Wert-Berater, Inc. is an independent RV park feasibility study consultant preparing lender- and agency-ready studies for RV parks, RV resorts, campgrounds, and outdoor-hospitality developments. Where a development includes conventional guest rooms, the lodging component is analyzed under the firm’s hotel feasibility study methodology. Our analysis evaluates market demand, competitive supply, site mix, monthly occupancy, ADR, transient and long-stay demand, seasonality, ancillary revenue, operating expenses, development costs, debt-service coverage, and financial sensitivity for SBA, USDA, and conventional financing.
Prepared for lenders, CDCs, and federal agencies to SBA SOP 50 10 8, USDA 7 CFR Part 5001, and conventional underwriting standards. Fiduciary duty runs to the lender and the agency, never the borrower. 4,000+ engagements since 1998 covering $41.2 billion in evaluated project value. So far in 2026: 41 engagements and $1.54 billion evaluated — 17 SBA, 11 USDA.
An RV park feasibility study consultant is retained by the lender, the Certified Development Company, or the reviewing agency to establish whether a proposed or expanding property can fill its sites at a rate the market will actually pay, and whether the resulting cash flow services the proposed debt. The work is evidentiary rather than promotional, and the two assumptions that decide the outcome — stabilized occupancy and achieved daily rate — are the two a sponsor is most likely to overstate.
Demand is established before anything is modeled. The trade area is drawn from drive-time isochrones rather than radius circles, because recreational travel follows corridors, not concentric rings. Highway and interstate capture is tested against classified traffic counts where the property depends on overnight pass-through stays; destination demand is tested against the recreational anchors that actually generate trips — a lake, a national or state park, a river system, a coastline, an event venue, a seasonal employment centre. Tourism-board visitation series, state park occupancy records, and campground licensing databases establish whether the demand base is growing, flat, or contracting, and whether it is broad-based or dependent on a single anchor.
Competitive supply is then counted property by property. The census records site counts, pull-through versus back-in configuration, full-hookup versus partial-hookup and primitive inventory, 30-amp and 50-amp service availability, pad surface and length, amenity depth, and published rate cards by season. Sold-out behaviour across peak weekends is a stronger indicator of unmet demand than any survey, and permitted or announced pipeline supply is netted against it, because a market that looks undersupplied today can be oversupplied by the time a project stabilizes.
Revenue is then built by site class rather than as a blended average. Transient nightly stays, weekly stays, monthly stays, and seasonal or long-term tenancies carry different rates, different cost-to-serve, and different utility treatment, so each is modeled separately, as are cabins, park models, and glamping units where the program includes them. Premium and waterfront sites are priced against their own comparables. Ancillary lines — campground store, laundry, propane, firewood, recreational and activity fees, and foodservice where applicable — are modeled on their own margins rather than folded into site revenue, since a credit officer cannot stress a blended line.
The physical program is tested for whether it can deliver that revenue. Site-plan efficiency, utility capacity for water, sewer or septic, and electrical service, and the amenity capital required to support the proposed rate structure are each examined against the development budget, and the budget is tested against the loan request using location-adjusted cost data. Labor, utilities, insurance, management, and reserves are built from the staffing and maintenance model actually proposed. The result is carried into ten-year projections with monthly seasonality, a stated ramp-up and stabilization path, sensitivity on occupancy and rate, and interest-rate stress, with debt-service coverage reported at the operating and global level and every condition attaching to the determination stated in plain language for the credit file under SBA, USDA, or conventional bank underwriting.
The three terms overlap in ordinary use and are often applied interchangeably by sponsors, but they describe different revenue structures, different capital requirements, and different risks. A study that treats them as one asset class will mis-price the rate ceiling in one direction or the development budget in the other, which is why the analysis is framed to the operating model actually proposed rather than to the label on the site plan.
An RV park is typically demand-driven by travel rather than by destination, and its economics turn on location and turnover. Highway and corridor access, visibility, and ease of entry for a towed or long rig govern transient capture, while a monthly and seasonal tenant base — often including workforce demand near construction, energy, or agricultural employment — provides the occupancy floor that carries the shoulder and off-season. Site configuration matters directly: pull-through length, full hookups, and 50-amp service widen the addressable rig population and support a higher rate, while back-in and partial-hookup inventory prices lower. Rate structure is usually tiered by duration, with monthly rates set well below the nightly-equivalent because the cost to serve and the vacancy risk are both lower.
