When Should I Walk Away From an RV Park Deal During Due Diligence?

Walk away when the seller's numbers don't survive contact with reality. That means occupancy claims you can't verify, deferred maintenance that eats your entire value-add budget, unpermitted sites the county won't grandfather in, or a pro forma that assumes 5% annual revenue growth in a market where the honest number is 0-1%. If two or more of these show up during diligence, the deal is telling you something. Listen to it.

Occupancy numbers that don't match reality

Sellers often quote peak-season occupancy as if it's the average. A park that hits 95% in July and August but sits at 20% from November through February has a blended occupancy far lower than the headline number suggests. Ask for monthly occupancy reports going back three years, not just a summer snapshot. If the seller can't produce them, or the numbers look smoothed over, that's a red flag. Seasonality is normal in this business, and understanding how it plays out matters more than any single month's number. If you want the full picture on why parks swing between full and empty, this breakdown of seasonal occupancy patterns is worth reading before you underwrite anything.

Deferred maintenance that wasn't in the price

RV parks are infrastructure-heavy. Septic systems, electrical pedestals, water lines, roads. A site visit that turns up cracked pavement, failing hookups, or a septic system near the end of its life should trigger a real capital expenditure estimate, not a guess. If that estimate eats more than 15-20% of your projected first-year NOI, renegotiate the price or walk. Sellers sometimes disclose "cosmetic" repairs while burying the fact that the lift station needs replacing. Get a licensed inspector to look at utilities specifically, not just buildings.

Permitting and zoning gaps

Count the sites on the rent roll. Then count the sites the county has actually permitted. If those numbers don't match, you may be buying fewer legal sites than advertised, and the fix could mean a costly variance process or the outright loss of income-producing pads. This is one of the fastest deal-killers in RV park due diligence because it directly caps your revenue ceiling. No amount of operational improvement fixes a permitting shortfall.

Revenue projections built on the pandemic bump

Occupancy across the industry spiked in 2020 and 2021 as people bought RVs and hit the road. That surge was an anomaly, not a trend. Forecasts for the rest of the decade point to flat growth, roughly 0-1% a year. If a seller's pro forma extrapolates 2021 numbers forward, or assumes double-digit rate increases every year, the underwriting is disconnected from where the market actually sits. Cap rates in this space commonly run 7-12%, which already reflects how operationally intensive these assets are. A deal that only works if growth assumptions are aggressive is a deal that doesn't work.

No clear path to margin improvement

Since top-line growth is limited, most of the real upside in RV parks comes from operational tightening and value-add work: better expense control, added amenity fees, private lot leases, or filling out underused site inventory. If you tour a property and can't identify at least two or three specific levers to pull, whether that's adding laundry facilities, introducing long-term lot leases, or renegotiating vendor contracts, you're relying on hope instead of a plan. Walk away from deals where the only path to returns is "the market will do it for us."

Weak or nonexistent winter strategy

A park with strong summer numbers and no plan for the off-season is a park with a leaky bucket. If the current owner has no long-term stay program, no monthly rate structure, and no relationships with snowbird or workforce housing tenants, you're inheriting six months of vacancy with no strategy to fix it. Before you commit capital, look at how other operators have solved this problem. These winter occupancy strategies show what separates parks that stay cash-flow positive year-round from ones that bleed cash every off-season.

Seller won't provide real financials

Bank statements, not just a P&L someone typed up. Tax returns, not just a summary sheet. If a seller resists providing verifiable financial documentation, or the numbers on paper don't reconcile with bank deposits, stop the clock. This is true in any real estate deal, but it matters more here because RV parks run on multiple revenue streams: site rentals, private lot leases, amenity fees, propane and firewood sales. Each stream needs its own paper trail. A seller who can show you all of them, clearly and consistently, is showing you a well-run business. One who can't is asking you to take it on faith.

Due diligence exists to protect your capital, not to talk you into a deal you've already fallen in love with. If you're evaluating an RV park opportunity and want a second set of eyes on the numbers, reach out to Invest With Zac before you sign anything.