Welcome back,
In today’s Mobile Home Investing Podcast episode #25, I’m happy to welcome active mobile home investor Luis to the co-hosting microphone. This young investor already has a decent portfolio of mobile home properties under his belt and monthly cash-flow from happy payment-buyers. These successes and lessons have only come from Luis’s daily effort, asking questions regularly, and hard work. He has now become a local go-to mobile home authority in his local market. In the podcast below you’ll hear how he’s focusing on creating cash-flow with his mobile home investments rather than selling for all-cash.
In the 48-minute podcast and video below we discuss past deals, learning-lessons, tips and pitfalls Luis has experienced along his journey from newbie to semi-experienced investor building his mobile home cash-flow portfolio.
Special video edition of the podcast below.
A special thank you to Luis for opening up his business and being so candid to help teach other real estate investors he’ll likely never know.
In this mobile home podcast episode below (at the bottom & above) John and Luis cover:
✔ 1:50 What type of real estate investing do you find more stressful?
✔ 3:31 How long to get in/out of your 1st mobile home deal?
✔ 5:26 Let’s discuss a recent deal.
✔ 5:50 Knowing your transaction numbers and statistic inside and out.
✔ 7:25 Paying $2,450 for a 2/1 mobile home.
✔ 11:33 Paying local mobile home park managers a finders fee.
✔ 12:40 Do local park managers like or dislike working with you?
✔ 13:22 Are you seeing local competition at local parks or with mobile home sellers?
✔ 15:39 How many different mobile home parks are you involved within?
✔ 16:01 How many hours do you invest per day?
✔ 18:19 How and why do you collect monthly payments the way you do?
✔ 21:48 Do you buy for cash or payments?
✔ 24:17 Do you hold insurance on your mobile home properties?
✔ 27:41 How much do you fix up each mobile home prior to reselling for cash or payments?
✔ 28:50 Do you give your buyers any home-warranty when selling?
✔ 29:29 What is your average Move-In fee from payment buyers?
✔ 32:12 Can you explain what it’s like working with your buyers?
✔ 37:50 Lesson #1
✔ 42:39 Lesson #2
✔ 43:03 Lesson #3
Bonus mobile home video with Luis
In the video below Luis walks us through a recent acquisition and quick flip. This smaller 1/1 built in the 1970s sold in less than 48 hours as it was being repaired. Luis was able to instantly add value by improving the property and sell via monthly payments to a happy and qualified end-user. In this video we briefly cover some of the numbers in this 1/1 mobile home investment.
Something that has always impressed me about Luis is that he is dependable and does what he says. If he is not able to complete something on schedule, he communicates that as well. This is a great quality to improve while actively dealing with mobile home buyers, sellers, other investors, other professionals, owners, parks and more.
In conclusion every mobile home is a unique property. Every mobile home seller and buyer is typically in a unique situation. There are typically no cookie-cutter approaches or purchase offers to make with mobile home sellers. It is best to fully understand exactly what you are making an offer on, buying, who you are working with, and the correct steps needed to safely move forward in any win-win transactions.
Listen to the John and Luis’s podcast here…
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
7 Comments
Tom Suleimen
May 25, 2018Hello John- I am now happy I found this website. Thank you both for this content. Do you know where I can get a copy of the spreedsheet Luis talked about in that video. Is it possible to get the one he uses to track his numbers? Also, is MD a good state for mobils? Thank you again my friend- Tom Suleimen
John Fedro
May 26, 2018Hi Tom,
Thank you for reaching out and connecting. Additionally, thank you for listening to the content above. I do hope that it was valuable to you in some way. There are a few spreadsheets that Luis and myself use however they are reserved for folks I am working with one-on-one with regards to mobile homes. With that said please know you can absolutely make a spreadsheet yourself using something as simple as excel. It is important to know income and expenses and to keep track of your time while making your spreadsheet. I know this does not exactly answer your question however I do hope that it helps. With regards to your Maryland question, yes you are in a decent area for this type of investing. Keep in mind that you will absolutely be traveling into Virginia, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware… Depending on how close you are to the states of course. I do hope that this all helps. This is of course just the tip of the iceberg and you will likely definitely have questions moving forward. As always, if you ever have any follow-up questions or concerns never hesitate to reach out any time. Keep in touch. All the best.
