Joint Ventures with Manufactured Home Communities for Profits

A unique quality to factory built housing is that these homes can simply be swapped out for newer models whenever the owner gets bored of his or her interior surroundings. This “trading up” to an updated model manufactured home leaves many owners with an extremely undervalued extra home for sale. Many times these unwanted manufactured homes can be purchased for pennies on the dollar of what they originally cost new.

This can be an amazing opportunity for clever and willing investors to profit big.

In 2006 I struck an agreement with a local park owner to pay for all my home transportation costs (taxes, permits, setup, inspection, everything) to relocate an approved manufactured home of mine into the park. Manufactured housing communities are a business and I was an up and coming player in their business. I made this deal in another park with different owners and sweetened the pot with discounted lot rent fees my first 2 months.

Before making these deals with the parks I had already experienced finding manufactured home sellers in need of buyers that would remove the home from its current location once bought; at this time in my career I had no place to put these inexpensive and sometimes FREE homes.

In order to secure this deal with each park I had to agree to keep each home in the park for a minimum of 8 years from the move-in date. This was a small concession because as an investor I had planned to instantly resell these manufactured homes on payments.

When I made these deals there was no written agreement, just a business card and instructions to call directly when I had my first home for the park. This business relationship was mutually beneficial but the park owner was taking the First risk by paying out up to $6,500 in permitting and transporting costs while I had little to no money invested in the deal.

Benefits to Investors: We do what we do best; find and purchase great manufactured homes for rock bottom prices then resell the homes on payments for years to come. Once the manufactured home is purchased, hire an all-in-one transport company to handle every phase of the permitting and moving process. The company I use charges $4,400 per single-wide and I do nothing but sign a paper and the home is completely taken down, moved, and reassembled at the park.

Benefits to the Community: The park increases in value with a clean home addition to the community plus the added revenue for at least 8 years to come.

Summary: If you are already actively investing in manufactured homes begin looking at parks as allies instead of enemies. If you are interested in starting to invest in manufactured homes look to begin your relationship with any park by investing in homes already located in the community on sale by owners or abandoned homes sold by the park itself.

Stay away from the crowds of investors while investing.

Photo: jjkadaba69

Note By BiggerPockets: These are opinions written by the author and do not necessarily represent the opinions of BiggerPockets.