37 min
The MHP Brokers Tips and Tricks Podcast Interview with Ferd Niemann The Mobile Home Park Broker's Tips & Tricks To Investing
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- Investing
In this episode of The MHP Broker’s Tips and Tricks podcast, Maxwell Baker, president of The Mobile Home Park Broker, interviewed lawyer Fern Niemann about his legal focus on representing mobile home park owners.
Just like with every Tips and Tricks Closing Cocktails podcast episode, this one’s brought to you by The MHP Broker’s’ proprietary Community Price Maximizer. Use this four-step system to get the highest price possible for your mobile home park or RV community when you sell it through The MHP Broker. Guaranteed. Call up Max for details.
Here Are the Show Highlights:
- Lawyer Ferd Niemann runs the website TheMHPLawyer.com, and specializes in representing the legal interests of mobile home park community owners across the country. Up to about 80 percent of the firm’s business is within this industry. (Max, 0:22)
- Ferd began his professional career as a commercial real estate tax analyst for Jackson County in Kansas. He flipped and bought and kept homes for rental on the side. He couldn’t scale up quickly, so decided to get into apartment investing, but found it to be a competitive market out of his financial range. Instead, he started buying and selling mobile homes, which were much less expensive. He did this while attending law school at the University of Kansas. His intention was to get into tax law and real estate investment law. (Ferd, 2:07)
- Around 2018, Ferd got out of law practice and focused exclusively on building his mobile home business. He’s bought and sold parks, and currently owns 19 communities, mostly in the Midwest. Ferd has also gotten back into his law practice, with a mobile home specialty, and hosts a podcast covering the topic. (Ferd, 3:51)
- Ferd’s firm does a lot of business fighting zoning laws established by localities that seek to shut down mobile home parks with home age restrictions, park size restrictions, infill timelines, utility restrictions and other penalties. The majority of his clients have parks that are “legally non-conforming.” That means that they were legal when established, and they’ve been grandfathered in to protect against current regulations, but might fall short of current legal requirements when they change hands. Many cities use the zoning charge of abandonment to shut down mobile home park activity. The idea is that if a lot sits empty for a designated period of time, which might be as little as a month or two, it’s considered abandoned, and the park owners loses the right to rent it. (Ferd, 6:09)
- Age restrictions seem especially illogical to Ferd. He’s got a 2022 mobile home that’s falling apart and a classic 1957 model that’s in beautiful condition. The point is, a home’s age isn’t necessarily a valid indicator of the condition it’s in, and age restrictions are arbitrary and unfair. (Ferd, 7:52)
- There are several violations that can get a mobile home park shut down, including fire code violations, public health safety, welfare, and morals. But abandonment provisions are the most commonly enforced by hostile cities. (Ferd, 8:38)
- Ferd’s firm uses zoning letters to nail down what the park can and can’t do in a locale. He attempts to get the cities to sign off on the zoning letter to protect the client in future zoning battles. The city will sign off on the letter maybe 25 or 30 percent of the time. (Ferd, 10:37)
- About a third of the time, the city will agree to sign the zoning letter once revisions are added and changes made. Ferd’s firm haggles for the best case possible with revisions. (Ferd, 11:10)
- This works more effectively in smaller cities. The bigger cities have much larger law departments and are less likely to simply sign off on a zoning letter. (Ferd, 11:38)
- The challenges vary by state and region, too. As examples, Tennessee and Iowa are
In this episode of The MHP Broker’s Tips and Tricks podcast, Maxwell Baker, president of The Mobile Home Park Broker, interviewed lawyer Fern Niemann about his legal focus on representing mobile home park owners.
Just like with every Tips and Tricks Closing Cocktails podcast episode, this one’s brought to you by The MHP Broker’s’ proprietary Community Price Maximizer. Use this four-step system to get the highest price possible for your mobile home park or RV community when you sell it through The MHP Broker. Guaranteed. Call up Max for details.
Here Are the Show Highlights:
- Lawyer Ferd Niemann runs the website TheMHPLawyer.com, and specializes in representing the legal interests of mobile home park community owners across the country. Up to about 80 percent of the firm’s business is within this industry. (Max, 0:22)
- Ferd began his professional career as a commercial real estate tax analyst for Jackson County in Kansas. He flipped and bought and kept homes for rental on the side. He couldn’t scale up quickly, so decided to get into apartment investing, but found it to be a competitive market out of his financial range. Instead, he started buying and selling mobile homes, which were much less expensive. He did this while attending law school at the University of Kansas. His intention was to get into tax law and real estate investment law. (Ferd, 2:07)
- Around 2018, Ferd got out of law practice and focused exclusively on building his mobile home business. He’s bought and sold parks, and currently owns 19 communities, mostly in the Midwest. Ferd has also gotten back into his law practice, with a mobile home specialty, and hosts a podcast covering the topic. (Ferd, 3:51)
- Ferd’s firm does a lot of business fighting zoning laws established by localities that seek to shut down mobile home parks with home age restrictions, park size restrictions, infill timelines, utility restrictions and other penalties. The majority of his clients have parks that are “legally non-conforming.” That means that they were legal when established, and they’ve been grandfathered in to protect against current regulations, but might fall short of current legal requirements when they change hands. Many cities use the zoning charge of abandonment to shut down mobile home park activity. The idea is that if a lot sits empty for a designated period of time, which might be as little as a month or two, it’s considered abandoned, and the park owners loses the right to rent it. (Ferd, 6:09)
- Age restrictions seem especially illogical to Ferd. He’s got a 2022 mobile home that’s falling apart and a classic 1957 model that’s in beautiful condition. The point is, a home’s age isn’t necessarily a valid indicator of the condition it’s in, and age restrictions are arbitrary and unfair. (Ferd, 7:52)
- There are several violations that can get a mobile home park shut down, including fire code violations, public health safety, welfare, and morals. But abandonment provisions are the most commonly enforced by hostile cities. (Ferd, 8:38)
- Ferd’s firm uses zoning letters to nail down what the park can and can’t do in a locale. He attempts to get the cities to sign off on the zoning letter to protect the client in future zoning battles. The city will sign off on the letter maybe 25 or 30 percent of the time. (Ferd, 10:37)
- About a third of the time, the city will agree to sign the zoning letter once revisions are added and changes made. Ferd’s firm haggles for the best case possible with revisions. (Ferd, 11:10)
- This works more effectively in smaller cities. The bigger cities have much larger law departments and are less likely to simply sign off on a zoning letter. (Ferd, 11:38)
- The challenges vary by state and region, too. As examples, Tennessee and Iowa are
37 min