All Forum Posts by: Jacob Price

I can only speak to my area and experiences on this, but I have been to a few auctions and I can tell you that they definitely should be on your radar. I was at an auction on a rainy day in the cold in which, NO ONE, showed up but us... Let's just say it was a fantastic deal at 25k on a single family residence for my parents that we put about 40k into it and bank recently assessed it for 100k. 

I don't have any recommended sites, but I will just say, check them out! 

I typically look at it like this. Obviously it should be your goal to have cash-flow while house hacking as this would mean that you are likely to continue cash flowing when you move out and rent the unit you were occupying. However, consider this, let's say you are in a situation where you will not cash-flow and still have to pay a little bit toward the mortgage is it less than the market rent would be if you yourself were in fact the renter? If so, you are still winning as you are saving the money that would have been lost and at least paying some of it toward equity in a home, not only that, you will have someone else helping you pay down the mortgage.

I'd say if you can't find a deal and somehow you are forced into that situation, it is still better than renting or purchasing a single family residence that also wasn't a deal. 

Great to see other younger BP members! Sounds like you are already in a fantastic location and based on your profile it sounds like you have a fantastic resource that you could leverage to network from your internship.

If you check out http://research.realtor.com/reports/hottest-market... you will find where you are is already #9! Deals can be had anywhere, some may be harder to find, but Dallas, based off a lot of other BP members there, seems to be a fantastic location. There are other areas in Texas that are also doing very well for real estate investors. 

I would try to network out from your internship and invest full time near where you are. 

Best of luck!

@Account Closed, I wouldn't say the town is in decline, but rather not what it was before. Through my work I have ties to the economic director and they are continually expanding, but yes I couldn't agree more. One of the reasons I haven't stepped up for that area is due to economic uncertainty when it comes to the future. I know that appreciation will not come unless a lot of factories take back up there, but I don't foresee it going to a ghost town. So it's kind of a flatline in my opinion. 

After going to it, I don't think it would be something that I would want to get involved in. Part of the park is OK, but the other part tugged on my gut saying 'NOPE', but all in all, just thinking about the deal and going to look has been a learning experience for me.

To answer your question though, it seemed like the density was not very high, definitely not 7-10 homes per acre, but each home didn't have a lot of land either... So yeah, just extra land to pay on like you said. 

I also noticed some extra costs, such as the road would need to be repaired/re-paved within the next 2-3 years probably and the quality of the MH's were relatively low. 

Thanks for commenting and giving me some extra insight! 

I really enjoyed listening to the show you were on, it is one of the main reasons I got really interested in finding a mobile home park! It seems to be an area that a lot of other investors just don't consider, but that's not a bad thing for people that want in!

I agree with @Steve Bracero, @Scott Trench's Set For Life is a great way to start out and understand mindset. I would highly recommend house hacking if you don't have a lot of capital. I graduated December 2015, work now as a software engineer, and have done one deal, so I'm by no means an expert, but I will tell you how I got started if it helps! 

Read, read, read, listen to all the BP podcasts, and repeat. I strongly recommend What Every Real Estate Investor Needs to Know About Cash Flow, it really helped me to speak the 'lingo' and understand more from all the fantastic sources that you have access to here on BP. 

If you don't have a lot of capital and aren't going to house hack, try to partner up with someone, for me I learned as much as possible and eventually got my father to go in on a deal with me, perhaps gaining knowledge and discussing with family the possibilities and what it could do for them may be an option.

Everything everyone said above too, I have new things I need to try after reading these posts!

So after a good search, I've stumbled upon what seems to be a decent deal, but I wanted to get some more eyes and opinions as I've only done one deal and I have all of BiggerPockets at my fingertips with this post! After listening to a lot of podcast where mobile home parks get brought up, especially by @Brandon Turner, I was interested to see what I could find. I have not went and looked at this in person, but intend too today after I get off from work, but let's take a look at my 'deal'.

Background on the area: This town was like the center for all furniture making back in it's hay day prior to the factories moving out of country. It still is very much a blue collar working neighborhood, more rural, but not ghetto. I'd rate most multi families and this mobile home park as being in a B- type area. 

Land: 8 acres

Occupied Lots: 14 

Vacant Lots: 5

Total Lots: 19

Utilities: Tenant Pays

Avg MH lot rent:  $160

Financials *Provided by seller: 

Listed Price: 195k

Additional Information: Where I found the listing it shows that it had been listed since 2010, but just recently it had the price reduced to the price stated above. I'm not sure how much it was reduced or what it was listed for prior to that. The owner lives in Florida, probably retired if I had to guess. 

Looking at this my first thought is that the seller has assumed FULL occupancy for these numbers, however I will check to find out. Based off google street-view and satellite the area looks fine, but I will touch back after I visit today. 

At this point I will assume that the numbers listed are full occupancy in which that would be maxed out without raising rents etc. I'm not sure if the rents are extremely low or not, though glancing at parks nearby they seem slightly lower. I don't want to give a definitive, but it appears that it would be reasonable to raise rent. 

Once again assuming that the seller is calculating on full occupancy, I hope they aren't, but it would be $2,240 a month based off the avg rent and 14 occupied lots. Which is roughly 1.15% per month return based off the listed price.

Appears that it has $615 in taxes, but I presume that is added into the operating expense. 

Should this be a deal, how would I get financing?

Well I did my last deal as a partner with my father, and I discussed briefly about checking this out to see if it would be worth it, so should it be a deal then I would discuss with him and see what our options are. Most of my cash is depleted from the last deal a few months ago, but I'm open to suggestions about creative financing options that anyone has had success with for MH parks. I feel that I have read they are hard to get traditional financing for. Perhaps if it is a deal and I want to pursue it, since the owner has had  a hard time selling, I could get him to do a creative seller financing route.

Closing thoughts: I somewhat avoid this area as I view it as not up to par with what I'd like to be doing, but I have seen a lot of fantastic deals around here. I feel that a lot of investors avoid it as it is an older country area with a lot of blue collar, lower wage earning, locals. As my father said before 'Everyone has to live somewhere'. These locals aren't trashy, it's just a lower cost of living and such. Honestly I feel that it could be a great place to look for many more deals simply because there aren't a lot of investors grabbing up all the deals. Though... My practical side says that, if people aren't investing here, there's probably a reason. After looking at several deals in this area and running the numbers, I see that cash flow wise it is great with fantastic returns around here, but appreciation is going to be very limited. I don't see it going down more, but I don't foresee a 5% increase annually either. 

Let me know what you think and what you would look into! Thanks BP

If this should be under deal analysis, I apologize in advance. 

Awesome! Congrats @Joshua D. . I turned 22 about a month ago and got my first duplex earlier this year, I'm shooting for being set when I have my 30th birthday so it's encouraging to see people that were able to do it without making 100k a year! Keep on doing you and inspiring those that are looking up the mountain. 

I typically find that asking why will lead to a very natural progression into the information that can be drawn from an inspector. I try to ask specifically why they wrote down certain items and then that leads to me asking how that happens etc. I've been able to get a solid idea about the severity of things that aren't in my wheelhouse from just having a casual conversation with them about their notes. If you can, walk around with them, the one's I have used like to talk and will gladly explain their findings. Hope that helps!

Awesome episode! Wish I would have known about delayed financing about 4 months ago. 

If this group isn't still meeting we should start a new one!