RV Park Feasibility Study

An RV park feasibility study is an independent analysis commissioned for a lender's credit file or an equity committee. It defines the trade area by the way the park's guests arrive, which for a highway park is a corridor and for a destination resort is a draw, counts the demand that reaches the site, surveys every competing park on the rates it publishes on its own website, carries the pipeline of new sites within the drive radius, models revenue by site type and by month, builds the operating budget line by line with the local tax rate, the utility tariff and a bound insurance quote, and runs the full development or acquisition budget through debt service coverage quarter by quarter and year by year. Every MMCG RV park feasibility study ends in one of three written determinations: feasible, feasible as resized, or not feasible as proposed. The fee and the conclusion are independent of each other.

The determination has to be written to the program that will fund the loan, because each program asks a different first question. An SBA lender asks whether the business is eligible at all, which turns on the share of revenue earned from guests who stay 30 days or less. A USDA Business and Industry lender asks whether the park is a tourist and recreation facility or a residential trailer park, and then whether the borrower's balance sheet carries the equity the rule requires. A conventional bank asks about coverage and loan to value on a stabilized year. A study that answers the eligibility question first, and shows the arithmetic behind it, is the document the credit memo can adopt.

Between January 1 and September 1, 2026, MMCG analyzed $2.3 billion in total construction cost and $1.7 billion in loan amount across client engagements. RV parks, campgrounds and outdoor hospitality are a recurring part of that work, and the studies draw on MMCG's own national data estate, the Census Bureau's county series, the agencies' own regulations and notices, the Kampgrounds of America and RV Industry Association reports, the published filings of the two public RV park owners, and the rates each competing park posts on its own website.

The single fact that decides which lender can finance an RV park is the length of stay mix, and it is the first thing an MMCG study establishes.

Under SBA Standard Operating Procedure 50 10 8, hotels, motels, recreational vehicle parks, marinas and campgrounds are eligible businesses only if more than 50 percent of the business's revenue for the prior year is derived from transients who stay for 30 days or less at a time. A start-up must show the same test in its projections. Mobile home parks are ineligible, and an ineligible business cannot obtain an SBA loan for any purpose. The test measures revenue, not site count, and it measures stays of 30 days or less at a time, so a park whose income comes mainly from monthly, seasonal or annual guests fails it however many transient sites it has. The threshold is "more than 50 percent"; a park at exactly 50 percent fails.

Under USDA's guaranteed loan rule at 7 CFR 5001.105(b)(8), tourist and recreation facilities including resort trailer parks and campgrounds operated as a public or private commercial enterprise are eligible Business and Industry projects, and under 7 CFR 5001.118(a) residential trailer parks and other residential housing where the primary purpose is independent housing are not. USDA applies a primary purpose test rather than a numeric one, so a park whose guests have crossed the state line into tenancy, after 180 days in Arizona, six months in Florida and nine months in California, is at risk under both programs.

State and local law pull in a third direction. Florida treats a registered guest as transient for six months under Chapter 513 before the Residential Landlord Tenant Act applies; Arizona's Recreational Vehicle Long-Term Rental Space Act attaches after 180 consecutive days; California's RV Park Occupancy Law makes a guest a resident at nine months. Every one of those thresholds is longer than SBA's 30 days, so a snowbird park can be fully compliant with state law and still be ineligible for SBA. Local codes run the other way in places: Monroe County, Florida limits RV space terms to less than 28 days, and Pigeon Forge, Tennessee caps a stay in a travel trailer park at 30 days. MMCG models revenue in four stay-length buckets, 30 days or less, 31 to 180 days, 181 to 270 days and more than 270 days, so that the SBA share, the USDA residential risk and the state tenancy exposure are each read from the same ledger.

The two public RV park owners show why the question matters more each year. Equity LifeStyle Properties reported that core annual RV and marina base rental income rose 5.4 percent in the second quarter of 2026 while seasonal and transient income fell, and its guidance assumes no growth in transient rent. Sun Communities reported transient real property revenue down 9.0 percent in 2025 while non-transient revenue rose 7.5 percent as it converted transient sites to annual. The market is moving toward the part of the business SBA cannot finance, and a feasibility study that does not test the mix is not underwriting the loan.

