How to Spot a Mismanaged RV Park During a Site Visit

August 29, 2026 · RV park investing, explained

Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

A site visit tells you more than any offering memo. Numbers on paper can look clean while the park itself is falling apart, so here is what to check with your own eyes and nose.

What does deferred maintenance actually look like on the ground?

Look at the roads first. Potholes, standing water, and gravel that has washed out at drainage points mean nobody has graded in a year or more. Check skirting on park models, rust streaks under water hydrants, and pedestal boxes with cracked covers or exposed wiring. Any one of these is normal wear. Five or six of them in a short walk means the capital budget has been ignored, and you should expect $50,000 to $200,000 or more in catch-up work depending on park size.

How do I tell if occupancy numbers are real?

Ask to walk the park at midday and count actual rigs in sites, then compare that to the occupancy report. Owners sometimes count reserved-but-not-arrived sites, seasonal sites with no one living there, or sites rented to storage customers as "occupied." A gap of more than 10 to 15 percentage points between the report and what you count is a red flag worth pressing on.

What do the restrooms and laundry room tell you?

These are the cheapest rooms in the park to keep clean and the first ones an owner stops caring about when they are checked out. Mold in grout, broken dryers with out-of-order signs taped up for months, and a smell of standing water are signs of a property manager who has stopped doing daily walkthroughs. This is a small physical fix but it usually points to a bigger pattern of neglect elsewhere.

How much should staff turnover worry me?

Ask the current manager how long they have been on site and how many managers the park has had in the last three years. If the answer is three or more, treat every number in the P&L with suspicion. High turnover in the manager seat almost always means inconsistent collections, spotty maintenance logs, and guest complaints that never got resolved.

What should I check in the utility systems?

Ask directly about the septic system or sewer connection, the well or water source, and the electrical panel age. A seller who cannot answer basic questions about pump-out frequency, well capacity, or panel amperage either does not understand their own infrastructure or is avoiding the subject. Get a septic inspection and a well flow test before closing regardless of what you see on the tour. These systems are expensive to fix and impossible to judge by eye alone.

Are online reviews worth reading before the visit?

Yes, and read the one and two star reviews specifically, not the average score. Look for recurring complaints about the same issue, wifi outages, rude staff, bathhouse cleanliness, over three to five years. A single bad review is noise. The same complaint showing up every six months for years is a management pattern, and it usually means lost repeat business that will not show up in the trailing financials until it is your problem.

Still stuck?

If you walk a park and something feels off but you cannot name it, trust that instinct and bring in a property condition inspector before you go further. Invest With Zac can point you toward the right questions to ask a seller before you make an offer.