Hi
Sorry about the late reply, work, long weekend ....
Caravan Parks are in my view a business - for an owner manager they are very much 24/7. You can lease parks or own the freehold and operate it or a combination of these. You could also run them under management but need to find good people who will work 24/7 for fairly low pay and there are some IR issues around employing / contracting managers. There are many stories of managers employed under the award and who later sued owners for every bit of overtime they ever did.
Parks are valued on their net operating profit at different rates depending on location - coastal or inland (NSW info - you would need to check on other states). Coastal parks because of their "perceived" lifestyle advantages (If you can get them - while everyone is on the beach in summer you'll be busy cleaning the amenities!) are valued at between 10 and 12 % and inland parks from about 15 - 18% of net operating profit.
Of course there are all the usual tenant issues to deal with (different legislation in NSW to residential), accreditation, ratings and local government rules.
If you look at some of the returns on individual vans they can be incredible - we used to have several old vans valued at about $1000 each that returned about $70 per week at 80% occupancy! Tenants were a bit dodgy though.
The best guests though are generally those paying the least - those with their own vans who pay for a powered site. The baby boomers have hit the road and travelling around for months sometimes years on end.
You could invest in a freehold and lease the business or perhaps invest with someone as a silent partner if you don't want to do the hard work - I can't give you the leasehold details however there are several good caravan park brokers who deal in parks who have all the financial information.
We also found it difficult to refinance our park although we had never defaulted and had about 50% equity. So that may be an issue.
The CCIA NSW may also be a good starting point.
If you have specific questions I'd be happy to have a go at answering them.
Cathy