What Is My Oregon RV Park Worth? 2025 Valuation Guide for Park Owners

Quick Definition

What is your Oregon RV park worth? The answer is: your park is worth what a qualified buyer will pay based on its documented NOI (net operating income) and the applicable cap rate for your location and condition.

There is no shortcut around this math. Land value, replacement cost, and "what the market is doing" are secondary. The formula is simple: NOI ÷ cap rate = value.

If you don't know your park's NOI and the market cap rate for your area, you don't know what your park is worth. Everything else in valuation—seasonal revenue patterns, deferred maintenance, your personal management effort, occupancy rates—matters only insofar as it affects one of those two numbers.

This guide explains how to calculate both, and what factors in your specific Oregon park move the number up or down. Whether you're thinking about selling, refinancing, or just want to understand your asset's actual market value, you need these two inputs. You can estimate them yourself in an afternoon. This is not hard math—it's important math.

Read Oregon RV Parks for a broader look at the Oregon market landscape.

TL;DR

• Your park is worth its NOI divided by the local market cap rate — that's the formula, and everything else follows from it
• If you manage the park yourself without documented payroll, buyers will deduct 8–12% of gross revenue as an implied management cost before making their offer — this is the most common reason seller expectations don't match buyer offers
• Oregon coastal parks: cap rates 7–9% → value roughly 11–14x NOI; Oregon inland parks: cap rates 9–12% → value roughly 8–11x NOI
• Deferred maintenance reduces your value at 1.5–2.5x the repair cost — fix problems before selling or price them transparently
• Clean 3-year financials that match your tax returns add value by accelerating due diligence and eliminating risk discounts
• Most Oregon RV park owners overestimate their park's value by 20–40% at first assessment — not because they're wrong about their park's quality, but because they don't account for management normalization and deferred maintenance adjustments
• To get an accurate value: start with your gross revenue, subtract all documented operating expenses including market-rate management, and divide by the appropriate regional cap rate

How to Self-Calculate Your Park's Value

You can estimate your park's value in five steps. This is exactly what a professional appraiser will do, except they'll charge $8,000–$15,000 for the work. You have the data; the process is straightforward.

Step 1 — Calculate Gross Revenue

Add up all site rental income by type: full hookup, water/electric, dry camping, tent camping. Then add seasonal and annual site fees, dump station income, laundry, camp store, and any cabin or amenity rentals. Use trailing twelve months (TTM) of actual collected revenue for accuracy. This matters: don't average the last three years if one of those years was COVID. Use the most recent 12-month period.

Document each revenue category separately. This is what buyers will want to see. "We do $400,000 a year" is not the same as showing them $440,000 in site rentals, $8,000 in laundry, $6,000 in dump fees, and $4,000 in miscellaneous. Transparency accelerates deals.

Step 2 — Subtract Documented Operating Expenses

Every actual expense that keeps the park running goes here: property taxes, insurance (liability and property), utilities (electric, water, sewer/septic), labor (documented payroll only — don't count your own time yet), maintenance and repairs (actual spend, not estimates), marketing and advertising, reservation platform fees, office expenses, and legal/accounting.

Do NOT include mortgage payments or depreciation. These are financing and tax decisions, not operational costs. Buyers care about the park's ability to generate cash, independent of how you financed it or structured your tax filing.

Step 3 — Add Management Cost Normalization

This is the single most important adjustment in Oregon park valuations, and it's the reason most owner self-estimates are too high.

If you manage the park yourself, add 8–12% of gross revenue back as an operating expense. This represents what a buyer will assume they'll have to pay a manager to replace you.

Example: $350,000 gross revenue × 10% = $35,000 implied management cost. Your NOI drops by $35,000 compared to what you may have calculated when you only subtracted actual expenses. If your park's operating expenses were 65% of revenue, your initial calculation showed $122,500 NOI. After management normalization, it's $87,500. That's a $35,000 difference—and it directly reduces your valuation by $350,000 to $525,000, depending on your cap rate.

See RV Park Valuation Oregon for a detailed walkthrough of this calculation with real numbers.

