Park Broker vs Commercial Broker vs Residential Agent: Who Should Sell Your Park?
For most Florida parks with real income, hire a mobile home park broker: someone who prices from lot rent and home ownership, knows which lenders will touch your park, and can name the operators and 1031 buyers who actually buy parks. A general commercial broker can do the job if they have closed parks before. A residential agent is the wrong fit for an income-producing park, but a generalist is fine when the buyer is already found or the park is really being sold as land.
I sell mobile home parks for a living, so put my opinion on this through the same filter you would put a contractor's opinion on whether you need a contractor. What I can do is show you what each kind of agent actually brings, where each one tends to slip, and the honest cases where you do not need someone like me. If the comparison points somewhere other than my phone number, it points there.
Three kinds of licensed people will offer to sell your park in Florida. A residential agent sells houses and condos and lists on the MLS. A general commercial broker sells offices, retail, land, warehouses and sometimes apartments. A park broker sells mobile home parks, and often not much else. All three hold the same kind of license. The difference is what they know about how a park is priced, financed and bought.
Why parks are priced differently from everything else
A park looks like land with homes on it, so it gets mistaken for a subdivision, a commercial lot or a small apartment complex. It is a little of each and priced like none of them. Four things drive the number.
Who owns the homes. This is the biggest driver in how I underwrite a park, bigger than location. A park where residents own their homes and rent only the lot trades several cap points tighter than a park where you own the homes and rent them out. In the first case you are selling land and lot rent. In the second you are selling a landlord business with aging structures, and I underwrite older park-owned single-wides about the way I would underwrite apartments. I go through the math in park-owned vs tenant-owned homes.
Lot rent versus home rent. A lot rent and a home rent are different incomes with different expense loads. Mix them up in a pro forma and the value comes out wrong in either direction.
Utilities. I rank them city water and sewer first, well and septic second, a private sewage plant third. A buyer's inspector and lender will rank them the same way, and the price follows.
Financing. Agency lenders (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) generally want a park to be mostly tenant-owned, roughly 65% to 75% of homes in my experience, along with sound utilities. Many older Florida parks miss that, so many park deals close with cash, 1031 exchange money or seller financing. The financing a park can get sets who can buy it and what they can pay. More on that in why older parks are hard to finance.
On top of that, Florida has park-specific law. If a park has 26 or more lots, the owner files a prospectus with the state and delivers it to residents who rent lots (s. 723.011, Florida Statutes). And if residents have formed a qualifying homeowners' association, offering the park for sale triggers a notice to its officers with your price and terms, after which they have 45 days to contract on those terms (s. 723.071, Florida Statutes). I walk through that in what Chapter 723 requires before you sell. I am a broker, not a lawyer, so your attorney confirms how it applies to your park.
Side by side
| Residential agent | General commercial broker | Mobile home park broker | |
|---|---|---|---|
| How they price | Comparable home sales or a per-home figure | Income and cap rate, often with apartment or retail comps | Income and cap rate, adjusted for home ownership, utilities and financing, checked against recorded park sales |
| Buyer pool | Local buyers on the MLS | Local and regional investors in their network | Park operators, funds, 1031 buyers, seller-financing buyers, local investors |
| Financing know-how | Home mortgages | Bank and some agency loans | Which lenders do parks, what share of tenant-owned homes they need, how to structure seller financing |
| Due diligence | Home inspection, title | Environmental, survey, title | Those, plus DOH licensed lot count, utility systems, park-owned home titles, Chapter 723 paperwork |
| Where they shine | Single homes, a buyer already in hand | Parks with a clear land or commercial angle | Income parks of any size, especially older or mixed-ownership ones |
| Typical weak spot | Prices per home like a subdivision | Treats park-owned homes like apartments without the per-lot ceiling | Narrow focus, so check they know your part of Florida |
What a residential agent does well, and where it goes wrong
Residential agents are good at things that matter: they are local, they return calls, they know the title companies, and they know how to get a closing done. If you are selling one mobile home on its own land, a residential agent is the right call.
A park is different. The MLS reaches people buying a place to live, not people buying lot rent. The usual pricing tool, comparable home sales, has nothing to say about a cap rate. The pattern I see most is a park priced per home, listed for months, and then sold to whoever finally makes sense of it. That is not a knock on the agent. It is a job outside the one they trained for.
