Talk to lenders before you look at parks, and get your lawyer in before you write the offer. This is the order I work through with buyers of mobile home parks in BC, written for a first-time park buyer or an apartment or commercial owner crossing over who has the equity. Get it wrong and you will either lose the deal or close on a park you should not have.
How do I buy a mobile home park in BC?
It depends whether the park is listed or off-market. The steps are the same, and what changes is how you find the deal. A listed park suits a buyer ready to compare price, pads and land now. An off-market park suits a buyer with written criteria and a lender lined up, who can move when one comes up. Either way, expect about 60 to 90 days from accepted offer to closing, which BC contracts call completion.
What is the order of steps?
Lenders first, then your criteria, and only then the park.
- 1Talk to two or three commercial lenders or mortgage brokers.
- 2Write down your buying criteria.
- 3Find parks, both listed and off-market.
- 4Underwrite each offering memorandum, and say no quickly.
- 5Write a conditional offer with your lawyer.
- 6Work through due diligence, with the first conditions due by day 30 and the rest by day 45.
- 7Get the lender's commitment, which runs alongside due diligence.
- 8Remove the last of the conditions. The deal is firm and the deposit becomes non-refundable.
- 9Complete a few weeks later, when funds and title change hands and you pay property transfer tax.
- 10Run your first 90 days as the new landlord.
A full BC-focused guide to mobile home park underwriting, valuation, tenancy law, due diligence and financing. Free.
Read the investor guideHow long does it take to buy a mobile home park in BC?
About 60 to 90 days from accepted offer to completion, once you have the right park. The short end is the staggered condition period I often aim for when I represent a buyer, with the last conditions coming off at day 45 and completion a few weeks after that. The long end is a 60-day condition period plus the same few weeks. Condition periods vary by deal and can be as short as one or two weeks.
Finding the park has no timetable, and the right one may not come up until next year. That is why the first two steps come before any of this: they are quick, and they mean you can move when a park comes up.
Should I talk to a lender before I look at parks?
Yes. Two or three conversations with commercial lenders or mortgage brokers tell you what you can buy, before you spend time on a park you cannot finance. Ask each one what rate you would pay today, what debt service coverage and loan-to-value they need, whether there is a minimum park size, and what they want to see from you as a borrower.
Debt service coverage ratio, or DSCR, compares net operating income (NOI) to the year's mortgage payments. At 1.20, the park has to produce $1.20 of NOI for every $1.00 of payments. Loan-to-value, or LTV, is the loan as a share of the park's value. Lenders size the loan to whichever test gives the lower number, and on many BC parks that is DSCR.
Ask what takes money off the loan too. My investor guide lists the usual ones: private well and septic, infrastructure condition, weak financial statements or heavy cash collections, a lot of park-owned homes, leasehold or First Nations land, legal non-conforming use or uncertain permits, and environmental or flood risk.
What should my buying criteria include?
Only what changes a decision. Write down the price you can carry with your equity and your loan, the regions you will travel to, city water and sewer or private well and septic, whether you will take park-owned homes, the park size you can run yourself or with a manager, and how long you plan to hold.
The buyer-criteria form on my home page asks for most of this, plus your minimum cap rate and any age restriction.
Where do BC parks for sale come from?
From public listings and from off-market deals, and you want to see both. Many BC parks change hands without a public listing, because some owners do not want a sign on the road or their tenants guessing. Others go on MLS and the commercial listing sites, and the ones I can show you are on my parks for sale page.
I keep my own database of every BC park I know of, and I track parks as they come up, listed or not. So the practical answer is to tell the agents who work on BC parks exactly what you want, in writing, and be ready to move.
Expect to sign a confidentiality agreement before you see a park's full file. My listing of Chilliwack River Estates, a 76-site park (Logan Crowder, DULE, RE/MAX Commercial Advantage), shows what that looks like: the floodplain setback is disclosed on the page, the documents sit in a data room behind the agreement, and tours are by appointment only. Do not drive through on your own or approach residents or staff.
How do I underwrite an offering memorandum quickly?
