Starting out on a great adventure: My first forays into Mobile Homes!

I'll start out with a little about me:

I am 25 years old, living in Kalamazoo, MI and I've recently been introduced to the idea of investing in real estate. My parents have had my childhood home rented out since 2010, but the thought that it was an investment was never something I thought about. Mostly because, due to the bubble burst, my parents owed more on the house than they could sell it for and paid more per month than they could rent it for. They decided to keep it and only take a minimal loss on it though, and now it is close to turning a profit for them. My dad has really pushed to get more into real estate investing and loves BiggerPockets. He now has 6+ units across AZ, MI, and PA and loves every minute of it.

That was a rather long way of saying how lucky I am to have someone close to encourage me in my journey into investing. Someone who is just far enough ahead of me in the process that I can learn tons from him while not feeling overwhelmed by how far I have to go to see tangible results. The property he owns in MI is one that I am helping him rehab and will help manage once that process is completed, so I am getting some good hands-on experience before I strike out on my own.

I am very excited to begin this journey and I welcome you to come along with me. I will be chronicling my experiences here to inform and hopefully help other people avoid mistakes that I make along the way.

So now that I have decided to invest, what do I do to get started?

As a new investor, there are so many ways I can go. Do I want to do what all of the gurus say to do (wholesaling)? Do I want to follow my parents into the land of rental properties (both SFR and MFR)? How about tax deeds or notes? Fix and flips?

None. I'm heading down a path that seems to be one of the less popular routes in real estate investing. I will be jumping into Mobile/manufactured homes. I am involved in a MFR with my parents in town and while its potential cash flow is rather appealing, I don't think it's the right move for me right now due to the money I have available combined with the risk I am comfortable with.

I have started looking (along with a couple of partners) at mobile homes both on land and in parks. I know in our area there are not as many mobile homes on land due to some of the regulations in the county, but the counties aren't so big that we can't go to a neighboring county if we want to work with land. Right now, we're looking at parks in our city and trying to figure out what parks are quality parks, what parks will be willing to work with investors, what kind of regulations there are about buying and selling mobile homes. So much to learn. We are still in the early stages, but we're hoping to jump into it and get our first home by the end of the year so that we can get some experience and really get this investing kick started.

I know that there will be many hard days ahead and it's entirely possible that we will fail miserably on our very first deal. Thankfully, my partners and I are dedicated to persevering through the bumps and bruises that may come so that we can realize our dreams of retiring purely off of the passive income created from real estate.

As I've heard it said:
"In order to not make mistakes, you need experience; however, gaining experience requires making mistakes."

Thanks for coming along on my journey with me!

Curtis