Every MMCG RV park feasibility study delivers the following, in the order a credit committee reads them.

A site and location analysis that covers the parcel, its zoning and the entitlement path, the drive-time trade area, the demand drivers that reach it, and the physical constraints: big-rig access and turning radii, grade, flood zone, the water source and the wastewater path.

A regulatory screen that states which program rules bind: the SBA transient test with a stay-length revenue model, the USDA eligibility and equity provisions, the state tenancy threshold and any local stay cap, the state campground and wastewater permit thresholds, and the Safe Drinking Water Act classification of the park's water system.

A competitive survey of every park within the drive radius, with site counts, hookup types, published nightly, weekly, monthly and seasonal rates taken from each park's own website, operating seasons, concessions and amenity sets, and a pipeline census of sites announced, permitted or under construction.

A revenue model by site type and by month that carries occupancy, average daily rate and length of stay separately for transient, seasonal, monthly and annual sites, cabins and glamping units, with the quarterly cash flow that USDA requires of seasonal borrowers under 7 CFR 5001.202(b)(6)(v).

A development cost estimate in MMCG's standard format for a new park, or a sources and uses with the acquisition price, the quality of earnings reconciliation and the capital plan for an existing park, with cost per site stated against the cost of the comparable parks MMCG has analyzed.

An operating budget by line with the property tax at the local rate, insurance at a bound quote or a stated stress multiple, utilities at the serving tariff, reservation and card processing fees at platform pricing, franchise royalties where a brand applies, and reserves.

A five-year pro forma with debt service coverage by year, a quarterly pro forma for the stabilized year, break-even occupancy at the operating level and at each coverage test, and a sensitivity set that moves rate, occupancy, season length, insurance and interest cost one at a time and together.

A written determination with conditions precedent, a conditions and limitations section that lists every figure that could not be verified from a primary source, and a summary of what the lender received.

The 2026 RV park market is best described as flat at a higher base, with growth coming from rate rather than from occupancy. Kampgrounds of America's 2026 Camping and Outdoor Hospitality Report counts 52.16 million North American households that camped in 2025, 24 percent above the 41.97 million of 2019 but below the 2022 peak, and puts camper spending at $66 billion. RV camping was 47 percent of trips, the lowest share in the report's history, and the number of households that RV'd was 14 percent below 2019. More than 2 million households camped for the first time in 2025, and glamping was 29 percent of camping experiences.

The RV Industry Association shipped 342,200 units in 2025 and its Summer 2026 RoadSigns forecast cut the 2026 median to 314,000 units, an 8.2 percent decline, with shipments through May running 14.4 percent behind the prior year. Shipments feed the owner base slowly; the Association's owner profile, as reported in Equity LifeStyle Properties' 2025 annual report, still counts more than 8 million households that own an RV and 16.9 million that expect to buy one within five years.

Park-level data from the Campspot and Outdoor Hospitality Industry Data Dig put platform occupancy at 39.2 percent and revenue per available site at $12.98 in May 2025, with average daily rate up 4 percent year over year, seasonal campgrounds leading occupancy at 51.5 percent and RV resorts at 41.2 percent. The second-quarter 2026 edition reported rate still rising against occupancy headwinds. Platform occupancy counts every active site on every day of the year and is not a private full-hookup benchmark; the Outdoor Hospitality Industry's benchmarking report put full-hookup occupancy at 68 percent across the months a park is open, with a median full-hookup midweek rate of $55 and a weekend rate of $58. MMCG states which definition each figure uses, because a study that mixes them overstates a park's season.

On the valuation side, Newmark's 2026 North American Market Survey prints going-in capitalization rates of 8.00 percent for Class A and B RV parks and 9.00 percent for Class C, with discount rates of 9.50 and 10.50 percent, 3 percent rent and expense growth and reserves of $75 per pad. Broker asking cap rates on named 2026 listings cluster between 7 and 9 percent on stabilized transient and destination parks and between 9 and 11.5 percent on small rural and workforce parks, which supports the survey as the underwriting anchor. The spread between an 8 percent cap rate and new construction at $40,000 to $130,000 per site is the arithmetic that governs every ground-up determination.