An RV resort is destination-led, and the guest is buying the property rather than a place to stop. Amenity depth — pool and aquatic features, clubhouse, pickleball and recreation, waterfront or marina access, organized programming — is what supports the premium rate, which means amenity capital is not discretionary in the model but a precondition of the rate assumption. Premium and waterfront sites are priced separately and often carry most of the rate advantage. Development cost per site is materially higher, seasonal yield management and minimum-stay rules on peak dates carry more of the revenue, and the downside case is sharper: if the amenity program is value-engineered out during construction, the rate assumption fails with it.
A campground generally carries a wider inventory range, from primitive and tent sites through partial-hookup RV sites to cabins, park models, and glamping units, each with its own rate, cost, and occupancy profile. Demand is frequently tied to public recreational assets — state and national parks, forests, lakes, trail systems — which makes visitation data and the operating calendar of those anchors directly material. Seasonality is usually more pronounced and the operating season may be genuinely closed for part of the year, so annual averages are especially misleading here. Rate structures are lower per site but ancillary revenue from store, activities, and cabin inventory typically carries a larger share of total revenue than in a transient RV park.
RV resort feasibility is seasonal yield management projected forward: site-class mix, ADR by class, the occupancy curve across peak and shoulder seasons, and the long-stay segment that determines whether winter months carry their cost. The study tests the drive-time leisure market and highway capture, evaluates the competitive set's actual rates and sold-out behavior, and models utility and amenity capital against the rate premium it must earn. Site-plan configuration receives explicit analysis where waterfront or premium positioning creates materially different unit economics — in some engagements the difference between a compliant and non-compliant plan.
The firm's outdoor-hospitality model carries site-class revenue build-up, monthly seasonality, length-of-stay mix, and ancillary revenue, benchmarked against named competitive properties and industry data. DSCR is tested at the program minimum across the five-year underwriting window, with capture-rate and leakage analysis supporting the demand conclusion.
Every Wert-Berater financial model is fully linked with no hardcoded values, so any reviewer can stress any input. Deliverables comprise a complete narrative report and the linked Excel model, with ten-year pro forma, sensitivity analysis at ±5, 10, and 15 percent, interest-rate stress from +0.5 to +3.0 percent, and ratio analysis benchmarked against RMA and IBISWorld data.
SBA engagements are prepared to SOP 50 10 8, including its debt-service-coverage minimums of 1.15x operating and 1.00x global. USDA engagements follow RD Staff Instruction 5001 across the Business & Industry, Community Facilities, REAP, and Value-Added Producer Grant programs. Conventional engagements are built to the lender's stated coverage standard, typically 1.20x. Most engagements arrive under SBA 504 per SOP 50 10 8 with its special-purpose property treatment; USDA B&I applies to rural destinations and conventional lending to larger resort product.
The firm's record includes a 100-site, $4,839,570 SBA 504 resort in Van Zandt County, Texas determined favorable with conditions, and a 34-site waterfront resort in Navarre, Florida at $8,050,000 where site-plan analysis identified the single SBA-compliant configuration. Independence is non-negotiable: determinations follow the evidence and are not revised under pressure, and studies are built to pass lender, agency, and third-party review without exception items.
The firm also publishes a worked RV park feasibility study and economic impact analysis showing how the demand, occupancy and rate evidence is assembled into a lender-facing determination. Study leadership rests with Donald Safranek, who signs the firm’s feasibility determinations.
A feasibility study for an RV resort or campground is not a market overview stapled to a spreadsheet. It is a site-specific document built to answer the credit question: does this project, at this location, with this site-class mix and this capital structure, generate sufficient cash flow to service its debt across the underwriting window? Every section of the report is written to that question.
Deliverables prepared by Wert-Berater for this asset class include:
Demand for an RV resort is not a single market — it is the overlap of several distinct traveler segments, each with a different origin, a different booking behavior, and a different sensitivity to rate. The analysis separates highway-capture demand, which is driven by proximity to an interstate interchange and the density of passing traffic, from destination demand, which is driven by a recreational draw such as a lake, national forest, or event corridor. Those two demand pools are sized and tested independently before being combined into a single occupancy projection.
