need help pricing lots at trailer park

[joeslawncare]

I am thinking of bidding on a trailer park. There are about 50 lots to do. The lots are small and will take only about 15 minutes to mow and weed eat each one. The owner says he pays $7 per lot per cut now. Is this price reasonable?

[GrassMaster]

Welcome to the Lawn Service Forum Community, joeslawncare!

It sounds very reasonalble for him. I definately wouldn't underbid it...

I would try to figure out a way to make at least $35 an hour or Walk away from it.

Is there anyway you can cut the production time down per lot?

How well are the grounds kept? How often to be cut?

[PearceTurf]

It really depends on your situation:

Your figures equal about $28 per hour gross revenue. This does not include your expenses. Gasoline, two stroke oil, travel time, payroll (if any), equipment usage etc.. on and on until you reach your "net revenue".

If this amount of net revenue seems appropriate to you than go for it. If you are not busy now and need the work, then why not. However, if you can use that time to make higher net revenues elsewhere, then let it go. Perhaps you can take the job now, but continually search for higher profits later on and then drop him. Factors such as putting food on your table or paying bills often supercede the pride of walking away. For me, it sounds like a low ball bid, but if it's all you got, it's really up to you to make the decision. If you have better work, too busy or just too proud, I think you could do better. If you need that money, do it, practice your time reducing strategies, get referrals, search for new business and cash the check. It really depends on your situation!

[Phil Nilsson]

15 minutes to mow and trim a trailer park lot seems excessive ... what size are the lots?

Phil

[justmjc]

I don't know where your at, but in my location I never heard of or have seen lots cut lower than $9.99. That was a local advertising price by a competitor and I'm not sure If that was just to get someone to call. However, the many lots I had, not one was priced under $12. $12 is a very far price for most of the lots and I recieved as much as $15 for some. 15 mins. seemed to be a good average also per lot. Reason being that quite a few of these people like to put up wood fences or lawn orniments all over the place.

You will get noticed a lot in a park, so have business cards and magnetic signs ready. That's how I got all my t/park business. That and word of mouth.

Mike

[PearceTurf]

I always go with Phil's advice

But without him knowing the particulars of a certain job, there can be many variables. My uncle owns a trailor park with 80 units. That's alot of homes, but they are side to side like most people think of when they think of trailor parks. I also own a small park with only seven units, but they are spread out and the lots are much, much bigger. These lots range from .25 to .5 acres each. I require all tenants to maintain their own space to certain standards. I mow the common grounds myself. I also mow the unoccupied spots myself and if a tenant does not keep their lot up to covenant standards, I mow their lot too and charge them for it.

At my uncle's park, I zoom along doing multiple properties at one time. I refuse to move somebody's plastic pool or junk car, I just mow around it. This is understood in advance and I make "economy of scale" wages for the entire park. Some of the lots are nothing but gravel and trash cans and need no attention from me. In my park, the lots are much bigger and the rules are different. If you cannot maintain your own lot, you can hire me or somebody else. I am not cheap but not unreasonable either. Like Phil was saying, 15 minutes per lot seems like a lot on paper, but there could be other factors too. Personally, my biggest challenge has been with the big church properties. Huge lawns, lots of competition, cheap bids and all. I have not got one yet. I I think I'm bidding against the church member that has a mower and bids low in order to pay his "tithe" to the church. I'm almost ready to give up on church property. Just make your own personal assessment(audit) of the trailor park yourself. Walk the entire premises and if you think you can make money, do it. If it's still too low, make a counter offer. If it doesn't sit just right with your goals, let that one go.

[joeslawncare]

Thanks for all the replys... we are new in the biz and need good advice. The owner said for us to give it a try at $7 and if we felt that we would need more per lot, then we would discuss it. I think we should ask for $7.50 to start with and let him know we will mow around any obstacles.
Thanks for all the info!

[quality]

Unless the end result doesn't matter,small grass area lots of trimming. lots of potential for damage. WB removes scritting fast. No less then ten then work to twelve.

[Maddog]

Just a suggestion.

I do a trailer park with about 45 trailers. I cut the string trim time down quite a bit by talking to the owners and them letting me spray around the trailers with grass killer. This makes your job easier ans keeps from the string trimmers ripping up the skirting on the trailers.

The last time I mowed it by myself and it took me right at 4 hours to complete. I barely had to string trim. If I do not spray it it will take 2 of us 4-5 hours to do.

[andersc1]

I serviced a 10 acre trailer park for the longest with just myself and one other helper. There were 60 trailers and during the summer growing months it took a total of 5 hours to service. We charged $515.00 per month for twice a month service, that comes to $51.50 per hour. We applied Roundup® around the trailer skirting which was part of the contract to eliminate destruction of the skirting by string trimmers. Each trailer lot consisted of perhaps 20 feet of yard around the trailer perimeter. Trimming consisted of outbuildings, porches, ditches, mailboxes, utility poles, flower bed borders, etc.

Now if you average that out it comes to roughly $4.30 per trailer lot. I would have loved to be able to have that account at $7.00 per lot because that would put me up around $84.00 per hour. But that is here in Southeast Texas were there is tons of low priced competition. I'm sure things are probably different in your neck of the woods.

Curtis