MMCG prepares RV park feasibility studies across the formats lenders finance, and the study is written to the format's economics rather than to a generic template.

Highway corridor transient parks serve interstate travelers from a linear catchment and live on traffic counts, visibility from the ramp, pull-through sites and online booking presence. Published full-hookup rates of $55 to $65 nightly and full-hookup occupancy near 68 percent in the operating months are the national reference, and the transient test is normally met with room to spare. The risk is a rate base that has drifted below the corridor, as at the Deming, New Mexico park in MMCG's case study set, where an average daily rate near $12 sits under a competitor's published $37.

Destination RV resorts near national parks, lakes, beaches and tourism corridors earn the top of the rate range and carry the heaviest amenity cost. Pigeon Forge area parks publish $50 to $160 nightly and Grand Canyon gateway parks $63 to $94. The feasibility questions are absorption against a resort's site count, the amenity program's return, the entitlement path and the season.

Snowbird and seasonal parks in Arizona, the Rio Grande Valley, Florida and the Gulf states sell three to six month stays and six-in-six-out plans. Named Mesa and Apache Junction parks publish winter monthly rates of $900 to $1,730 and Rio Grande Valley parks $349 to $892, and the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley puts the average Winter Texan stay at 4.4 months. These parks are stable, well occupied and ineligible for SBA, and MMCG writes them to conventional, seller-carry or manufactured housing community debt from the first page.

National park gateway parks operate four to six month seasons, May to mid-October at Yellowstone, and must amortize a full year of fixed cost over them. The study carries the gateway park's own visitation series, the seasonal and shoulder rates each competitor publishes, and a quarterly cash flow that shows the winter.

Workforce and oilfield parks in the Permian Basin, the Gulf Coast refinery corridor and the Bakken rent by the month at $750 to $1,000 and trade at asking cap rates of 9.6 to 11.4 percent. Their revenue is monthly by construction, so they fail the SBA transient test and are underwritten as conventional or seller-financed assets against the employer base and its cycle.

Annual and mixed manufactured housing and RV communities run above 95 percent occupancy and price like manufactured housing communities, at Newmark's 5.25 to 6.00 percent cap rates. They are ineligible for SBA as mobile home parks and at risk under USDA as residential trailer parks, and the study's job is to show where the independent housing line falls and whether a transient-only phase can be carved out and financed separately.

Franchised parks under the Kampgrounds of America system carry a royalty of 8 percent and an advertising fee of 2 percent of site registration revenue, a fixed administrative fee, and a staggered royalty for conversions. KOA's franchise disclosure document reports a conversion uplift in registration revenue, not an occupancy or revenue per site benchmark, so MMCG underwrites a branded park on the market and treats the uplift as a sensitivity.

Campgrounds, glamping and cabin resorts mix RV sites with tent sites, cabins and glamping units, which carry different rates, different build costs and different occupancy curves. MMCG models each product on its own line; where glamping units are the core of the project, the engagement runs under the firm's glamping feasibility study scope. Public campgrounds owned by cities, counties and park districts are a separate case, financed through municipal debt, grants or USDA Community Facilities where the facility is a community park operated on a non-profit basis rather than a commercial recreation facility.

Demand for an RV park is counted differently for each format, and MMCG counts it the way the park will actually fill. A highway park's demand is the interstate's annual average daily traffic on the adjacent segment, the share of recreational vehicles and the capture that the corridor's existing parks demonstrate. A destination park's demand is the draw's visitation series, Great Smoky Mountains at 11.5 million recreation visits in 2025 and Grand Canyon at 4.4 million, and the share of those visitors who arrive in an RV and stay overnight within the drive radius. A snowbird park's demand is the migration series, the Winter Texan household count and its decline of 1 to 2 percent a year on the published estimates. A workforce park's demand is the rig count and the construction schedule of the employer that will fill it.