Primary data sources for this asset class include state campground licensing registries and RV park permit databases, which establish the permitted competitive supply; state and county tourism-board visitation records; Federal Highway Administration traffic-count data at the nearest interchange; Army Corps of Engineers and state-park attendance figures where a public recreational anchor is present; and rate-and-availability data collected directly from competing properties across multiple booking windows. Secondary sources include RVIA membership and shipment data, state association directories, and trade-publication performance benchmarks.
The competitive-supply analysis counts every permitted property within the relevant drive-time radius, classifies each by hookup tier and amenity level, and records current rack rates and sold-out behavior across peak, shoulder, and off-season periods. Properties that are permitted but not yet open are tracked separately so that pipeline supply does not inflate the existing-supply count. The result is a demand conclusion grounded in counted supply and observed pricing, not in assumed market-growth rates.
Annual occupancy is the least useful number in outdoor hospitality and the one most often quoted. A property at sixty percent for the year may be sold out for eleven consecutive weeks and effectively closed for four months, and a property at the same annual figure may run level all year on monthly tenants. Those are different assets with different revenue, different cost structures, and different debt capacity, so the forecast is built as a monthly curve rather than a single figure.
The curve is constructed from the demand evidence rather than assumed. Peak season is bounded by the operating calendar of the recreational anchors and by observed sold-out dates across the competitive set; shoulder months are estimated from the rate discounting and availability the competitors actually publish; the off-season is set by whether the market sustains any transient demand at all and by whether the property can hold monthly or seasonal tenants through it. Booking-window research — how far ahead peak dates clear in the market, and whether minimum-stay rules are in force on holiday weekends — distinguishes a market with genuine excess demand from one that merely fills on a handful of dates.
Occupancy is then resolved by site type, not applied uniformly. Full-hookup pull-through inventory, back-in and partial-hookup sites, premium and waterfront sites, and cabin, park-model or glamping units each clear at different rates and in different months, and monthly and seasonal tenancies are modeled as committed occupancy that removes those sites from transient inventory rather than as incremental demand layered on top. Double-counting a site as both a monthly tenancy and a peak-season transient stay is one of the more common ways a sponsor projection overstates revenue.
Rate is set against a market-supported ceiling. Achieved daily rate is derived by site class from published competitor rate cards by season, adjusted for hookup level, site dimension, amenity depth, and location quality, and it is tested for whether the market has ever supported the proposed rate rather than whether the sponsor believes it should. Where the program proposes a rate above anything currently achieved in the trade area, the study says so and identifies the specific amenity or site attribute the premium depends on. Long-stay rates are modeled at their own level with utilities treated according to the actual metering arrangement.
Neither figure is applied at stabilization from day one. Ramp-up is modeled explicitly — a new property builds reputation, review volume, and repeat and seasonal tenancy over multiple operating seasons, and the stabilization period is stated and defended rather than assumed at twelve months. The pro forma then carries occupancy and rate through sensitivity testing at defined intervals in each direction, and the output that matters to the credit file is where debt-service coverage falls below the required threshold: the study reports the occupancy and rate combination at which the project stops covering its debt, and how much headroom the base case holds against it.
Every feasibility study for this asset class turns on a small number of inputs that carry disproportionate weight in the coverage calculation. Identifying those inputs, testing each one against competitive evidence, and disclosing the sensitivity of the conclusion to each is the analytical core of the engagement. The following assumptions move the coverage ratio most materially for RV resort and campground projects:
SBA lenders reviewing a resort or campground under SOP 50 10 8 face a special-purpose property determination before they reach the cash-flow question. Because most RV parks and campgrounds have limited alternative use, the collateral analysis depends heavily on the income approach, which in turn depends on the quality of the feasibility study's revenue assumptions. The study must demonstrate 1.15x operating coverage and 1.00x global coverage across the underwriting window, with those ratios tested at the lender's note rate and at stressed rates. Seasonal cash-flow patterns require the study to show that off-season revenue — anchored by long-stay tenants and any cabin or glamping component — is sufficient to service debt in the weakest months, not only on an annual average basis.
USDA Business & Industry lenders applying RD Staff Instruction 5001 to a rural destination property focus on the same coverage floors but add a community-impact and job-creation analysis. Properties near national forests, Corps lakes, or state parks often qualify under the rural-destination definition even when the nearest town is small.