Step 4 — Identify Your Regional Cap Rate

Cap rates for Oregon parks vary by location and condition:

• Oregon coast: 7–9%
• Portland metro / Columbia River Gorge: 7–9%
• Willamette Valley / Southern Oregon: 9–11%
• Eastern Oregon / rural inland: 10–13%
• Bend metro: 8–10%

Your specific cap rate depends on your location's proximity to demand (Portland, Bend, coast), park condition and occupancy profile, and whether you operate year-round or seasonally.

Step 5 — Calculate Value

NOI ÷ Cap Rate = Value

Example 1: $120,000 NOI ÷ 0.095 (9.5% cap rate) = $1.26M. This is your preliminary valuation.

Example 2: Same $120,000 NOI, but coastal park with 8% cap rate: $120,000 ÷ 0.08 = $1.5M. Same income, different location, $240,000 higher value.

That's the entire calculation. You now have a defensible, market-based valuation.

Why Oregon Park Owners Often Overestimate Their Value

Most Oregon RV park owners overestimate their park's value by 20–40% at first assessment. Not because they're wrong about their park's quality or their own operational skill. Because they don't account for two standard buyer adjustments: management normalization and deferred maintenance.

Management Normalization Gap

This is the most common cause of valuation misalignment between sellers and buyers.

An owner operates the park without salary, sees a strong bottom line, and assumes a buyer will see the same cash flow. A buyer sees a park that requires 40–60 hours per week of on-site management and plans to hire someone. The $35,000–$48,000 management cost adjustment on a $400,000 gross revenue park is not optional—it's built into every professional acquisition offer.

If your NOI looks great but only because you're working for free, your park is worth less than you think by exactly the amount of work you're donating. This isn't a negotiation point. It's not an opinion. It's how commercial real estate works.

Deferred Maintenance Blindspot

Owners live with their park's condition gradually over years. The 15-year-old septic system that "works fine," the electrical panel that's "always been 30-amp," the gravel road that "just needs grading"—you're accustomed to them. Buyers see deferred liabilities.

A Phase I environmental and structural estimate of your deferred maintenance, priced objectively by a third party, often reveals $100,000–$300,000 in deferred items. Buyers price these discoveries at 1.5–2.5x the repair cost, factored into their valuation. A $120,000 septic replacement that you've been deferring becomes a $180,000–$300,000 valuation reduction.

See What Buyers Want Oregon for how professional buyers price these discoveries and why transparency accelerates deals.

Gross Revenue vs. NOI Confusion

Some owners calculate value based on gross revenue multiples rather than NOI multiples. "The park does $400,000 a year" is not the same as "the park has $130,000 in NOI." Operating expense ratios vary widely—50–70% of gross revenue—and the same gross revenue can produce very different NOI depending on expenses.

Value is always calculated on NOI, not gross. A $400,000 park with 65% expenses yields $140,000 NOI. A $400,000 park with 50% expenses yields $200,000 NOI. Same revenue, $60,000 difference in NOI, $600,000–$900,000 difference in valuation.

Peak Occupancy Focus

A park that runs 95% occupancy in July and August looks exceptional in peak-season marketing materials. Buyers don't value peak occupancy—they value annual NOI.

A 60-day peak season at full occupancy may not support the year-round infrastructure cost. When annual NOI is calculated correctly, many seasonal parks perform at 9–11% cap rates rather than the 7–8% the owner hoped for.

Land Value Misapplication

Some owners believe their 5 acres of coastal land is worth $2M as raw land, and therefore the park should sell for $2M+. Buyers purchase parks on income capitalization, not land value.

Unless the land is legitimately more valuable as an alternative use—residential development, commercial rezoning, hospitality conversion—the park's value is determined by its income, not the dirt beneath it. A park doing $120,000 NOI on expensive coastal land is worth less than a park doing $200,000 NOI on inland gravel, if the buyer's only intention is to operate it as an RV park.

Oregon-Specific Factors That Move Your Value

Within Oregon's varied geography, several location and operational factors compress or expand cap rates—and directly impact your valuation.

Location on the Cap Rate Spectrum

Being one hour closer to Portland on US-101 can compress cap rates by 0.5–1%. Being 10 miles from an I-5 interchange rather than 2 miles can add 1% to your cap rate. Location factors within Oregon's geography have real dollar impacts.