Rebuild the NOI yourself and price it off the rent in place, not the rent the memorandum hopes for. Read the whole document, reconcile the rent roll against the financials, put in the expenses the seller left out, and apply a market cap rate, with price per pad as a sanity check. If the asking price only works on someone else's assumptions, decide whether the park is worth a lower offer, or say no quickly and move on. My post on how to value a BC park goes through it line by line.
Do the rents reset when a park is sold?
No. You take over every pad tenancy at its existing rent. Standard term 5(1) in the Schedule to the Manufactured Home Park Tenancy Regulation keeps the 12-month clock running from the date the rent was established or last legally raised, "even if there is a new landlord", and section 35(1) of the Manufactured Home Park Tenancy Act sets the same 12-month limit. The limit for 2027 is 2.2% plus a proportional amount for levies and utilities, unless the tenant agrees to more in writing or the director orders it, so underwrite the rents you are buying. My MHPTA guide for buyers has the rest.
What goes in an offer on a BC park?
Price, deposit, conditions, and the completion and possession dates. Bring in your lawyer before you write it, not after it is accepted, because the wording of each condition decides how freely you can walk away.
The deposit is negotiated, and the contract sets the amount. Conditions, which you will also hear called subjects, are where you protect yourself, so list them and date them. Completion is usually a few weeks after conditions come off, and possession happens on the date the contract sets, so check the two against each other.
Say whether you are buying the land and assets or the shares of the company that owns them. That choice changes the tax and which liabilities come with the deal, so take accounting advice first. If the park is out of your area, it is common to write a conditional offer before you have toured it.
What happens during due diligence, in order?
You verify the income, the expenses and the risks, starting with whatever could end the deal. When I represent a buyer, I often aim for a staggered condition period: tier 1 conditions over 30 days, tier 2 over 45.
| When | What gets done |
|---|---|
| First two weeks | Title review, rent roll and tenancy file audit, zoning, permits and servicing with the local government. If the park runs its own water or septic, pull those permits and filings now. Order the Phase 1 environmental report and book the inspectors. |
| To day 30 | Inspect water, sewer, wells, septic, roads, drainage and electrical distribution, and check electrical capacity. Call local contractors about what is underground, talk to the caretaker, and review utility billing, insurance coverage and the assets that come with the sale. Run what you find through your underwriting before these conditions come off. |
| Day 30 | Tier 1 conditions come off, or you renegotiate. The deal is not firm yet, but those items no longer give you a way out. |
| To day 45 | The Phase 1 and the appraisal come back and the lender finishes. Update your underwriting with those results and the lender's final terms. |
| Day 45 | Tier 2 conditions, financing and Phase 1, come off, or you renegotiate. |
If something material comes up while the condition covering it is still open, you can carry on, ask the seller to adjust the price or terms, or walk away if the condition cannot be met. My due diligence checklist covers the BC items that change a price, including the water permit that does not transfer and the sewage flow thresholds.
What happens if the appraisal comes in low?
If LTV is the test setting your loan, the loan shrinks and you have to fill the gap. A lender's commitment usually depends on the appraisal and the Phase 1, which is why financing sits in tier 2. Say you agree to pay $3,000,000 and the lender caps the loan at 60% of value. That is $1,800,000. If the appraisal comes back at $2,700,000, the same 60% is $1,620,000, and the $180,000 difference is cash you now have to find. If DSCR is still the lower number after the appraisal, the loan does not move.
While your financing condition is still open, you can ask for a lower price, put in more cash, or walk away if you cannot get the financing. Read the lender's commitment letter for its own conditions, and keep your financing condition open until the appraisal and Phase 1 conditions in it are met.
What happens when conditions come off?
When the last condition comes off, the deal is firm and the deposit becomes non-refundable. On a staggered period that is day 45, not day 30. If you then fail to complete, you generally forfeit the deposit, and the seller can still sue for any further loss. If you need more time before that point and the contract gives you no right to extend, the seller can refuse, so run the file tightly from the first week.
Between that day and completion, usually a few weeks, the lender finalizes the loan documents, your lawyer handles title, adjustments, assignments and the closing documents, your insurance is confirmed for the completion date, and you plan the caretaker handoff and tenant notices.
