Mobile Homes - Rent or Flip?

[John Hall]

So I've made a few calls today on some MHs in the area, I can pick up 3 now for a total of 10,000. I would imagine I could get them all for around 7k.

the lot rent on these range from 3-600, the CF from these would be 2-300 each. I can sustain the lot rent on them if they wouldn't rent for a while.

I do realize that MHs are cheap, and can run into a lot of problems, this isn't really an area I am familiar with. So my question would be:

Should I rent them out?
It is tempting, my CoC would be 100% after just one year because so little money goes into purchasing the mobile home.

I can go into more detail on the property, how much it would rent for, all that stuff - I just figured you wanted the quick and dirty.

I'm also more hesitant to fix/flip because I don't know the market on selling MHs as well as I should, but I do know that I can get something rented relatively quickly (2-3 weeks), so I feel I'm covering my bottom here. I'm going to start driving around and calling parks this week, to get the feel for it.

I'm more on the side of buying one and just seeing what I learn in the process, but would like some insight from someone that has been through Mobile home renting/flipping. Worse case I see losing a few thousand in my trial/error.

Also, if you've done any of this in the past/present and have any horror stories, I'd love to hear those as well.

Looking at the other posts on this subject doing owner financing to sell them instead of flipping looks like another option as well.

Thanks,
John

[Joshua McGowan]

I have a small 10 unit park here in Ardmore, OK. I created the park, own the trailers and have a not as fortunate aunt of mine passively manage it, she's a neat freak and it works out great! But know I am getting off topic... My scenario looks likes this:

Total cost of investment (start-up) $345,000

Total Monthly Income $7,100

Operational Expense: $(2,575)

Early Pay Rent Incentives $(500)

Gross Monthly Profit: $4,025

Cost of Manager: ($1100)

Earnings before dep. $2,925

(included in my operations is a $50 per unit retained savings fee that I save in an account to help subsidize the cost of unit replacement scheduled @ 7 yrs.)

My model works for me, however, the average cost per unit was $22,000 with transport and setup. Newer 3bd 2bth models picked up at a dealer's auction all at once just north of Houston.