site, then lowers it onto a pad, as it's known in the business, and hooks up to the electricity and septic systems, he's unlikely to leave. It costs at least $5,000 to move a home, a sum that trailer dwellers rarely accumulate more than once, Rolfe says. "We're like a Waffle House where everyone is chained to the booths.”

Read about Rolfe's Mobile Home U., where he introduces new investors to the asset class, from New York Times Magazine.

Ashley Kritzer is a reporter for the Tampa Bay Business Journal.