What taxes do you pay when you buy a mobile home park in BC?
Property transfer tax is the big one, paid when the transfer is registered, and a foreign buyer can owe a further 20% in five regional districts. These rates are as of November 2026 and assume you are buying the land rather than shares. Under sections 3 and 3.01 of the Property Transfer Tax Act, the tax is 1% of fair market value up to $200,000, 2% from there to $2,000,000, and 3% above that, plus a further 2% on residential property value above $3,000,000.
That last 2% catches park buyers, because residential pads generally sit in BC Assessment's Class 1 Residential, whatever the deal is called. Check the class on the assessment notice. On a $4,000,000 park classed entirely as residential:
| At completion | Amount |
|---|---|
| General property transfer tax | $98,000 |
| Further 2% on the $1,000,000 above $3,000,000 | $20,000 |
| Total | $118,000 |
The additional tax for foreign buyers is 20% of the fair market value of the residential portion, or of a foreign buyer's proportionate share of it, in the Metro Vancouver, Capital, Fraser Valley, Central Okanagan and Nanaimo regional districts. That is not automatically the whole property, but a park classed entirely as residential has no other portion. A company incorporated outside Canada counts as foreign. So does a Canadian company controlled, directly or indirectly, by foreign nationals or foreign companies, unless its shares are listed on a Canadian stock exchange. Trusts can be caught too.
On GST, get an opinion on your specific purchase before you firm up. Budget for legal fees, lender fees, the appraisal, the Phase 1 and the inspections as well, as cash on top of your down payment.
What should I do in the first 90 days of owning a park?
Tell every tenant who you are, your address for service and where to pay, in person or by letter, then get the rules you inherited on a calendar. Confirm the caretaker or management handoff, deal with the priority repairs and the items you accepted in due diligence, walk the park weekly for the first month and monthly after that, and book a review with your accountant and lender at day 90.
Four rules catch new owners, especially those coming from apartments:
- You can raise a tenant's rent once every 12 months from the last lawful increase, or from the date rent was first payable if it has never been raised, with three full months' notice on the approved form (section 35 of the Manufactured Home Park Tenancy Act). Build that calendar site by site from the seller's file.
- You must not require or accept a security deposit on a pad tenancy (section 17(2) of the same Act). If you take one, the tenant can deduct it from rent.
- When a tenant asks in writing, on the approved form, for consent to assign their tenancy to the buyer of their home, your response on the approved form has to reach them within 10 days of the day you received the request, and mail counts as received on the fifth day after you mail it unless it arrives sooner. Miss it and your consent is conclusively deemed to be given (sections 44 to 46 of the regulation and section 83 of the Act).
- If you buy the land and the park has its own water supply system, you need your own operating permit, because the seller's is not transferable (section 7.2 of the Drinking Water Protection Regulation and section 8 of the Drinking Water Protection Act). Start that before completion.
Where do park deals usually fall apart?
In my experience, in three places: due diligence turns up something material and the two sides cannot agree on a price, the appraisal comes in under the contract price, or the buyer loses conviction partway through.
Inspect the infrastructure and audit the numbers in the first 30 days, so bad news arrives with time left to negotiate. Ask your lender how it will look at value before you write the offer, so a low appraisal is not your first warning. And do your own criteria and underwriting first, so you remember why you wanted the park when the reports start coming in.
What should I do next?
Send me your criteria. Fill in the buyer-criteria form on my home page and I will send back the parks that fit, listed or not. If you are still learning the asset class, start with my free investor guide, and see what is on the market on my parks for sale page. The Park Report is my monthly newsletter on mobile home parks in BC. To talk it through, call me: Logan Crowder, DULE, RE/MAX Commercial Advantage, 778 836 1480.
I am a licensed real estate agent, not a lawyer or an accountant, and this is a general guide, not legal or tax advice. Section numbers reflect the BC Laws consolidations current to 27 October 2026. Get counsel before you act on a specific park.
Logan focuses exclusively on mobile home park transactions across British Columbia with CDW & Associates at RE/MAX Commercial Advantage. He holds a Diploma in Urban Land Economics from UBC Sauder and is a CCIM candidate.