The competitive survey is built from each competing park's own website, not from aggregators, because the aggregators carry stale and approximate rates and the lender's appraiser will check the park's own rate card. MMCG records site counts, hookup types, pull-through and back-in sites, published nightly, weekly, monthly and seasonal rates by season, concessions such as weeks free and seasonal early-renewal discounts, operating seasons and closure months, stay limits, amenities and the reservation platform, and states plainly which figures were verified on the park's own site and which were carried from an older or secondary source. The pipeline census covers sites announced, permitted or under construction within the drive radius, because national supply growth of roughly 5,700 documented sites over two years is small but local concentrations in Gulf Coast Florida and Alabama, the Texas metro edges and the Smokies are not.

Rate positioning follows from the survey. MMCG sets the subject's rate card inside the verified band for its format and site type, applies a premium only for a verified advantage such as full hookups, pull-throughs, 50-amp service or waterfront, and carries rate growth at 3 percent, below the pace some markets are reporting, so that the determination does not depend on the market continuing to run.

Revenue is modeled by site type and by month, with occupancy, rate and length of stay carried separately for transient, seasonal, monthly and annual sites and for each lodging unit. The model produces three things the lender needs: the annual revenue by line, the quarterly cash flow that 7 CFR 5001.202(b)(6)(v) requires for a borrower with seasonal cash flow, and the share of revenue from stays of 30 days or less that decides SBA eligibility.

Season is treated as a cost, not only as a demand pattern. A gateway park open five months carries twelve months of property tax, insurance, debt service and most of its payroll, so the stabilized year is tested against the winter shortfall and the reserve that covers it. A snowbird park's revenue arrives in a six-month window and its summer rates fall by half; a Victoria Palms, Texas resort caps summer stays at 14 days, which tells the underwriter the market is a winter market. Lease-up for a new park is carried from opening at the absorption pace the format supports, with concessions in the first season and none at stabilization, and the interest and operating reserve in the budget is sized to the first-year shortfall rather than to a rule of thumb.

The site analysis is where an RV park study differs most from a hotel or apartment study, because the infrastructure is the building. MMCG carries the parcel's zoning and the approval path, which in most jurisdictions is a conditional use or planned unit development process with a public hearing on noise, lighting, traffic and stormwater, and the stay limit the code imposes, which can decide SBA eligibility before a site is built.

Electrical sizing follows the 2023 National Electrical Code: a new park must provide 50-amp service at not less than 40 percent of sites and 30-amp at 70 percent, each 50-amp site is calculated at 12,000 volt-amperes, and the demand factor falls to 41 percent at 36 or more sites, with the Code's own note that the factor may be inadequate in extreme climates. Resort parks in Arizona, Texas and Florida are increasingly built at or near 100 percent 50-amp, and the study carries the electrical budget accordingly.

Wastewater is governed by the state and sets a site count threshold that changes the project. In Texas a park whose on-site system treats more than 5,000 gallons per day, roughly 100 hookups, needs a domestic wastewater permit from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and a licensed operator. Arizona's general permits change tier at 3,000 and 24,000 gallons per day. Florida's rule sizes a septic system at 75 gallons per day per hookup site, North Carolina at 120, and Montana at 30 gallons per person. The study states the design flow, the permit path and the cost of a package plant where the site count crosses the line.

Water follows the Safe Drinking Water Act. A park that serves an average of at least 25 individuals daily at least 60 days a year is a public water system, normally a transient non-community system when it serves travelers, and a community system with heavier monitoring once it serves 25 or more year-round residents. That classification ties back to the stay-length mix, and MMCG states it in the regulatory screen. Where a city supplies the water, the study carries the will-serve letter and any supply constraint; Williams, Arizona, the gateway in MMCG's case study set, shut its last groundwater well in January 2026 over arsenic and is raising rates on a utility that runs below cost.

Accessibility follows the Architectural Barriers Act camping table by reference, because the 2010 ADA Standards set no RV site quota: two accessible sites for parks of 2 to 25 sites, three for 26 to 50, four for 51 to 75, five for 76 to 100, and so on. Fire separation and roads follow NFPA 1194. MMCG does not perform Phase I or Phase II environmental site assessments; the study integrates the findings of the assessment the borrower commissions separately.

