Mobile home park value & profitability estimator
What does the park earn, and what is it worth? Enter the lots, the lot rent, and a cap rate — this runs the same income-approach math a buyer, a broker, and a lender all start from.
How a park gets valued
A mobile home park is priced on its income, not on what the land next door sold for. The chain is short: collect the rent, add the other income, subtract what it costs to operate, and you have net operating income. Divide NOI by the cap rate buyers accept in that market and you have the value.
The leverage in that equation is worth sitting with. At a 7% cap rate, every extra dollar of annual NOI adds about $14 of value. Raise lot rent $25 a month across 40 lots and you have added $12,000 of NOI — and roughly $170,000 of value. Move water and sewer off your books and onto submeters and the same thing happens from the expense side. That is the whole game in small parks: NOI is the product, and the sale price is just NOI with a multiplier stapled to it.
Two cautions. First, value what the park collects, not what it could collect — sellers price vacant lots as though they were full, and buyers should not pay for someone else's optimism. Second, an expense ratio pulled from a rule of thumb is a guess; the real one comes out of two years of tax returns and utility bills. If the seller will not show them, that is itself the answer.
Working out whether a raise is even legal where you are? Use the lot rent increase calculator for the 2026 caps, and read how to raise lot rent without losing the increase. Thinking about the expense side? Switching from RUBS to submeters is usually where the first real NOI gain hides. Just bought? Your first 30 days after buying a park covers what to do before the first rent run.
Common questions
How do you value a mobile home park?
By its income, not by comparable sales. Take the annual rent you actually collect, add other income, subtract operating expenses to get net operating income (NOI), then divide NOI by the cap rate buyers in that market accept. A park with $60,000 of NOI at a 7% cap rate is worth roughly $857,000. Raising NOI by $1 raises the value by about $14 at that cap rate, which is why small rent and expense changes move the price so much.
What cap rate should I use for a small mobile home park?
Cap rates move with the market, park quality, and location, and small rural parks trade at higher cap rates (cheaper, relative to income) than large ones near a city. Run the number at more than one rate rather than trusting a single figure — the spread between 6% and 9% on the same NOI is enormous, and that spread is the actual negotiation.
What expense ratio is realistic?
It hinges on who pays the utilities. A park where tenants own their homes and pay their own water, sewer, and trash often runs near 30-35% of effective gross income. If you cover water and sewer out of lot rent, expect closer to 40%. If you own rental homes, budget 50% or more — repairs and turnover on park-owned homes eat margin fast. Submetering utilities back to residents is the single most common way owners move that ratio down.
Should I use occupied lots or total lots?
Value the park on what it collects today (occupied lots), and treat the empty lots as upside you are not paying for. Sellers will price in the vacant lots as though they were full; buyers should not. This calculator shows both, so you can see exactly how much of the asking price is real income and how much is someone else's optimism.
Is this an appraisal?
No. It is the same income-approach arithmetic an appraiser or lender starts from, but a real valuation also weighs the condition of the infrastructure, the lease and rent-control situation, permit and zoning status, well and septic compliance, and what similar parks actually traded for. Use this to sanity-check a number quickly, not to close on one.
Lot Sidekick keeps the NOI side of this honest: every lot billed every month, water submetered back at cost, and a ledger that shows what was actually collected — which is the number a buyer or a lender will ask you to prove. See how it works or call (425) 405-0734.