All Forum Posts by: Bill Neves

@Phillip Huber

Hi Phillip

I live in Vancouver, WA and invest in mobile homes. 

Sounds like a good path you're on. Yell if you have any questions.

Have fun!

@Stephen Nava @Jabriel Porter

That's exactly why I said "cash and 'short term' cash flow".

Traditional investors (and I was one for years) will tell you they depreciate, not real property, stay away, run don't walk, etc.

Stick built houses and manufactured homes are 2 different business models completely.

Appreciation is for buy and hold. If you sell quickly appreciation doesn't come into play.

Appreciation and Depreciation is interesting with mobile homes. If you look at NADA for book value or bank appraisals, it is counter intuitive. 

We sell to buyers who want affordable housing at a good price. So the book 'value' has little to do with sales prices. Meaning you can sell for much more than book value.

A recent article showed that cash is still king with stick builts also. And currently appraisals are slow and conservative compared to sales prices.

If you keep them in good shape, clean and painted they will sell for much more than one would think. If you rent or lease that can be a crap shoot.

ROI has been incredible. Especially when compared to stick builts, over time.

We've had 300% on many deals, up to over 1000% annual ROI.

You can get the same net profit as stick built deals many times but with much less money in, compared to stick built.

We don't look at them for that.

When the housing (stick built) market Is strong, mobile homes still sell.
When the market is soft, they sell better. Affordable housing.

They are just a different business model and always unfairly compared to a different market.

However, please do NOT tell stick built investors about mobile homes. We don't want them all moving over and giving us too much competition. 

Haha!

Good luck!

@Jabriel Porter

Don't want to make you schizophrenic but...

We have done most of our mobile home deals in parks. Why?

We shoot for affordable housing. We like to keep the prices down for us going in and our end buyers when sold. We look at our business for cash and 'short term' cash flow. 

Long term cash flow from rentals is great. But most landlords do not make what they think they will initially. I've owned lots of stick built rentals.

When we've dealt with mobiles on land, the prices are much higher and harder to finance.

Again this is counter to a lot of investors.

Appraisals are slow and sales prices may not agree with appraisals. So you have to drop the price or finance yourself. When one sells in a park, it usually sells for cash. No appraisal needed.

Just a thought...!

@Jabriel Porter

Hello - check out the mobile/manufactured home areas on this blog. Dodd Frank posts too in case you finance any deals.

There are several of us on this blog who do mobile homes as a business. So yes, to us it makes sense financially. Other investors will warn to stay away. So do some due diligence before jumping in.

There are parks in which you can rent or lease. Many parks require residents to own the unit or be buying it. Talk to park managers/owners to find out how their park works. They may also refer deals to you.

Some of the deals we've done are cash sales. Some have been on payments. There are some Dodd-Frank rules that restrict how that is done. The news lately has pointed toward most or all of those rules going away soon.

Good luck and yell if you have questions.

@Michael Giuffre

Hello. Sounds like a good potential deal. You didn't specify the years.

We prefer newer but have redone several older mobile homes. Although I don't recommend it for the faint of heart, we've even done 2 that were 1968. Again not recommended.

Paint can make most places look and smell (?) much better. We do new flooring, appliances, sinks, fixtures, tubs, tile backslash, windows, etc. If these items are good we leave them alone.

You can add value and several years to older homes with a few, to several $ thousand invested.

Here's a couple that we did, 1968 vintage I mentioned. We put $3500 in one and $3k in the other. Mostly cosmetic. Tile backslash to match the lovely avocado green kitchen in the 2nd pic. Laminate and carpet in the bottom 2 pics. Came out nice huh?

Good luck and have fun!

@Maynhia Stott 

We use Foremost which is a subsidiary of Farmers for mobile home insurance. We have a landlord policy if financed. It only covers the dwelling not personal belongings.

Have the tenant buyers get renters insurance for their personal property. 

@John Arendsen I agree, if it has a bit of mold, not too bad, maybe.
A whole ceiling.... pass!

Save a headache.

I have worked with @John Fedro and have his program.

Great guy, professional and very helpful.

His program is highly recommended.

@Dan Mead

Mobile home investing is more for cash and cash flow than traditional investing. They don't have the same long term 'value' that a stick built house has.

Not sure which podcast John was on. 

Lonnie Scruggs was the granddaddy of mobile home investing. He was kind sarcastic and would ask if you can make $10k profit on $10k into a deal do you need a big calculator or will a small one do? He said those numbers were "good enough!"

I've seen investors tie up $200k or more, doing a flip to make $15k. You can do that in mobile homes with $10-15k involved. Much less exposure.

You can use NADA and local comps for values. 

We do mostly mobile in parks, although there are folks on this forum also who say absolutely never do that. 

Different business models for different people.

@Alejandro Flores

You can check the NADA (like Kelly Blue Book for cars) values. You can ask local realtors for comps. You didn't mention if it was on land attached to land or solo in a park or community. Makes a LOT of difference. 

If a park, you can check with residents and the park manager to get recent values.

@Account Closed

Here is a quick and dirty walk thru form that will give you most of the items that need repair. I've had 3 pagers but tried to keep this to one page. These are rough estimates on cost so get bids from your contractor. 

I can't attach a file so did a screen shot.

Enjoy!