Park-Owned Home (POH) vs Tenant-Owned Home (TOH)

The distinction exists because the two arrangements are different businesses. A tenant-owned home makes the resident a long-term, low-turnover lot tenant who handles their own repairs; moving a manufactured home is expensive, so residents who own tend to stay. A park-owned home makes the park a landlord for the structure as well, with turnover, make-ready, and capital costs. That is why buyers do not apply the lot-rent cap rate to home rent: they assign each park-owned home its own value, often a few thousand to tens of thousands of dollars each, depending on age and condition, and add that to the capitalized lot rent.

Sellers should prepare a rent roll listing every home by lot with ownership status, age, and rent, and separate home rent from lot rent in the trailing twelve months of income. Note any rent-to-own or lease-option homes and gather their contracts, since those sit between the two categories. Expect value-add buyers to see a POH-heavy park as a conversion project, selling homes to residents over time, and portfolio buyers to prefer mostly tenant-owned communities. Neither is wrong; they simply price the same park differently.