Operations Lead (Real Estate- Manufactured Housing)

Position Type: Full-time

Working Hours: Monday – Friday, 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM EST

Location: Remote

Salary: $2,500 – $3,000 / month

Compensation: Base Salary ($2,500 – $3,000/month) + Performance Bonus + Promote Participation (Sponsor Equity)

Role Summary

The Operations Lead owns the operational result of a growing manufactured housing portfolio comprising 10 communities, 8 states, and 500+ units, managed through multiple third-party property management companies.

This seat is not an administrative, reporting, or coordination function. It exists to fully untether the Managing Partner’s time so focus can shift entirely to acquisitions and capital deployment. From the closing table forward, every asset’s performance, infill pipeline, compliance posture, contractor relationship, and financial result belongs to this role.

Success in this seat is evaluated by two ultimate standards:

Business Continuity: The Managing Partner can go completely dark for two weeks without operational disruption.
Outperformance: The portfolio becomes measurably more valuable at the end of the year than general market appreciation alone would dictate.

Non-Negotiable Operating Standards ("The Floors")

Operational trade-offs are routine, but the following three domains represent fundamental standards that are never compromised or traded against weekly operational pressures:

Residents: Many residents in our communities have limited options to relocate their homes. This power asymmetry obligates us to run clean, safe, well-maintained properties and enforce terms with unwavering respect. This is an absolute operating standard and a critical risk-management discipline to protect asset reputation in small markets.
Compliance: Permits, registrations, environmental filings, licensing, and lender covenants carry strict zero-tolerance execution. Missing a deadline risks unsupportable capital work or catastrophic diligence failures during dispositions. Compliance timelines take precedence over day-to-day operating tasks.
Investor Obligation: Managing third-party capital demands radical transparency. Financial reporting is accurate and punctual, capital is deployed strictly as represented, and negative news is communicated to investors proactively before it is uncovered through external channels.

Core Responsibilities & Ownership Areas

1. Infill & Home Sales Pipeline (Highest ROI Focus)

End-to-End Execution: Drive the full lifecycle from vacant lot to occupied site, and from park-owned home (POH) to tenant-owned home (TOH).
Inventory Sourcing: Identify and acquire new inventory from dealers, used homes from the open market, and manage interior repossession/abandonment processes.
Unit Economics Management: Maintain granular control over all costs—acquisition, transport, lot prep, setup, utility hookups, and days-to-occupancy—evaluating projections against final actuals.
Operational Readiness: Execute lot preparation sequences in advance to eliminate idle transport time.
Conversion & Financing: Drive rent-to-own (RTO) lead conversions and manage third-party chattel lending partner relationships to eliminate internal payment plan servicing. Convert POHs to TOHs to optimize long-term NOI.
Local Marketing: Build community-level marketing engines, including local signage, web listings, referral programs, and on-site manager involvement.
Strategic Planning: Author, defend, and execute the portfolio’s Annual Infill Plan.

2. Portfolio Collections & Receivables

State-Specific Policies: Establish and enforce tailored delinquency policies reflecting specific notice periods, cure windows, and filing timelines across all 8 state jurisdictions.
Third-Party Accountability: Hold third-party management companies accountable to delinquency timelines without exception.
Agency & AR Management: Oversee collections agency performance and recovery vs. fee ratios. Conduct weekly aging reviews to intervene prior to month-end.

3. High-Stakes Projects & Regulatory Compliance

Direct Project Ownership: Personally manage high-consequence operational initiatives including utility conversions (submetering/direct billing), environmental compliance, entitlement, and zoning matters without delegating to property management companies.
Scoping & Execution: Interpret statutory/permit requirements directly to ensure full compliance at minimal burden to the asset. Source and direct specialized consultants, engineers, and legal counsel while maintaining schedule buffers.

4. Capital Projects & Contractor Oversight

Independent Bidding: Independently source, vet, and negotiate contractor bids separate from property manager suggestions.
Contract Risk Management: Execute formal agreements requiring active insurance certificates, lien waivers, retainage holds, and progress-matched draw schedules.
Site Inspections: Conduct physical, on-site walkthroughs to verify quality before approving capital releases—photos alone do not constitute inspection.

5. Disposition & Sale-Readiness

Standing Readout Posture: Maintain all assets in a permanent state of sale-readiness with clean financials, zero unaddressed compliance items, resolved delinquencies, and documented capital expenditure history.
Diligence & Data Room: Assemble, organize, and manage data rooms for potential buyers; answer operational diligence inquiries with precision.
Closing & Transition: Identify and rectify operational defects prior to buyer discovery and execute seamless management transitions at closing.

6. Third-Party Management Oversight

Performance Metrics: Set performance standards, establish weekly cadence meetings, and execute contractual remedies when property management companies fall short.
System Integrity: Require on-site personnel to log active hours inside the Property Management System (PMS) to track labor metrics accurately.
Contractual Gaps: Identify and escalate gaps between contract language and required operational standards rather than executing manual workarounds. Train property managers rather than doing their administrative tasks.

