I get this question more than you might think. Sometimes it is asked directly. Sometimes I can just feel it hanging in the air when I am talking to a buyer or an owner for the first time.
You have never owned an RV park. So why should I listen to you? Just the other day someone commented on one of my Facebook posts “why should we listen to you? What makes you special over all the other mentors out there teaching about RV parks?”
It is a fair question and I want to answer it honestly, because I think the honest answer is actually more useful to you than the polished version.
I am a real estate investor who has built and sold a seven figure real estate portfolio over the last 30 years. I am a private money lender who has put over $4 million into first trust deeds secured by real estate over the last 8 years. I bootstrapped a seven figure business from $500 and built it into something worth selling. And I am a Fractional CFO and bookkeeper who lives in business financials every single day. That combination of skills is exactly what you need when you are evaluating an RV park deal, and it is not a combination you find very often in one person
Here is what I mean by that.
The Investor Lens
When I look at an RV park deal, I am not looking at it as a consultant who has read about investing. I am looking at it as someone who has personally been through the acquisition process, understands what it feels like to have real money on the line, and knows the difference between a deal that looks good on paper and a deal that actually holds up when you start pulling on the threads.
I have walked away from deals that did not pencil. I have pushed through deals that had problems because the problems were quantifiable and the price reflected them. I have been the person sitting at the closing table wondering if I did enough diligence. That experience does not come from a textbook and it changes how you look at everything.
The Lender Lens
Eight years of lending on real estate has taught me something that most people on the buyer side never fully appreciate. The lender sees everything. Every deal that came across my desk as a private money lender came with a story the borrower was telling me about why it was a good investment. My job was to look past the story and evaluate the collateral, the numbers, and the risk.
When you have spent years on the lender side of the table, you develop a very specific kind of skepticism about financial presentations. You learn to ask where a number came from before you accept it. You learn that the most important information in any deal package is often what is missing, not what is there. That skepticism is exactly what a buyer needs when they are evaluating a seller’s financials.
I did not have to take somebody’s word for what a property was worth. I had to verify it independently, every single time, because my own money was on the line if I got it wrong. That discipline is built into how I approach every underwriting engagement I take on for a client.
The CFO and Bookkeeper Lens
This is the one people underestimate the most.
I spend my professional life inside the financials of small businesses. I know what clean books look like and I know what messy books look like. I know the difference between a P&L that was prepared to accurately reflect the business and one that was prepared to tell a specific story to a specific audience. I know where expenses get buried, how revenue gets overstated, and which line items are the first places a seller cleans up before putting a park on the market.
I also know what it takes to build the financial infrastructure to run a business properly after you close. Not just the acquisition, but the day-to-day systems, the reporting, the cash flow management, the bank account structure, the chart of accounts that actually gives you visibility into how the business is performing. Most buyers close on a park and then figure this part out as they go. The ones who have it in place from day one make better decisions faster and avoid the expensive lessons that come from flying blind in the first year of ownership.
So Why Not Just Hire Someone Who Owns Parks?
You can. There are operators out there with direct park ownership experience who offer consulting services. That experience is genuinely valuable, particularly on the operational side.
But ownership experience alone does not make someone qualified to pressure test your financial assumptions, rebuild a seller’s NOI from the source documents, identify what is missing from a set of financials, or set up the bookkeeping infrastructure that turns your new acquisition into a manageable business. That work requires a specific financial skill set, and it is the skill set I have been building for over a decade across real estate, lending, and CFO work.
I bring three lenses to every RV park deal I look at. The investor who understands what is at stake. The lender who has been trained to verify everything. And the CFO who knows what the numbers are supposed to look like and what to do when they do not.
That combination is what I offer. And I think it is exactly what most buyers in this space are missing.
If you are evaluating a park right now and want that combination working for you before you commit, reach out at pvifinancial.com.
And if you have not already grabbed a copy of my book, From Offer to Operation: The Complete RV Park Investor’s Guide ($49), it is everything you want to know about how to evaluate, acquire, and run an RV park, plus a bonus report with 34 red flags to verify before you close so you are not buying someone else’s problem.
~Wendi | Fractional CFO | PVIFinancial.com
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