The operating budget is built by line for the subject's state and format, not taken from a national average. The best line-item reference remains Newmark's RV park expense analysis, which found operating expenses of about $2,611 per site against $4,645 of revenue across 62 parks, with payroll at 15.5 percent of revenue, utilities at 14.5 percent, repairs at 6.7 percent, administration at 5.4 percent, management at 5.1 percent, real estate taxes at 4.1 percent, insurance at 2.7 percent and marketing at 1.5 percent; the dollar lines compute to a 56 percent expense ratio and the stated ratio is 53.7, so MMCG carries 54 to 56 percent before reserves for a stabilized park and states the discrepancy.

Three lines are overridden in every study. Insurance is carried at a bound quote or at a stated stress multiple of the historical ratio, because campground premiums in wildfire, Gulf and flood markets have moved by 20 to 40 percent in a year and by far more where a carrier has withdrawn, and a park on a private well with water-quality history carries a tail risk that can dwarf the normal premium. Utilities are carried at the serving tariff, with the commercial rate for the state and the park's own consumption where an existing park is being acquired. Reservation and card processing are carried at platform pricing, typically $3 to $3.50 per booking plus proprietary processing and a marketplace commission near 10 percent on third-party bookings, rather than as a flat percentage.

Property tax is carried at the local rate on the assessed basis the county actually applies to RV parks, and a franchise royalty and advertising fee are carried where a brand applies. Reserves are carried at $75 to $300 per site depending on the age and construction of the park and the lender's requirement.

New construction cost per site spans a sixfold range, and the determination for a ground-up park turns on where the subject falls. Clean private-style new builds in MMCG's reference set come in near $47,000 to $54,000 per site, basic expansions near $37,500, and full-amenity public resorts at $88,000 to $233,000 per site, the top of that range carrying a clubhouse, bathhouses, a saltwater pool and prevailing wage. The Outdoor Hospitality Industry's own survey found most new parks spending $15,000 or more per full-hookup site and a fifth spending $30,000 or more.

The test is yield on cost against the exit cap rate. At Newmark's 8 percent cap rate, $4,645 to $15,000 of revenue per site at a 44 percent margin values a stabilized site at roughly $25,000 to $82,000, so a build above about $60,000 per site needs top-quartile revenue, premium destination rates, a seasonal monthly base or public money to pencil. MMCG's development cost estimate is prepared in the firm's standard format with land, hard cost by line, equipment and financial cost, and the loan assumptions state the leverage, the rate, the amortization and the coverage test that sizes the loan, so the sponsor sees which constraint binds and by how much.

For an acquisition the study reconciles the asking price to the trailing twelve months, states the price per site against the format's trading range, and tests the seller's pro forma against the published rates of the competing parks. A park listed at $13,000 per site with an average daily rate a third of its neighbors' is a turnaround, and the study says so, with the ramp and the equity the turnaround requires.

SBA 7(a) finances the acquisition, construction and expansion of eligible RV parks and campgrounds, with real estate amortized over 25 years and the business portion of a change of ownership over 10 years under SOP 50 10 8.1, effective for loans receiving an SBA loan number on or after October 1, 2026. The 8.1 changes that matter for a park purchase are the 1.25x debt service coverage test on historical results for an initial acquisition, the 10 percent equity injection on total project cost, the independent business valuation on every change of ownership, and a quality of earnings report where the business purchase price is $3 million or more. A 25-year amortization on the whole loan is available where special use real estate is 85 percent or more of the value, which many RV park purchases can meet because the land, pads and utilities carry most of the price; whether a given park qualifies is confirmed against the SOP's definition at application.

SBA 504 finances the real estate of an owner-operated park through a bank first lien and a CDC debenture, at 50/40/10 for an established business or 50/35/15 where the business is new or the CDC classifies the property as special purpose. The 504 job standard is one job opportunity per $95,000 of debenture, which an RV park rarely meets on headcount, so most 504 park loans qualify under a public policy goal such as rural development. MMCG's SBA RV park feasibility study page covers the transient test, the 8.1 acquisition rules and the 504 structure in full, and the firm's SBA feasibility study page covers the program across asset classes.