What a commercial broker does well, and where it goes wrong
A good commercial broker thinks in income and cap rates, knows how to package a property for investors, and has a network of local buyers with real money. That is most of the way there. I started selling income property at Marcus & Millichap in 2013, so I have a lot of respect for the commercial side of this business.
The gap is specific. A commercial broker who has not sold parks tends to underwrite park-owned homes like apartment units and miss the ceiling buyers put on price per lot. On my model that soft ceiling sits around $60,000 per lot for older parks, and my working range for cap rates is about 8.5% to 10%. They may also not know which lenders will finance a mostly park-owned park, so the deal goes under contract with a buyer who cannot close. Ask them how many parks they have closed. If the answer is several, they may be a fine choice.
What a park broker does well, and where it can go wrong
A park broker's value is a short list: pricing the way a buyer's lender will, knowing the buyers by name, and keeping the deal alive through utility reviews, home titles and financing. The buyer pool for parks is small and specific. It is park operators, funds, 1031 buyers who need to place money on a deadline, buyers who will pay more if you carry part of the note, and local investors. Most of them do not live in your county, and few of them are looking at the MLS.
The weak spot is the flip side of the focus. A park broker can know parks and not know your market, or be so used to big tenant-owned communities that a 30-lot park-owned park gets less attention. Ask the same questions you would ask anyone, which I list in how to choose a mobile home park broker.
When a generalist is fine
Here is the honest list. You probably do not need a park specialist when:
- The buyer is already found. A neighbor, a resident group or an operator has agreed on a price and you need someone to run the paperwork. A careful agent and a real estate attorney can do that. Get your own valuation first so you know the price is fair.
- The park is really land. If a developer will pay more for the dirt than the park's income supports, a land or commercial broker who knows local zoning may serve you better. I wrote about when a park is worth more as land.
- The commercial broker has closed parks. Specialty is about experience, not a job title. A commercial broker with a list of park closings you can check is a park broker for this purpose.
Outside those cases, the cost of the wrong fit is usually not the commission. It is a price set on the wrong method, months on the wrong market, and a contract with a buyer whose lender says no in due diligence.
How I work, so you can compare
My terms are 4% of the sale price, paid only at closing, on a one-page agreement with a 90-day listing. I price the way a buyer's lender will, I use the Florida Department of Health licensed lot count rather than a county unit count, and I answer my own phone at 321-275-KING. Hold any broker you interview, me included, to terms that plain. Walk into those conversations with your own number: run your park through my valuation model first.
Questions owners ask
Can a residential real estate agent sell a mobile home park?
Legally, yes, since it is the same license. But a residential agent usually prices from home sales and markets on the MLS, while a park is priced from lot rent, home ownership, utilities and financing and is bought by operators, funds and 1031 buyers. For an income-producing park, that mismatch tends to cost time and price.
Is a commercial real estate broker good enough to sell my park?
Sometimes. A commercial broker already thinks in income and cap rates. The question is whether they have closed parks: someone who has not may underwrite park-owned homes like apartments, miss the ceiling on price per lot, or put the park under contract with a buyer whose lender will not finance it. Ask for their park closings.
Why are mobile home parks priced differently from apartments?
Because who owns the homes changes everything. A park where residents own their homes and rent the lot is mostly land and lot rent, and it trades several cap points tighter than a park where you own and rent out the homes. Utilities and financing access also move the price in ways apartments do not see.
Who buys mobile home parks in Florida?
A small, specific pool: park operators, investment funds, 1031 exchange buyers placing sale proceeds, buyers who want the seller to carry part of the financing, and local investors. Many deals close with cash, 1031 money or seller financing, because agency loans generally need most of the homes to be resident-owned.
When do I not need a mobile home park broker?
When the buyer is already found and you only need the paperwork handled, when the park is really worth more as land to a developer, or when a commercial broker has a checkable record of park closings. In those cases a careful generalist and a real estate attorney can do the job.
If you are weighing who should sell your park, I am glad to be one of the calls you make. Here is what a mobile home park broker in Florida does and what I charge, laid out plainly.
