Buying an RV Park or Campground

Outdoor Hospitality's Owner-Operator Asset

RV parks and campgrounds are the same trade at two temperatures: pads, hookups, and a season, earned on land the owner controls. Demand has run strong since 2020 and the institutional money noticed, which is why cap rates compressed at the premium end while the long tail of family-run parks still trades on owner-operator terms. The valuation sources treat parks and campgrounds as one lane, and so does this guide: the differences live in the site mix and the season, not the model. The prize is a park with full-hookup depth, a real season, and infrastructure that passes inspection; the trap is a pretty property whose septic, power, and permits cannot carry the plan.

What Parks Trade For

Sold campgrounds and RV parks average a 3.07x earnings multiple on the publisher's own travel table, which is what a single park changes hands at. Institutional reporting prices a different market: better-quality parks near an 8% capitalization rate and average product near 9%, resort-grade assets compressing and value-add widening, and the 7x to 11x earnings figures in circulation belong to that end rather than to single-park sales. Per-site rules of thumb from brokers run roughly $10,000 to $30,000 depending on hookups and market. When the lenses diverge, the infrastructure and the records usually explain which one is lying.

The Season, the Mix, and the Long-Stay Question

Three structural reads shape the earnings. The season first: a hundred-day mountain summer and a year-round Sun Belt park are different businesses at the same site count, so read revenue by month and the shoulder seasons' real contribution. The mix second: full-hookup share, pull-through pads, big-rig capacity, tent sites, and cabins each carry their own rate, occupancy, and labor. The long-stay question third: monthly guests smooth cash flow and cut turnover cost, but a park drifting toward permanent residency changes its regulatory footing and its exit buyers, so know the mix you are buying and the one you intend to run. Booking data from the park's own system beats every summary the listing offers.

Infrastructure Is the Diligence

The physical plant decides more park deals than the P&L does. Septic capacity and condition, well or municipal water, the electrical pedestals' amperage and age, roads, and drainage are the asset's real load-bearing members, and each carries permits whose transferability and current compliance are checkable facts, not assumptions. Utility structure matters the same way it does in manufactured housing: parks on municipal water and sewer carry tighter pricing than private-utility parks, whose systems are the owner's to maintain, permit, and eventually replace. Price the upgrade plan honestly, trenching, septic expansion, and pedestal upgrades are six-figure work, and the permits to add sites are never guaranteed.

What to Verify in Diligence

The record to assemble before the offer holds:

• ✓Three years of P&Ls, tax returns, and booking-system occupancy by month and site type
• ✓The site inventory: hookup level, amperage, pull-throughs, big-rig capacity, tents, cabins
• ✓Septic, water, and electrical condition with the permits and their compliance status
• ✓The long-stay share and any drift toward permanent residency, with local rules read
• ✓Seasonality: revenue by month, the season's length, and weather exposure
• ✓Expansion assumptions tested against zoning and utility capacity in writing
• ✓The owner's own labor across the season, priced at the manager and grounds wages the park needs

Financeability Notes

Parks finance on the real-estate-plus-operations pattern: SBA 504 for the property, 7(a) for the going concern, and conventional park lenders competing at the stabilized end. The record question is decisive here, the trade's own guidance says a park without three years of statements and occupancy data is a speculative project that often cannot be bank-financed at all, so the books are not a formality but the loan's foundation. Lenders read the season the way this guide does and structure working capital for the off-season; private utilities bring inspections into underwriting. Model debt service on the off-season's cash flow, net of the wages the season actually requires, and let the infrastructure report size the reserve.

Terms in This Industry

What the Data Says

• County Business Patterns counts 5,018 RV park and campground establishments with paid employees and 26,333 workers as of 2023, around five per park. That staffing shape says the asset mostly runs itself between seasons, and the buyer is pricing land, sites, and a reservation book.

  Source: Census County Business Patterns, RV parks and campgrounds (2023)

• No federal series publishes a value per site, so the per-site rules of thumb in circulation rest on nobody's data. What is published is the size of a park: 4,889 RV park and campground establishments took $4.25 billion of receipts in 2022, about $869,000 each, and the 2023 survey puts the industry at $4.78 billion of revenue against $1.0 billion of payroll. Size the income before the sites.

  Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2022 Economic Census and 2023 Annual Integrated Economic Survey (NAICS 721211)

• County Business Patterns puts the trade's total annual payroll at about $1.0 billion across those 5,018 parks, which works out at roughly $203,000 a park and about $38,650 a worker. That is a seasonal hourly wage bill rather than a salaried one, and the line the owner's own labor is quietly netted against.

  Source: Census County Business Patterns, payroll for RV parks and campgrounds (2023)

Holding a live deal in this industry? Underwrite it with the comps, cited band, and charge-off rate pre-loaded.

Compare bands across industries in the cited multiple bands by industry.

Who Else Is Buying in This Industry

• Northgate Resorts · Grand Rapids, Michigan

  An outdoor hospitality operator buying family campgrounds outright, land and operation together, and running them under national brands rather than the founder's name.

  • Martha's Vineyard Family Campground · 2026 · The only campground on Martha's Vineyard, 180 campsites and cabins, bought from the family that had run it for decades.
  • 1 more confirmed on the firm's profile
• Blue Water · Ocean City, Maryland

  An outdoor hospitality group that buys single waterfront and roadside properties, marinas and campgrounds among them, and runs many more for owners who keep them.

  • Santee Lakes KOA Journey · 2024 · A South Carolina waterfront campground on Lake Marion, the firm's sixth KOA, bought with four million dollars of upgrades planned.

Buyers is the shelf these come from, ordered by who closed something most recently.

What It Costs to Replace the Owner

The multiples above are quoted on SDE, which adds the owner's pay back into earnings, so they hold only if you do the owner's job. Hire someone instead and the going rate for the role comes back out. For this trade that is usually the manager who runs the site, the tenants, and the rules, paid a median of $69,990 a year nationally. Subtract it from SDE before applying any multiple, because at a 3x multiple that wage also takes about $209,970 off what the business is worth to you.

Property, real estate, and community association managers, BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (2025), national, all industries, before payroll taxes and benefits. Every role, and the same arithmetic worked end to end, is in Manager Wages.

The Numbers That Run This Business

• Full-hookup share of the site inventory
• Occupancy and rate by site type and month
• Season length and shoulder-month contribution
• Long-stay and monthly-guest share
• Septic, water, and electrical condition and permits

Where to Go Next

Related Guides