Conventional lenders typically require 1.20x coverage and place additional weight on the operator's experience, the lease-up timeline, and the exit-cap assumption embedded in any reversion value. For this asset class, conventional lenders frequently ask for a month-by-month cash-flow bridge showing that the property does not require a capital infusion during the ramp period. The feasibility study addresses each of these angles explicitly, with the sensitivity tables keyed to the specific coverage floor the lender has stated.
The engagement begins with a fixed fee quoted within one business day of the initial inquiry. No fee is contingent on the finding, and the quoted amount does not change if the analysis is more complex than anticipated. The fee structure reflects the scope described above — site-class build-up, competitive-supply fieldwork, monthly pro forma, sensitivity tables, and a bound narrative report — not a reduced-scope product dressed as a full study.
Standard delivery is ten to fifteen business days from the date a complete data room is received. The data room for an RV resort or campground engagement typically includes the site plan with site-class counts and hookup specifications, the proposed rate schedule, any existing operating statements if the property is a conversion or expansion, utility capacity documentation, and the lender's term sheet or program guidance. Rush delivery is available when a commitment deadline requires it.
Every engagement is published to a secure client portal where the linked Excel model remains live. Because no values are hardcoded, a lender or agency reviewer can change any input — occupancy, ADR, interest rate, expense ratio — and watch every downstream ratio recalculate in real time. This eliminates the back-and-forth that occurs when a reviewer wants to test an assumption the analyst did not anticipate.
The report closes with an explicit statement of conditions: the specific assumptions that must hold for the favorable determination to remain valid. If the site plan changes, the rate schedule shifts materially, or the capital structure is restructured after delivery, the firm will advise whether a supplement or revision is required. Determinations are not revised under pressure; if the evidence does not support a favorable finding, the report says so.
Both are land-lease formats and the two are frequently confused, but they are different asset classes and underwriting one from the other’s template produces the wrong answer. An RV park serves transient, seasonal or monthly recreational-vehicle use: occupancy turns over rapidly, revenue is seasonal and rate-driven, and the operating model is closer to hospitality than to housing. A manufactured housing community provides long-term residential occupancy in permanent dwellings, with tenancies measured in years, homes frequently owned by the residents, and stable non-seasonal site revenue. Absorption differs most of all — RV sites fill on booking velocity, while manufactured housing sites fill only as fast as homes can be physically placed. If the project is long-term residential, see the manufactured housing community feasibility study.
Wert-Berater quotes a fixed fee within one business day of the initial inquiry. The fee is not contingent on the finding and does not change if the analysis proves more involved than anticipated. Because scope varies with site complexity, hookup-tier count, and program requirements, the firm does not publish a standard rate; contact the firm directly for a same-day quote.
Standard delivery is ten to fifteen business days from receipt of a complete data room. Rush delivery is available when a lender commitment deadline or SBA closing schedule requires it. The data room for this asset class typically includes the site plan, proposed rate schedule, utility capacity documentation, any existing operating history, and the lender’s term sheet or program guidance.
Three factors complicate underwriting: revenue is highly seasonal, so annual averages can mask negative monthly cash flow that cannot service debt; the site-class mix creates multiple rate tiers that must each be supported by competitive evidence; and the long-stay segment, which stabilizes winter occupancy, simultaneously suppresses effective ADR. A credible study models all three dynamics explicitly rather than relying on a single blended occupancy assumption.
Yes, when the financing is an SBA 504 or 7(a) loan. SOP 50 10 8 requires an independent feasibility study for special-purpose properties, which most RV resorts and campgrounds are classified as, and sets minimum debt-service-coverage ratios of 1.15x operating and 1.00x global. Wert-Berater prepares all SBA engagements to those standards, with sensitivity tables keyed to the program’s coverage floors.
Yes. Rural destination properties — including campgrounds near national forests, Corps of Engineers lakes, and state parks — frequently qualify under USDA RD Staff Instruction 5001. Wert-Beraber prepares USDA B&I feasibility studies to the program’s coverage and community-impact requirements. The rural-destination definition can apply even when the nearest incorporated town is small, provided the recreational draw generates regional visitation.
At minimum: a site plan showing the number and class of sites (full-hookup pull-through, full-hookup back-in, water-and-electric, primitive, and any cabin or glamping units), hookup specifications, and any waterfront or premium-position designations. Utility capacity documentation and the proposed rate schedule are also required. If the plan is still in design, the firm can work from a preliminary layout and note conditions tied to the final configuration.
