As we prepared to launch our new site, MHParks.com, our team had a lot of discussion on including a blog into our platform. As the designer of our platform, I’m good at the analytical aspect of any task I set out to accomplish. When I rehab a property, I’m the guy that can look at the business plan and know if it will work or not. I’m also the guy that will swing a hammer or run a backhoe.
When it comes to the colors in a house, or the look of the landscaping, I leave it up to much more talented folks like my wife Colene, or the people that work for me. Knowing my own limitations and learning to accept the advice of people I respect, had to come with age. Like all young men, years ago I thought I knew everything. Oh my! How times change as we get older!
To Blog or Not to Blog
That’s why when the discussion of a Blog for MHParks.com came up, I was against it. In my opinion no one wants to hear old real estate stories. Everyone also has their own idea of what makes real estate, and specifically mobile home park investing, successful for them. I wanted to stick to the technical aspects of the site rather than having our users read about my rambling ideas.
My SEO (Search Engine Optimization) folks insisted for the obvious reasons of search engine ranking, and I said no. I do things because it’s useful for my clients, not because Google may like them. My web developers also supported my SEO folks in the discussion, and I still said no.
This type of back and forth took place for several weeks until one evening my 23-year-old son and I were talking about some of my different experiences in real estate, and our properties. During that conversation I laughingly told him, “When we first bought our mobile home park, every day was a new adventure with some of the things I would see or hear from our tenants. But as time went on, it just became a normal day.”
It’s amazing when you think about how true that statement is with anything we do for an extended period. That’s when it dawned on me. Maybe I did have some stories and helpful ideas, that seemed like every day norms to me, but could provide some value to others. Afterall, the entire reason I wanted to develop MHParks.com was to help people in the mobile home park and RV park industry.
Introductions
As you can see by reading this, I finally agreed to having a blog on MHParks.com. As my first article, I thought it would be helpful to introduce myself, and share how MHParks.com came to be. As some of you may already know, I’m Gil Wigington, and I’m the owner of C&G Properties, Inc., which owns and operates MHParks.com.
I’ve never been one to get star struck, or be impressed with fancy titles and sales pitches. I’ve also never been impressed by someone convincing me that they had a big bank account. In real estate sales you get to know people’s personal finances and more often than not the ones that try to look wealthy, have simply created an illusion with debt. In fact, I tend to run whenever I think someone is pretty impressed with themselves.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m very proud of the things I’ve accomplished in my 50 years. But what it means is I’m not going to attempt to dazzle you with the things I’ve accomplished in my life, or the people I may have worked with. The things I’ve accomplished may look small to some and large to others. It’s a big world and we each have our varying ways of measuring our personal successes, based purely on our own life experiences.
A Change of Plans
Instead, I’m going to give you a little background on MHParks.com, and how it came to be. You see, I sold my mobile home park, as well as a lot of our other investment properties, in 2019 and 2020.
For years I had received cold calls from people trying to buy a park. With each call I would simply let them know the park wasn’t for sale. Afterall, I loved what I was doing and the park always treated me well! Ultimately, when I finally received my buyer’s cold call, I decided to give the offer a lot of thought. Ultimately I decided I would sell.
After the sale, I wanted to relax and enjoy the pleasure of not having much responsibility anymore. While relaxing, I would occasionally try to find a replacement park, but continued to become very frustrated. The spreadsheets and limited internet resources, that offer park information, is unreliable at best. Finding solid park information has been that way since I first got into the industry in 2006, and nothing had changed over the last 16 years.
Years prior to my real estate career, I had been a computer programmer. As old habits die hard, I started to consider how I could develop a reliable and dependable way to track mobile home and RV parks throughout the United States.
Keep in mind, I’m not the type of investor that simply starts calling properties that I know nothing about. I like to know as much information as I can, before I ever approach an owner. It allows me to ask questions that I already know the answer to. Personally speaking, this lets me understand how honest the owner truly is.
Over that next year, while I was enjoying a relaxed life and occasionally looking for a park, the thought of a better system never left my mind. Finally in late 2020 I told my wife that I was going to put a pause on looking for a park, and focus on trying to create a new system. Isn’t it interesting how life takes us in a totally different direction than we expect?
The creation of MHParks.com doesn’t mean I won’t start looking for a park in the future, but for now I want to focus on giving our users the best experience possible while helping to keep the industry strong and active. The mobile home park industry has truly been good to me, and MHParks.com is a way for me to give back to the industry, and the people that are a part of it.
As we gear up to launch, my team has worked tirelessly. One group, sifting through thousands of park records, and the other coding the system I designed. They are an amazing group of people that I can’t say enough great things about.
As with a lot of business owners, I’m always thinking about the “next thing”. Even today, I’m mocking up the wireframes and logic of the next set of upgrades for MHParks.com. All the while, my team has been great at entertaining my restlessness.
For our new members, I hope that MHParks.com quickly becomes a tool that each of you can rely on as you work in the mobile home and RV park industry. I know lots of companies try to come up with catchy slogans, but we truly mean it when we say we want to help people evolve the way they work in the industry. If MHParks.com can’t accomplish that, I will truly be disappointed.
Looking To the Future
So now that you know a little more about me, the reason I created MHParks.com, and how our blog came to be; I plan on posting an article a month, over various topics. I will probably cover some topics that seem like old news to experienced park investors. I may even cover some items that have absolutely nothing to do with mobile home park investing (or real estate in general), just to keep things interesting. Afterall, all work and no play can make anyone sound pretty dull at times.
Best of all, I also plan on posting some stories that you, our readers, provide of your experiences in the industry. I can’t promise every story will end up in our Blog or Newsletter, but it’s always fun to share experiences.
Thanks again to all our members, and readers, and please feel free to send your questions, comments, or stories directly to me at gwigington@mhparks.com. Now let’s get this thing launched!