USDA Business and Industry guaranteed loans finance resort trailer parks and campgrounds operated as commercial enterprises in rural areas, outside cities of more than 50,000 and their adjacent urbanized areas, with guarantees of 85 percent on loans under $5 million and 80 percent from $5 million to $25 million at a 3.0 percent guarantee fee and a 0.55 percent annual fee for fiscal 2026. A feasibility study by an independent consultant acceptable to the Agency is required for a guaranteed loan of more than $1 million to a new business, and the Agency may require one on any loan. Equity is set at 10 percent of the balance sheet for an existing business, 20 percent for a new business and 25 percent where the guarantee is requested before construction is complete, and the term may run to 40 years limited by the useful life of the collateral.

The Rural Energy for America Program guarantees loans and, when its grant window is open, funds grants of up to 50 percent of the cost of energy efficiency improvements and 25 percent of a renewable energy system at an existing rural park, and USDA has published awards to RV parks for solar arrays. The agency is not accepting REAP grant applications in 2026 while it revises the program rule, and guaranteed loans continue. MMCG's USDA RV park and campground feasibility study page covers the B&I eligibility and equity rules, the Appendix A study content, REAP and Community Facilities for public campgrounds, and the firm's USDA feasibility study page covers the program across asset classes.

Conventional bank debt finances the parks SBA cannot: snowbird resorts, workforce parks, annual communities and parks with a monthly base, at 65 to 75 percent of value and a 1.25x minimum coverage, with seller financing common on smaller trades. Institutional sponsors, the public owners, the franchise systems and the regional consolidators underwrite transient and resort parks on the Newmark survey's cap and discount rates and ask for the same market study a lender does. MMCG writes the stabilized year to whichever permanent program the sponsor intends, and the determination states which test binds.

A market study answers the demand question: the trade area, the competing parks, the rates and the absorption. A feasibility study answers the credit question: whether the project, at its cost and with its debt, covers its obligations, and it contains the market study. An appraisal answers the value question under the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice and is ordered by the lender from a licensed appraiser. The three documents share the competitive survey and the rate conclusions, and they should agree. MMCG's RV park feasibility studies are prepared under USPAP discipline, written so that the lender's appraiser can adopt the market section, and they are not appraisals.

MMCG's fee is fixed at engagement and is not contingent on the determination or on loan approval, which is the independence USDA requires of a qualified consultant acceptable to the Agency and the independence an SBA lender's credit memo relies on. The determination is written in one of three forms. Feasible means the project as proposed covers its debt at the program's test with the conditions precedent stated. Feasible as resized means the project covers its debt at a stated smaller site count, a lower price, a lower leverage or a different stay-length mix, and the study shows the resized program. Not feasible as proposed means the project fails the eligibility test or the coverage test as proposed, and the study states the arithmetic and the path, if one exists, to a financeable version. Since founding, MMCG has made the revisions a lender or agency requires at no additional cost.

An RV park feasibility consultant should be able to answer five questions before the engagement starts. Which program will fund the loan, and what is its first question. What is the stay-length revenue mix, and does it clear 50 percent transient. What does the state's wastewater rule do to the site count. What do the competing parks publish on their own websites. And what does a stabilized site earn against what it costs to build or buy. MMCG's engagements begin with a scoping call that answers those five, a fixed-fee proposal within one business day, and delivery in 9 to 16 business days, with rush delivery from 5 business days. Payment is 50 percent at engagement and 50 percent on delivery. Engagements are led by Michal Mohelsky, J.D., FMVA, Practicing Affiliate of the Appraisal Institute, from the firm's San Francisco office.

The study is scoped to the lender's requirement. For an SBA 7(a) or 504 lender that means the transient test, the 8.1 acquisition rules and the CDC's special purpose classification; for a USDA lender it means the Part 5001 eligibility and equity provisions, the Appendix A content and the quarterly cash flow; for a bank or sponsor it means the stabilized year, the coverage and the exit value. Site plans, electrical and wastewater sizing exhibits and the firm's RV park site plan service are available as add-ons where the lender or the engineer needs them.

MMCG publishes model feasibility studies prepared on real, publicly marketed parks and parcels using public data, so that lenders and sponsors can see the methodology applied to each format and program. Each study ends in a written determination.