Jupiter Sunsation

Place looks really simple.....cottages are A frame micro home/trailer looking places. Other than water/sewer and a pool the infrastructure isn't real bad

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmwvaCT971w

370ss500efi

It looks like that at first, but that was a $7-9MM project.

Jupiter Sunsation

So even at 7mm that is a lot of campsite rentals to simply recover your infrastructure costs, nevermind land purchase/carrying costs/operations. Being in a seasonal climate (not too many winter campers out there) you essentially have to make your money in 6 months or less!


Look at the rates in June.....$33-70 a night for a class A site.....Even at $50 a night you are going to raise $1800 a month per site if no vacancy. Cabins are $150-250 and deck boats are $250 a day. That looks like a really long payback on 7mm+....... Looks worse if gas returns to $4 a gallon and campers stay home!

370ss500efi

I agree, I am thinking the numbers are inflated from what I have read about the project. My guess is that was for the publicity of the project. Thats a lot of $$$ for the infrastructure. Purchase of the property was $1MM.

Jupiter Sunsation

7mm parked somewhere earning 5% is 350K a year with a lot less risk than a new campground with low monthly rates. I would think you would be better off developing that parcel for waterfront homes and dockage for the non waterfront owners. I suspect the financing and city variances would be easier to obtain as nobody wants trailer parks in their backyard!

Jupiter Sunsation

Trailer parks are great "land plays" as in rent the lots and then 20 years later sell the land for big money to a developer and evict the trailers. 2 recently sold in S Florida and the tenants reached out to the media telling sad tales how they are being thrown out after all these years.....Didn't change anything, both parks got cleared out. One sold for 29 million and the other was 14 million.

The "hook" for trailer parks is that the trailers can't be moved after they are 10 years old so once the old people move in and buy the trailer they essentially can't leave after the 10 year point. They essentially become renters for life. My uncle was looking at one in NH years ago (more of a summer camp type place) with a small marina/fuel/ship store. It was a 7 month deal, they shut off the water/electric for the winter. He passed, his buddy took the deal. The reality is it was a lot of work for very little money considering the money that was tied up in the project. His buddy was looking for a semi retirement type income but found the months he really wanted to do stuff were the same months his attention was needed at the campground. Last I heard it was back up for sale.

1000 islander

Swan Bay is two miles down the road from me. He's done an awesome job in there but it will take forever to get any ROI with our short seasons.