CrosstownOS / Buyer's guide
How to buy an RV park without buying someone else's problems.
Buying an RV park means buying a story about income. Your job is to check the story against the evidence before the price becomes final. This guide covers what to verify, in what order, and the red flags that should stop a deal cold.
Why most RV park buyers overpay
The seller knows the park. The broker packages the park. You get the package. Every number in that package was chosen by someone with an interest in the sale price, which means every number is a claim until you verify it against an independent source. The information gap is the whole game: the buyer who closes the gap pays for the park that exists, and the buyer who does not pays for the park in the brochure.
Overpaying rarely looks like one big mistake. It looks like six small ones stacked: income taken from the rent roll instead of deposits, expenses taken from the seller's P&L instead of a normalized run rate, occupancy reported instead of paying, utilities assumed instead of billed, site count marketed instead of permitted. Each gap is a few thousand a year. Together they are the difference between a deal that works and a deal that owns you.
Price-per-pad benchmarks
Price per pad is the shorthand the market uses to compare parks, but it is a starting point for questions, not an answer. In recent years, stabilized parks in growth markets have traded roughly in the $40,000 to $80,000 per pad range, while value-add and rural parks have traded lower, often $20,000 to $45,000 per pad. Destination and high-amenity parks can clear $100,000 per pad. These are broad ranges, not quotes: verify against closed comps in your market before you anchor on any number.
Cap rates tell the other half. Stabilized parks in strong markets have traded in the 7 to 8.5 percent range; value-add deals price higher to compensate for the work. When a marketed cap rate looks a point better than the market, the income or the expenses are usually doing something creative. Normalize first, then compare.
Run the headline numbers in under a minute: implied cap rate, price per pad, and gross potential rent from six inputs. Try the 60-Second Deal Screener.
The five verification gates
Work these in order. Each gate protects the ones after it: there is no point verifying occupancy against income you have not rebuilt, and no point pricing per pad against a site count you have not confirmed.
01
Gate 1: Financials
Rebuild the income from bank deposits, not the rent roll. Normalize the P&L: add back the seller's personal expenses, remove one-time items, and put market-rate management and maintenance back in where the seller ran lean. If the seller will not share 12 to 24 months of bank statements, treat every income number as a claim with no source. Price the deal on the normalized number, not the marketed one.
02
Gate 2: Occupancy
There are two occupancies and only one of them pays you. Reported occupancy counts every site with a name on it. Paying occupancy counts every site current on rent. Pull the delinquency report and age the receivables. A park at 90 percent reported occupancy and 70 percent paying occupancy is a different deal at a different price.
03
Gate 3: Utilities
Confirm who pays for water, sewer, electric, gas, and trash on each site type, then get 12 months of actual bills. For parks on well, septic, or lagoon, confirm permitted capacity against current and planned site counts with the county, not the seller. Utility exposure is the line item buyers underwrite least and regret most.
04
Gate 4: Zoning and permits
Confirm legal use directly with the county or municipality. Ask whether the current use is conforming, grandfathered, or nonconforming, and what each status means for expansion, rebuild, or change of use. Reconcile the broker's site count against the county's permitted count before you price per pad. A park you cannot legally operate is not a park.
05
Gate 5: Tenant mix
Overnight, seasonal, and long-term tenants are three different businesses sharing one ledger. Overnight turns drive rate but cost labor. Long-term tenants stabilize income but cap upside. Know the mix, know the trend, and underwrite the mix you are actually buying, not the mix the photos suggest.
Red flags that kill deals
Any one of these does not automatically end a deal, but each one reprices it. Two or more together usually mean the marketed story and the real park are different assets.
No bank statements
A seller who will not share deposits is asking you to underwrite their word. Walk or retrade.
Site count mismatch
When the broker package and the county disagree on site count, the county is right until proven otherwise.
Utility bills nobody has seen
If 12 months of utility bills do not exist, the expense line is a guess wearing a costume.
Grandfathered use with no paperwork
Grandfathered status asserted verbally is not a status. Get the determination in writing from the jurisdiction.
Occupancy propped by non-paying tenants
Full parks where a third of tenants are behind are not full parks. They are collection problems with a view.
Deferred infrastructure with no reserve
Old water lines, failing septic, tired pedestals. If the capital plan does not exist, you are writing it with your purchase price.
Start with the checklist, finish with the record
The fifteen-item RV park due diligence checklist is the free starting point: every item in this guide, in the order you work them. When the deal gets real and evidence starts scattering across inboxes, the Acquisition Workspace holds the full record: seller claims, source evidence, site observations, unresolved diligence, and underwriting connected before you commit capital.
