In 2019, there were 778 registered attendees at the Manufactured Housing Institute’s annual Congress and Expo. By 2025, that number had grown to 1,239 — a 59% increase in just six years.

Meanwhile, one major commercial mortgage broker — Eastern Union — reported that their manufactured housing financing deals in the past five years were 170% higher than the prior five years. Average deal size doubled. The number of lenders competing on a single mid-Atlantic property went from two in 2011 to twelve-plus in 2025.

The mobile home park space has gone from a quiet, misunderstood niche to one of the most competitive asset classes in commercial real estate. And that shift has broken something important: the traditional off-market deal sourcing playbook.

If you’re still running the same direct mail campaigns and cold-calling strategies that worked in 2018, you’re burning money. Here’s what’s actually changed — and what’s working now.

What Happened to the Off-Market Advantage

The “off-market” edge in mobile home park investing used to come from information asymmetry. Institutions didn’t know about the asset class. Most brokers didn’t cover it. A smart individual operator could call parks from public records, make personal contact with owners, and establish relationships before anyone else knew the property was available.

That edge is largely gone. Between 2019 and 2025, every major private equity firm, REIT, and family office with a real estate allocation discovered manufactured housing. They brought sophisticated acquisition teams, proprietary databases, local broker relationships, and marketing budgets that dwarf what individual operators can spend.

The result: even “off-market” opportunities now often involve multiple informed buyers. Owners in attractive markets like North Carolina and Tennessee are getting approached regularly — by mail, by phone, and sometimes in person. The window between initial contact and competitive bidding has compressed dramatically.

Why Traditional Direct Mail Stopped Working

Direct mail is still valid. It’s just not the weapon it used to be.

If every mobile home park investor who attended the last three MHI conferences is sending mailers to the same lists in NC and TN, park owners in those states have seen dozens of “We buy mobile home parks” letters. The message has become wallpaper.

The math has gotten worse too. Response rates that used to run 1–2% are now well below 0.5% in many saturated markets. If you’re spending $2–$3 per qualified contact, you’re looking at $400–$600 per response, and most aren’t serious sellers. That doesn’t mean you stop mailing — it means you have to change the message.

What’s Actually Working: The 4-Part Sourcing Playbook

1. Personalize or Don’t Bother

The operators getting callbacks in 2025 are the ones whose outreach doesn’t look like outreach. They know something specific about the park — an occupancy challenge, a recent infrastructure issue, a long hold period — and they reference it. A letter that opens with “I know your park on Highway 70 in Lenoir — I drove by it last month while visiting a community in that county” will outperform 1,000 generic postcards.

Video mailers — physical USB drives or QR codes linking to a short personal video — are working in pockets of the market. They’re expensive ($15–$30 per unit) but, used selectively on high-priority targets, they cut through in ways paper can’t.

2. Build Your Own Database, Don’t Buy Lists

Bought lists are what everyone’s using. The operators with a real edge have built their own proprietary owner databases from county records, state LLC filings, and skip tracing — and they refresh them regularly.

Yes, it takes months. But a clean, current database of 2,000 park owners in your target states — with actual human contact info, ownership history, and debt status — is a moat. Start with your state’s Department of Revenue or GIS property records. Pull all parcels classified as mobile home parks. Cross-reference against LLC filings. Skip trace to the human decision-maker. Load everything into a CRM and track every touch.

3. Own the Referral Channel

The best deals don’t come from marketing — they come from relationships. Operators who are retiring or ready to cash out often sell to someone they know or trust, not the highest bidder.

• Join your state manufactured housing association (NCMHA, TMHA, etc.) and attend meetings — these are full of operators
• Show up at local park owner events and county landlord association meetings
• Post consistently on LinkedIn and in mobile home park investor groups — not pitching deals, just sharing what you’re learning

One deal from a warm referral is worth more than 500 mailers.

4. Focus on Seller Motivation, Not Just Property Criteria

The best off-market deals come from sellers with a reason to sell. Learn to identify motivated seller signals:

• Owner age: Parks owned by operators 70+ are much more likely to sell in the near term
• Long hold period: Parks owned 20+ years with no obvious refinancing often signal an owner thinking about their exit
• Operational stress signals: High vacancy, visible deferred maintenance, parks that show up in local news
• Estate/trust situations: Parks recently transferred to heirs often come with owners who didn’t choose to be in the business

Prioritize outreach around motivation, not just zip code.

The Mindset Shift That Changes Everything

The operators buying the most parks in competitive markets right now aren’t outspending institutions on marketing. They’re playing a different game: relationship density over marketing volume.

They know more people in their target markets. They’re more trusted. They get calls that other people don’t. That takes time to build — but it compounds.

When you do get a park under LOI, make sure your evaluation process is tight. The due diligence checklist we use at Keel Team for every acquisition is documented in the MHP Due Diligence Playbook. Moving fast without the right process is how operators get burned even on deals they sourced well.

The easy era of mobile home park deal sourcing is over. The relationship era has replaced it. At Keel Team, our best deals in the last few years have come from people who knew us — not from direct mail. The market has changed. Your sourcing strategy needs to catch up.

Andrew Keel is the founder of Keel Team Real Estate Investments, a mobile home park operator with 50+ communities across the United States focused on affordable manufactured housing in NC, TN, GA, SC, and several other states.