Coast parks near Lincoln City (2.5 hours from Portland) trade at 7–8% cap rates. Coast parks near Bandon (3.5 hours from Portland, closer to California) trade at 8.5–10%. Same region, same industry, but proximity to the largest metropolitan area in the state compresses cap rates meaningfully.

Crater Lake Proximity (Southern Oregon)

Parks within 75 miles of Crater Lake's south entrance benefit from documented overflow demand from Mazama Campground's 214-site limitation. During peak season (July–September), Mazama fills completely and overflow campers search the surrounding region. This proximity translates to 1–2% cap rate compression compared to southern Oregon parks without this proximity advantage.

If you're within 75 miles of Crater Lake south entrance, expect better year-round occupancy and stronger seasonal revenue than comparable parks in rural southern Oregon.

Bend/Central Oregon Tourism Growth

Bend's outdoor recreation tourism has grown 8–12% annually for the past decade. Parks within 30 minutes of Bend's downtown benefit from this growth premium. Cap rates for Bend-adjacent parks have compressed substantially—from 11–12% in 2018 to 8–10% in 2025.

Existing park owners in Bend metro benefit from this compression directly. If you own a Bend-area park, your valuation has likely increased 40–60% in the past seven years on the same NOI, purely from this market compression.

Seasonal Concentration Adjustment

A purely seasonal park (open June–September only, closed off-season) trades at higher cap rates than year-round parks, all else equal. Buyers see seasonal parks as riskier because 100% of revenue is concentrated in a 120-day window, and there's no cash flow buffer.

If your park is seasonal, buyers will model a higher risk premium into their required return. Converting to year-round operations—or demonstrating shoulder-season occupancy and winter weekday demand—directly compresses cap rates and increases value. See RV Parks for Sale Oregon for Oregon transaction examples and seasonal park adjustments.

Water Rights (Eastern Oregon)

In eastern Oregon and the Klamath Basin, documented senior water rights add genuine value to parks with well or spring water systems. Buyers pay attention to water rights because water availability is a business-continuity issue in drought years.

A park with documented senior water rights is more valuable than an identical park with junior rights or unconfirmed supply. In the Klamath Basin and eastern Oregon high desert, water rights are not theoretical—they directly affect operational sustainability in low-precipitation years.

Cost Math

Here's a real example for a coastal Oregon park:

• Gross revenue: $440,000
• Documented operating expenses: $265,000 (utilities, insurance, maintenance, property tax, reservation fees)
• Raw NOI (before normalization): $175,000
• Management normalization (10% of $440K): $44,000
• Adjusted NOI: $131,000
• Regional cap rate (central coast): 8.5%
• Value: $131,000 ÷ 0.085 = $1.54M

Now, what if the owner calculates without management normalization (the common mistake)?

• Raw NOI: $175,000
• Regional cap rate: 8.5%
• Value: $175,000 ÷ 0.085 = $2.06M

That's a $520,000 overestimate—and it explains exactly why the first three buyer offers come in 25% lower than the owner's expectation. The owner calculated one way. The buyer calculated the other way. Both are using the same formula; they're just adjusting the NOI input differently.

Oregon RV Park Valuation: What Your Park Is Worth At a Glance

Frequently Asked Questions

Why does my park feel worth more than the formula says?

You're living inside the park and understanding its income from an operator's perspective. You may not be accounting for two things: (1) management normalization (if you're not paying yourself a salary, a buyer will assume the cost), and (2) deferred maintenance (issues you've adapted to over years that a buyer sees as capital liabilities). Run your numbers through the management normalization and deferred maintenance adjustment, and the formula will feel less surprising.

What does management normalization mean in actual dollars?

It means 8–12% of your gross revenue, applied as an operating expense you didn't explicitly calculate. A $400,000 gross revenue park = $32,000–$48,000 in implied management cost. That's taken directly from your NOI before valuation. If you were showing $120,000 NOI before adjustment, you're showing $72,000–$88,000 after. Same park, same actual cash, very different valuation.

Can I get more than my NOI calculation suggests?

