Opening an RV park can be a fairly lucrative endeavor for landowners looking to generate additional income on their property. However, like any kind of land management project, it requires careful planning and consideration to ensure that the potential financial gain outweighs any costs associated with getting the property ready for guests.

During his recent appearance on the National Land Podcast, NE Land Professional Jim Fleissner, ALC, shared his experiences working with RV parks and the things landowners looking to open one should know.

Here are a few factors to consider before building an RV park on your property!

Choosing the Model For Your Park

There are a few different commonly followed models for RV parks.

Many parks opt for leases that run for the full season or year. These are especially popular in warmer climates where tenants can be out year-round without worrying about cold temperatures or winterizing their RV. In this type of agreement, the tenant has their spot for the full year, and the landowner is provided with predictable, consistent annual income.

On the flip side is the short-term rental model. These parks see high turnover rates, as tenants will pull in for a week or two before vacating and making their spots available to the next tenant. Location is a massively important factor for this type of model since parks in locations with high tourist traffic are apt to see more customers than those further away from attractions or amenities.

Think About the Layout

Depending on the amount of space available to the landowner, the number of sites that can comfortably fit on say a single acre can vary greatly. A typical RV site is at least 60’ X 10’, but these dimensions can change quite a bit based on the amount of space available to the landowner.

While cramming as many small spaces as possible into your park may seem appealing from a tenant/income perspective, take a moment to consider what that experience would be like from the tenant’s side. Would you prefer to stay the night pressed up against your neighboring tenants with little privacy, or would you opt for the park with sites that offer a little more breathing room?

Instead of trying to fit the maximum number of sites in a park, consider foregoing a few extra sites to leave enough room to plant some trees. Planting trees between sites is a great way to easily create natural barriers between sites for a bit of privacy.

Roads and walkways are another aspect of an RV park’s layout that must be considered before making a purchase. While paved roads and walkways are great for tenants, putting in a road or trail system will take additional time and money. Every landowner’s financial situation is different, and for some, it may be best to stick to gravel roads until additional funds are available. 

Ultimately, the layout and necessary amenities of an RV park largely depend on the type of tenant the landowner is looking to attract. Shorter-term tenants out for just a weekend trip typically require more on-site amenities like public bathrooms, available wi-fi, and more compared to long-term tenants who tend to be more accustomed to relying entirely on their RV for their needs.

Consider Access to Utilities

As with any kind of project, building and opening an RV park requires a decent amount of planning to ensure that the property is not only equipped to support tenants but also can generate a significant profit for the owner.

Before purchasing a property to construct an RV park, landowners should enlist all the necessary utility and service providers to get estimates on things like hooking up to electricity transmission lines or installing septic systems. A comprehensive understanding of the costs of construction on an RV park will help inform pricing requirements for the park and allow a landowner to determine whether they could charge a competitive rate for spaces in their park, or if the costs of construction would drive the necessary slip price too high for most tenants to feasibly pay.

Speaking to the importance of working with these service providers from the project’s onset, Fleissner stated, “We had all of those contractors come out and give us estimates and obviously you have to consider that there may potentially be overages on each of those estimates. Once everything was said and done, we had those numbers and the loans we needed to service, and we put together a pricing model for each slip that could give us a return on our investment where we’re not just breaking even but actually able to make a profit.”
If you’ve got questions about opening an RV park on your property or finding other avenues to generate passive income with your land, get in touch with your local Land Professional today!