Are You Overlooking Nebraska Mobile Home Park Opportunities?

Unless you are familiar with Nebraska, it's likely to be one of the last places mobile home park investors consider when they're looking to expand their portfolios. In fact, if you have never visited Nebraska, you might think cows and cornfields instead of mobile home park opportunities.

But is Nebraska, and its 411 or so mobile home parks, an overlooked market space?  

In this article, I'll discuss three key concerns that I typically hear from park investors when the subject of mobile home parks in Nebraska enters the conversation.

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Property Taxes

For anyone who has reviewed the financials of a park inNebraska, the park's property tax can be quite alarming. Paying them almost feels like the the stuff legends are made of.  In 2025, Nebraska had the fourth highest effective property tax rate in the nation.

Having paid a significant amount in property taxes in Nebraska over the years myself, I can say it’s truly painful to write the check, but then I remember it's all relative.

You see, in Nebraska, the property tax mill levy is determined at the county level rather than being set statewide. This means that each of the 93 counties in Nebraska establishes its own mill levy based on its specific budgeting needs.

However, state guidelines limit how much each county can increase its mill levy year-over-year. This helps prevent, or at least curb, sudden property tax liability spikes.

Since most Nebraska property taxes are paid in arrears, this all means that as long as the park’s management has done its job, the higher property tax rate should already be baked into the park’s current financial equation.

However, it’s also important to keep in mind that one of the factors in determining a property’s assessed value is directly tied to its market value.  In Nebraska, County Assessors can utilize up to three years of “like property” sale comparables within their specific county.

This means that if you’re purchasing a mobile home park that has sold a couple of times over the last decade, it will likely have an assessed value closer to its true market value more so than one that has had long-term ownership.

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Park Sizes

It’s true, if you’re an institutional investor looking for your next 400-site park, Nebraska doesn’t have much to offer. That’s because most parks in rural Nebraska consist of between 25 and 50 sites.

That’s not to say you won’t find any parks with 100 sites or more; it just means the number of buying opportunities is less frequent.

There’s a simple reason for the smaller park sizes. Just like Iowa, most towns throughout Nebraska typically consisted of smaller populations and slower growth rates while their towns mobile home parks were first developed.

However, over the last decade, many of these small rural Nebraska towns have started to experience higher growth rates, which has many towns scrambling for additional affordable housing.

In fact, affordable housing is in such demand within the state that the Nebraska Legislature passed LB 266 on April 3, 2025, which prohibits state and local governments from imposing rent controls on privately owned property.

This type of housing environment is what allows a smaller, well-run local mobile home park to achieve a combination of higher rent and occupancy rates that remain consistent for years.

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Performance Consistancy

As a newer investor and the owner of a new real estate company during the 2007/2008 housing crisis, I remember several sleepless nights thinking about how my businesses would be impacted as I watched the initial news reports.

Back then, the stock market was plummeting, institutional lenders across the country were failing, and home foreclosures were hitting record highs almost daily.

However, I quickly realized Nebraska’s housing market remained virtually untouched by the crisis. Local lenders were still providing mortgages, rent rates continued to increase year over year, and I was still selling homes as if the housing crisis wasn’t even taking place.

In fact, before 2021, the two years following the housingcrisis were among some of my highest-producing years for each of my businesses.

That’s because, from an economic standpoint, Midwest states like Nebraska don’t typically experience the same peaks and valleys that many regions of the country do. Instead, they remain more economically consistent year over year.

According to Fortune Builders, even with single-family home sales spiking by 27.8% in rural Nebraska between 2020 and 2023, it’s still far less than the national average spike of 38.3% for that same time period.

Closing Thoughts

Investing in Nebraska mobile home parks won’t give you the same glitz and glam that other states will if you’re a short-term park flipper. Traditionally speaking, there just isn’t enough short-term appreciation margin unless you plan on including the right capital improvement projects.

However, when you take a closer look, for the long-term parkinvestor, Nebraska offers some great mobile home park opportunities to the savvy.  

As someone who has personally made a career of investing in rural Nebraska’s affordable housing market, I realize I may be biased.

But it’s challenging to dispute the reliability that a well-managed Nebraska mobile home park can provide, especially with companies like Impact Communities, Horizon Land Management, Lighthouse Communities, and Strive Communities acquiring multiple parks across the state.

If you would like to explore the opportunities that the Nebraska mobile home park market has to offer, give our office a call at 402-615-9165, or sign up to join our Mid-Plains Land & Realty commercial Buyers List.

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