Only if one of two things changes: (1) your park's NOI increases (through revenue growth or expense reduction), or (2) the market cap rate for your location compresses (fewer parks on market, stronger demand, operational improvements across the region). The formula doesn't move. The inputs do. If a buyer sees legitimate competitive advantage in your park—location, occupancy, brand reputation—that may compress the cap rate by 0.5–1%, increasing valuation by 6–12%. But the starting point is still the formula.

How do I improve my park's value before selling?

Three levers: (1) increase NOI by raising site rates (if market supports it) or reducing expenses; (2) eliminate deferred maintenance items, or price them transparently; (3) document your financials cleanly over 3 years so buyers see lower risk and apply a smaller discount. A park with clean 3-year financials that match tax returns sells for 5–10% more than the same park with messy books—because buyers see lower due diligence risk.

What is my park worth if I just renovated it?

The value of the renovation is zero until it generates additional NOI. If you spent $100,000 renovating sites, and that renovation allows you to raise rates by $15/month per site, and you have 40 sites, that's an additional $7,200/year in revenue. At an 8% cap rate, the renovation is worth $90,000 in value—you lost $10,000 on the deal. Renovations create value only if they enable price increases or occupancy increases that flow through to NOI. Update your financials; recalculate NOI; then recalculate value.

Why are coastal parks worth more per dollar of NOI?

Because coastal parks have lower cap rates—meaning buyers are willing to accept lower returns (7–8% instead of 10–12%) because of location desirability, weather, occupancy stability, and lower-risk profile. A $100,000 NOI coastal park is worth $1.25–1.43M. The same $100,000 NOI rural eastern Oregon park is worth $833K–$1.0M. Same income; different location; $420,000 difference in value. Buyers explicitly price location into cap rates.

Does my land value count separately?

Not if the land's only functional use is as an RV park. Land value is embedded in the cap rate and the valuation formula. If your 5 acres could genuinely be rezoned and sold for $2M as commercial or residential land, then a buyer might value the land separately and the park's income separately. But this requires a legitimate alternative use with actual zoning potential or demand. For 95% of Oregon RV parks, the land is worth only what an RV park buyer will pay for it—which is determined by NOI ÷ cap rate.

How much does deferred maintenance really hurt?

1.5–2.5x the repair cost. If your septic system needs a $100,000 replacement that you've deferred, buyers price that as a $150,000–$250,000 valuation reduction (not a $100,000 reduction). The multiplier accounts for business interruption risk, buyer's cost of capital, and the uncertainty of old estimates. A $200,000 deferred maintenance list becomes a $300,000–$500,000 valuation hit. Get Phase I estimates before selling. It's $3,000–$5,000 in appraisal costs now, versus $300,000+ in valuation loss later.

Can I hire someone to tell me my park's value?

Yes—an appraiser, usually. Expect to pay $8,000–$15,000 for a professional appraisal that lenders and serious buyers will accept. You can also request preliminary valuations from park brokers or acquisitions firms (like rv-parks.org) for free or low-cost. A preliminary valuation is not an appraisal; it's an informed estimate. A full appraisal is defensible in court and in financing. If you're seriously considering selling, get a full appraisal. If you're just exploring, a preliminary valuation is faster and cheaper.

How long does a preliminary valuation take?

If you have 3 years of clean financials and basic park data (location, sites, occupancy, NOI), a preliminary valuation takes 48 hours. If financials are scattered across multiple years, not well-organized, or mixed with personal expenses, allow a week. Brokers and acquisition firms will usually provide a range (e.g., $1.2M–$1.4M) within 48 hours of receiving your data, then refine with follow-up questions. Full appraisals take 2–4 weeks.

Want to Find Out What Your Oregon Park Is Actually Worth?

rv-parks.org provides confidential preliminary valuations for Oregon RV parks—no obligation, no listing required, no broker fee.

Send your park location, site count, and a rough sense of your annual gross revenue to jenna@rv-parks.org. We'll provide a preliminary valuation range within 48 hours, along with an honest assessment of what would move that number up.

Jenna Reed
Director of Acquisitions
rv-parks.org

Visit /sell to learn more about our acquisition process and how we work with park owners.