7. Financial Operations & Close

Monthly Close: Partner with accounting to ensure all community books close accurately by the 10th of every month.
Variance Reporting: Analyze community budget-to-actuals monthly, issuing formal written explanations for any variance exceeding 5%.
Accounting Integrity: Correctly classify capex vs. opex, oversee the annual tax package assembly, and maintain clean financials requiring no adjustments for lenders or investors.

8. Acquisitions Support

Underwriting Validation: Stress-test acquisition models using actual portfolio historical benchmarks (expense ratios, turn costs, infill absorption, collection reality).
Diligence & Integration: Identify operational risks during due diligence and execute day-one onboarding (software integration, banking setups, tenant communications, vendor contracts).

9. Playbooks, Systems & Tech Stack

Scalable Documentation: Create clear, standalone operating playbooks (written, video walkthroughs, and checklists) covering collections, infill, vendor onboarding, acquisition transitions, and compliance.
Tech Stack Management: Maintain real-time data integrity across all corporate tools:
- Asana: Single source of truth for active projects, tasks, and ownership.
- Notion: Central repository for SOPs and playbooks.
- Google Drive: Property journals, history, and asset documentation.
- Property Management System (Rent Manager/Appfolio): Primary source for operational and financial records.

Performance Scorecard

Scorecards are reviewed monthly and formally graded on a quarterly basis:

Metric	Target
Infill Absorption	Meet/exceed annual infill plan for occupied lot additions
Infill Economics	All-in cost per occupied lot kept under underwritten budget
Collections Rate	95%+ portfolio-wide (Cash Collected / Billed)
Aged Receivables	Zero balances past 30 days without a filed eviction/action or documented exception
Economic Occupancy	Per community budget (no individual asset >5% below plan)
Operating Expense Variance	Within 5% of budget per community; written variance reports for exceptions
Regulatory & Compliance	Zero missed deadlines (filings, permits, covenants)
Financial Close	Monthly books closed by the 10th; zero surprise entries for the Managing Partner

Decision Authority & Escalation Thresholds

This seat carries significant operational autonomy. Decisions within the approved scope must be made directly without escalation.

Independent Authority (Decide & Execute)

Operating expenditures up to $3,000 per community, per month.
Eviction filings executed in alignment with approved state-specific delinquency policies.
Vendor selection, contracts, and pricing under $5,000.
Tenant concessions, payment modifications, and balance write-offs up to $1,000.
Home pricing and sales terms adhering to the pre-approved pricing matrix.
Lease approvals and terms matching the approved rent and tenant screening matrix.

Escalation Required

Expenditures exceeding the above single-item or monthly limits.
Capital projects (CapEx) greater than $5,000.
Legal disputes beyond standard collection/eviction filings.
Modifications to lot counts or core rent structures.
Any item impacting lender covenants, loan agreements, or explicit investor commitments.

The Speed Rule

Reversible Decisions (Two-Way Doors): Execute fast and independently.
Irreversible Decisions (One-Way Doors): Execute deliberately after consulting with the Managing Partner. Examples: Capital commitments, regulatory filings, lender touchpoints, and contractual terminations.

Operating Culture & Values

Truth: Prioritize accuracy over comfort. Clearly distinguish between verified facts, working assumptions, and guesses. Communicate bad news immediately. Generalities are prohibited (e.g., provide concrete numbers and root causes rather than vague status updates).
Excellence: Own outcomes, not just activities. At a 7% capitalization rate, $1.00 of recurring annual expense or lost revenue impacts asset value by approximately $14.00. Maintain an owner's mindset on both cost containment and revenue expansion.
Dependability: Commitments require an owner and a firm completion date. If a deadline will be missed, notify all stakeholders well before the due date.

Position Requirements

Required Experience & Skills

5+ years of direct operational leadership in manufactured housing or multi-family real estate (or portfolio-level operations at a firm managing 1,500+ units).
Demonstrated experience directly managing and holding third-party property management firms accountable.
Proven experience executing collections and legal evictions across multiple state jurisdictions.
Hands-on capital project management experience, including writing scopes, vetting independent contractor bids, managing draw schedules, and verifying work quality.
High proficiency in Property Management Systems (Rent Manager preferred; AppFolio, Yardi, or Entrata acceptable).
Strong financial acumen: ability to read P&Ls, spot line-item errors rapidly, and manage community budget variances.
Understanding of real estate sponsor economics, including waterfalls, preferred returns, and general partner promotes.

Preferred Qualifications

Specific expertise in Manufactured Housing Operations: park-owned vs. tenant-owned home dynamics, lot rent economics, chattel lending, utility submetering, and home infill operations.
Track record of successfully purchasing, setting, and selling manufactured homes with verified absorption metrics.
Prior experience in high-growth, entrepreneurial real estate firms (<50 employees) where operational infrastructure had to be built rather than inherited.
Direct involvement in executing transaction diligence, acquisition onboarding, and disposition preparation.
Comfortable interpreting regulatory statutes, environmental compliance mandates, and municipality requirements.

Operations Lead (Real Estate- Manufactured Housing)| 63673375764