How to Confirm Pad Counts, Utilities, and Lot Rent for a Manufactured Housing Community from Public Records

Most MHC pre-LOI work comes down to three claims: how many rentable sites exist, what residents are paying, and who carries the utility burden. Public records cannot fully prove all three. They can, however, tell you where the seller’s story is well supported and where you are about to underwrite on faith.

The goal before LOI is not perfect knowledge. It is a defensible range, a short list of open questions, and a diligence sequence that does not waste money.

The seller’s pad count is one input, not the answer. Compare it against the county assessor, state park license or registration, aerial imagery, and any recorded site plan. Each source counts differently. Some assessor fields count homes. Some count sites. Some count only the parcel. Treat the assessor’s unit field as a clue, not a verdict.

State licensing records are often better when they exist because they may list licensed sites, water source, sewer source, and operator. Aerial imagery adds the physical check: pads, driveways, utility pedestals, vacant areas, and abandoned homes. A “100-site” community with 15 visibly unusable pads is not the same asset as a clean 100-site community.

The research output should show the range: seller says 100, state license says 96, assessor says 1, aerial count supports roughly 92 to 98. That is much more useful than forcing one number too early.

There is usually no public rent roll. In some regulated jurisdictions, rent registries, rent-increase filings, or ground-lease memoranda can help. In most markets, the seller’s rent roll and tenant-level materials are the source of truth.

What records can do is frame the legal ceiling. State statutes, local rent ordinances, and required filings tell you whether projected rent growth is plausible under the rules. That matters before you spend time debating a rent-growth case that counsel will cut later.

Private water and wastewater can turn a good-looking MHC lead into an expensive diligence project. Public utility records, environmental permits, drinking-water program records, easements, and state compliance files can all help identify whether the community is on public systems or private infrastructure.

Absence of a public utility account is not proof of private utilities, but it is enough to move environmental and utility diligence up the list. A buyer should know that before the third-party report budget is already committed.

A good pre-LOI note does not hide uncertainty. It says: seller pad count, state license count, assessor field, aerial count, owner/entity trail, utility evidence, rent-regime exposure, open citations, and next actions. Each line should cite the source or say that the source is missing.

That is the difference between “we found a park” and “we know what we need to verify first.” The second version is what saves time.