The consultant is engaged by the lender, CDC, or agency rather than the borrower, and tests whether a proposed or expanding property can fill its sites at a market-supported rate and service the proposed debt. The work covers trade-area and drive-time demand, highway capture and destination demand, a property-by-property competitive census, site-class revenue build-up, ancillary income, development cost, operating expenses, ten-year projections with monthly seasonality, ramp-up and stabilization, sensitivity testing, and debt-service coverage. The consultant issues a determination and states the conditions it rests on. The fee is fixed and is never contingent on the finding.
Occupancy is forecast as a monthly curve, not an annual average, because a property can be sold out for eleven weeks and effectively closed for four months and still report a mid-range annual figure. Peak season is bounded by the operating calendar of the recreational anchors and by observed sold-out dates across the competitive set, shoulder months are read from the discounting and availability competitors actually publish, and the off-season is set by whether the market sustains transient demand or whether monthly and seasonal tenants carry it. Occupancy is then resolved separately for each site class rather than applied uniformly.
Achieved daily rate is derived by site class from published competitor rate cards by season, adjusted for hookup level, site dimension and configuration, amenity depth, and location quality, then tested against a market-supported ceiling. The question is whether the trade area has ever supported the proposed rate, not whether the sponsor believes it should. Where the program assumes a rate above anything currently achieved locally, the study says so and identifies the specific amenity or site attribute the premium depends on. Weekly, monthly and seasonal rates are modeled at their own levels with utilities treated according to the actual metering arrangement.
Lenders and agency reviewers require an independent determination supported by a model they can re-run themselves. In practice that means a documented trade area and demand base, a competitive census with site counts and published rates rather than an impression of the market, occupancy and rate resolved by site class, ancillary revenue modeled on its own margins, a development budget tested against the loan request, ten-year projections carrying monthly seasonality and a defended stabilization path, debt-service coverage at the operating and global level, and sensitivity testing that identifies the occupancy and rate combination at which the project stops covering its debt.
Saturation is measured against demand evidence rather than a sites-per-capita rule. The competitive census establishes existing supply by site class and quality, sold-out behaviour across peak weekends and holiday periods establishes whether current inventory is clearing, and published discounting in shoulder months establishes whether operators are competing on rate to fill. Permitted and announced pipeline supply is then netted against the demand base, because a market that appears undersupplied at the study date can be oversupplied by the time a new property stabilizes. A market where competitors clear only on a handful of dates is not an undersupplied market.
The supportable site count falls out of the demand analysis rather than the site plan. Demand is estimated by segment — transient corridor stays, destination stays, weekly, monthly, and seasonal tenancies — and tested against existing and pipeline supply by site class, which yields the absorbable inventory at a defensible occupancy and rate. That figure is then constrained by what the parcel can physically deliver: utility capacity for water, sewer or septic and electrical service, site-plan efficiency, and the pull-through lengths and hookup levels the rig population requires. Where the proposed count exceeds what demand or utilities support, the study reports the supportable number and the conditions attaching to it.
Monthly and seasonal tenancies are modeled as committed occupancy that removes those sites from transient inventory, not as incremental demand layered on top of the nightly forecast. Counting a site as both a monthly tenancy and a peak-season transient stay is one of the more common ways a sponsor projection overstates revenue. Long-stay rates are set at their own market level, well below the nightly equivalent, with utilities treated according to whether sites are individually metered and billed. Because long-stay demand often carries the shoulder and off-season, the study also tests what happens to coverage if that tenant base does not materialize.
Yes, where the program proposes them. Cabins, park models, and glamping units are each modeled on their own rate, occupancy, cost-to-serve, and capital requirement rather than blended into site revenue, because their seasonality and margin profile differ from RV sites. Amenity economics are treated as a precondition of the rate assumption rather than as decoration: where a premium rate depends on a pool, clubhouse, waterfront access, or recreational programming, the study ties the rate to that capital and reports what happens to the forecast if the amenity program is value-engineered out during construction.
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Wert-Berater, Inc. is an independent provider of feasibility studies and other related services. The firm does not provide financing or equity investment advice, and does not arrange, broker, or place debt or equity capital of any kind.
All appraisal assignments are performed by Bruce E. Jones, MAI, ASA-GC, BCA, CMEA, a member of the Appraisal Institute since 2006, a staff member of Wert-Berater, Inc. and owner of Special Purpose Realty Valuation.