JMac03 said:
My preferred is a laundromat or carwash. Recently I actually was thinking about storage or RV park as well. We both have full time jobs (plus a business), and rent houses, so it needs to be something that is somewhat of an absentee owner. Def can't be there daily.
We own an RV park, only 30 spaces, but bought it from a motivated seller. We run it ourselves, and are actually at the park 3 or 4 days a week, for four hours each time. We have a small laundromat on premises. Laundry equipment is pretty expensive. If you go that direction, be sure the supplier services the equipment unless you possess that skill set yourself. For the most part, the equipment we have had has been pretty reliable.
If I had it to do all over again, I would had invested the money into storage rather than an RV park. My son and I are somewhat looking for a place to build RV and boat storage. I say somewhat because he now works for a company and is making amazing money, that wasn't the case when we first thought about doing this.
if you look into RV parks, building one can be a burden, depending on where you are looking. Some places do not want any more than there already are and have made it hard to build one. The requirements, in my area, were such that the park we bought cost less than just the roads in a park I was looking to build. The cost of putting in the electrical stuff will make you cry big tears, lol. If you are looking to build one, meet with the local officials as to the requirements, ordinances, etc. before you go one step further. In most places, buying an existing park will be preferable to building one. Of course, you have to find someone who wants to sell. If you decide to buy one, do not use a standard earnest money contract, have your lawyer draw up the agreement. You will want to specify that you can talk to the tenants (you will want to find out about problems the park has with electrical outages, crime, lighting at night, sewer, etc., things the seller might not want to mention). There are many things he or she can put in the earnest money contract that are not in standard ones. Also, have an electrician you trust evaluate the electrical system. A former tax client of mine had a park with around 90 spaces. He was looking to sell, I was looking to buy, but he did his own site installation work and I was uncomfortable with his electrical infrastructure. He sold it, and 6 or 8 months later, one side of the park more or less melted down. Fire marshal shut down that side of the park until it was brought up to code, then when it reopened he had to close down the other side and then bring it up to code. I do not know for sure, but I would guess they spent $200,000 on all that, probably more.
My son and I looked into putting in a carwash, nothing too fancy, like four stalls with the old timey wand, and a couple of touchless pull through stalls. The touchless equipment is pretty high priced and neither he nor I would be able to service the touchless equipment so we decided not to do it. The trend (at least in my area, maybe it has been going on for awhile in the bigger cities) is the monstrous carwashes that sell memberships at like $30 per month. A former client just built one and someone built one near where I live. My, I'd love to know how much money they put in that project. I know they paid $1 million for the land, it took several months to build it, tons of concrete, and for three months or so, there were probably 40 or so people working on building the thing. I would guess the building and equipment and the construction costs were at least $2 milllion.
Not trying to be a Debbie Downer, just some things I have experienced and seen. You are on the right track to get something going now. I am retired and the RV park money is nice to have. Based on some recent sales, I think I could get 2 to 2.5 times what we paid for it plus the improvements we have made.
