Bradenton's Mermaid Manor mobile home park sells for $2.1 million

BUYER: Mermaid MHP LLC (manager: Michael Hickmann) (50% interest), Palmetto and McMermaid MHP LLC (authorized representative: Cindy McFerrin) (50%), St. Petersburg
SELLER: Mermaid Manor LLC
PROPERTY: 3720 W. 14th St., various units, Bradenton
PRICE: $2.1 million
PREVIOUS PRICE: $1.2 million, March 2013
LAW FIRM ON DEED: Law Office of John L. Mann PA, Lakeland

PLANS, DESCRIPTION:
A company led by Wisconsin attorney Michael Hickmann and a separate company led by Cindy McFerrin, a Realtor with Future Home Realty, purchased the 80-lot Mermaid Manor mobile home park for $2.1 million.

The price equated to $26,250 per approved lot.

The 3.8-acre property features 76 mobile homes and four unoccupied lots. Three or four of the mobile homes are unoccupied.

Bruce Ginsberg of Re/Max Platinum Realty handled the transaction. Ginsberg also previously represented the sellers, Ann Ball of Maumelle, Ark., and Harold Crye of Memphis, Tenn., when they bought the property in early 2013 from an affiliate of lender Bofl Federal Bank.

“My clients bought it as a bank repossession,” Ginsberg says. “They fixed up the clubhouse, repaired the roads, took out a lot of the old units and put in new units. They also upgraded a lot of the electrical and plumbing. Then they turned around and put it back on the market.”

Ginsberg said mobile home parks are even more desirable in the real estate market than apartments, because of the lack of new supply in Sarasota or Manatee County and the lower responsibility for property owners.

Hickmann's companies have owned a number of mobile home parks in the two-county area. Two of those companies recently sold off the Friendship Village and the Orange Avenue Mobile Home in Sarasota to affiliates of Westwind Investors LP for $4.63 million each.

The purchase entities, Mermaid MHP LLC and McMermaid MHP LLC, mortgaged the property to Bay Cities Bank for $900,000.