Buying an RV Park or Campground

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Video Transcript:

If you’re interested in buying a campground or an RV park, I want to give you a few tips. When looking at the process first off, one of the things that’s really going to you help analyze these are to look at the pricing and make sure that it’s right before you even begin. If the pricing is out of range for the campground it’s kind of like going out to shop for a Jaguar when you make $10 an hour, it’s just not going to work so make sure that the park is within the range that you’re shopping for and can afford.

Secondly, looking at the parks condition you’ll want to make sure that the park is, has some room for improvement kind of make a little list of what you think you would do to that park to improve it and to be able to increase the revenue, so increasing the rates what would you need to do to be able to increase the rates and make a better experience for your guests.

Thirdly, look at how quickly this part could turn around if the park is currently making money you’ll wanna be projecting out how much more you think you could make what is its potential revenue, when you’re looking at your potential revenue don’t forget you’re not going to pay for the park in its valuation right now based on potential. Never pay for potential, is that clear. You always want to look at a park and assess where is that right now, that is where the selling point should be, that owner got it to a certain point and that’s where they are going to be paid for it. You’re going to assess mentally what you think the potential is and use that in your decision making going forward but you’re not paying prior owner because there’s potential. Okay, and also when you’re looking at the park and looking at amenities make sure that you’re comparing based on who you’re average guest would be to the amenities I was recently talking with somebody who’s looking to buy a park and they said we’d love to put in a pool alright, do you think that’s a good idea well my response is it depends who are your guests if you’re one an interstate park and you’re gonna have an overnight guest coming through they’re not gonna need a pool. So may be just spending the money to create a pool for yourself and it may not make you any money. But, if you’re in a family oriented park and you’re in an area that can support that pool and a fairly long season not a really short season you may be able to make that pool help you generate higher revenues by increasing the rates.

So we offer services to help look at the assessment of buying a park, comparisons of different parks, looking at the due diligence process in buying a park, and looking at the numbers if you were interested in buying a park I strongly suggest that you take your resources and use the on the front end make a good investment in the due diligence process before you make a large investment in buying a park. Make sure that it is the one for you, don’t let your emotions rule here do take some look it looks at the quantitative part of buying a park too. So I’m Donna Bordeaux if I can help you in any way with your assessment of buying a park don’t hesitate to let me know.

Donna Bordeaux, CPA with CampgroundAccounting.com

What happens when you send two CPAs out into the relaxing outdoors to camp? You get CampgroundAccounting.com.  Donna and Chad have over 50 years of combined experience as entrepreneurial CPAs.  They’ve owned businesses and helped business owners exceed their wildest dreams.  They camp and travel across the country every chance they get, so it’s just a natural fit that they focus their CPA skills on helping campground owners throughout the USA grow their businesses and minimize the impact of taxes.  They understand the key performance indicators and specialized issued that face RV park owners every day.

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