What is my Virginia mobile home park worth?

The one formula that matters

Value = Net Operating Income ÷ Cap Rate. Everything else is a detail feeding one of those two inputs. Get the NOI right and you can estimate your own park within a reasonable range in about fifteen minutes.

Step 1: Build a clean NOI

• Start with gross potential rent: every lot at market lot rent, occupied or not.
• Subtract physical vacancy and bad debt (be honest, buyers verify).
• Add other income: pet fees, storage, late fees, laundry, utility reimbursements.
• Subtract real operating expenses: property taxes, insurance, water and sewer, trash, grounds, repairs, professional management (use 5-8% even if you self-manage), administrative, and a capital reserve.

A common owner mistake is presenting NOI that assumes your own free labor. Buyers add management back in, so you should too, it prevents a painful re-trade later.

Step 2: Pick an honest cap rate

Virginia cap rates move with utility type, market and quality. Broad ranges we currently underwrite to:

• Richmond, Hampton Roads, I-95 corridor, public utilities, all tenant-owned homes: the tightest rates in the state.
• Roanoke, Lynchburg, Charlottesville, mixed utilities: moderately wider.
• Southside and far Southwest, well and septic, heavy park-owned homes: widest, because the operating and capital risk is real.

Step 3: Adjust for the things spreadsheets miss

• Park-owned homes are valued separately and conservatively, they are depreciating personal property, not income real estate.
• Vacant lots carry option value only if infill is genuinely possible: sewer taps available, county permitting realistic, and demand present.
• Deferred capital (roads, water lines, a tired lagoon, drainage) comes off the price dollar for dollar.
• Below-market rents are upside, but a buyer only pays for a slice of upside they still have to execute.

A worked example, hypothetical numbers

The community below is invented to show the arithmetic. It is not a past transaction, a comp, or an indication of what your community is worth. Substitute your own figures.

A hypothetical 40-lot park in Southside Virginia: 34 occupied at $325 per month, 6 vacant lots, well and septic, 5 park-owned homes, owner self-managed.

• Gross potential rent: 40 x $325 x 12 = $156,000
• Vacancy and credit loss (18%): -$28,080
• Effective gross income: $127,920
• Operating expenses at ~40% (taxes, insurance, well/septic, trash, mowing, management, reserves): -$51,168
• NOI: $76,752
• At a 9% cap rate: ~$853,000, plus a separate, modest value for the five park-owned homes, less any deferred capital.

Change one input, say lot rent is $265 instead of $325, and the value moves by roughly $250,000. That is why lot rent relative to your local market is the single most important number on the page.

What this exercise cannot tell you

No formula prices road condition, a drainfield with no reserve area, a lagoon under a sampling notice, pads a locality no longer recognizes, or a rent roll with no written leases behind it. Those items are why two Virginia communities with identical NOI can trade far apart, and why we ask about them before quoting anything. The Virginia sale requirements page covers the regulatory side, including the 2026 notice process that applies once a third-party sale contract is signed.

Get your number checked

Send the basics and we will come back with a written valuation range with our assumptions shown, or tell you plainly if we are not the right buyer for your community. Nothing about the request is public.