When a lot is not a lot

If you’re thinking about getting into the campground business and start looking online for resources, make sure you understand the background and possible motivations of those you encounter. While not necessarily underhanded or sleazy, those you find may have a different but not immediately obvious frame of reference that isn’t compatible with yours–especially if yours is still at an embryonic stage. You’ll save yourself some grief if you understand that before you begin wading in.

What brings this to mind is the latest emailed dispatch from Frank Rolfe, one of two partners (with Dave Reynolds) in the promisingly named RV Park University. “RV Park University” certainly sounds like it should be chockablock with hot tips and good advice for prospective RV park buyers and operators, and indeed its web site offers such resources as a $40 paperback book and a $400 “home study course” for anyone trying to learn the ropes. RV Park University is, in turn, affiliated with RVPark.com, which among other things operates RVParkStore, a bulletin board of campgrounds for sale. Sounds like a good place to start getting educated, isn’t it?

Yet it’s probably wise to understand that despite all the RV references, Rolfe’s and Reynolds’ main line of business is trailer parks and their entire perspective on RV campgrounds is deeply colored by that outlook. For Rolfe and Reynolds, RV trailers and fifth-wheels are just different incarnations of mobile homes, and RV parks are attractive investment opportunities as cheap residential facilities, not as recreational ones.

There’s nothing wrong with that, of course–there are quite a few RV parks filled with long-term residents and only a smattering of short-term sites, if that. But a sea of asphalt or gravel without trees or even the most fundamental amenities is not what most people imagine when they think “RV park,” and an investment philosophy based on a “contrarian bet on a poorer America,” as Rolfe was quoted as saying a few years ago, is not what drives most prospective campground owners. For that majority, it’s prudent to take anything coming out of RV University and its various off-shoots with a large dose of skepticism.

Oh–and about the emailed dispatch that prompted these thoughts? It’s the red flags it was waving, starting with its reference to growing demand for “RV park lots.” They’re not “lots.” They’re sites. Trailer parks have lots, and people stay on them for a lot of time, for which they pay rent. RV parks have sites, and site fees. That may sound like a trivial distinction, but in fact it’s a fundamental difference that tells you volumes about the speaker’s attitude toward his business. As always, caveat emptor.