Talk soon,
John
Carlos
May 26, 2018Hello John. Very good report. Thank you. I have a question when working with managers do you always tell them youll give them money to help you find you customrers.
John Fedro
May 28, 2018Hi Carlos,
Thank you for reaching out and connecting. Additionally, thank you for following along. Your question about compensating park managers has a few different answers. Many park managers will not come out and ask you for compensation if they help you find a mobile home buyer or seller. However I always make sure to let the park manager sincerely know how grateful I am to work with them and be involved in their community. If they help me find a buyer or seller I let the park manager know I would not be able to do the deal without them it would like to say thank you in some way. I then asked the park manager how I can compensate them to let them know how thankful I am. Most park managers will say that they do not want any money and they are just happy to connect you with a buyer or seller. However some sellers will say that they do want money and I try to pay them what they ask, typically no more than $600 at most. However if a park manager does not say that they want any money I will still usually get them a $50 gift card. Keep in mind that from area to area there is a limit on how much you may pay a non-real estate professional for real estate related activities. For this reason you may have to write the fee up as a different type of fee in order to keep compliant and legal with your state. I hope this helps and makes sense. I hope I answered the question as well. As always, if you ever have any follow-up questions or concerns never hesitate to reach out any time.
Talk soon,
John
karl simms
June 6, 2018Hi John,
Thank you for taking the time to help and contribute to so many people asking questions. I wanted to run a situation past due. I’m working on selling my first mobile home. Is it possible that the park manager is driving people away from my home? I have a strong feeling that she is scaring people away from my property but have no way to prove this. Any help would be greatly appreciated. I deeply want to thank you again. Everything I have learned has been from this website and your videos here. However I’m definitely running up against some trouble that the manager seems to be giving me. Please advise when possible. Looking forward to selling this one and working with friendlier parks.
Cheers!
John Fedro
June 7, 2018Hi Karl,
Thank you for reaching out and connecting. Additionally, thank you for the kind words. I do hope that this article and videos have been somewhat helpful to thus far. Congratulations on getting into your first deal! Great job pulling the trigger on this potential opportunity. I hope this home turns out to be a big winner for you and is the first of many homes.
With that said, concerning your question about the park manager, the answer is definitely “it depends”. If you have a strong feeling that this park manager is scaring away or steering people away from your particular home for sale then your gut instincts may be correct. While this absolutely is not the majority and not normal, it is certainly not uncommon for sneaky and selfish park managers to steal potential buyers you bring into the community for their own purposes. Sometimes these managers are simply trying to sell their own properties, and sometimes they are trying to maliciously hurt you because they feel that you have wronged the community in some way. Other managers feel as if they are vigilantes and they may have a negative image towards you for some reason. I’m obviously unsure of what exactly is going on in there certainly are a few ways to move forward in these situations however I would absolutely advise you to increase your advertising and send as many potential buyers into the community to become approved as possible. If possible, you may want to do your own background checks first to make sure the people are well-qualified before sending them to the community. Make sure you know exactly what the mobile home park looks for in their background check and only send approved people into the park to get approved. Follow-up with these people to find out what has changed if they decide that they do not want the property any longer. Again, there are a few other options moving forward however the best choice is to placate the park manager and simply get a low-risk buyer into the mobile home as quick as possible. With that said I’m not sure if you’re trying to sell via monthly payments or all-cash which can definitely change things up as well as you can make the terms more attractive to get more people interested in the property. Also make sure you are advertising online and off-line in as many mediums as possible. There certainly a lot to discuss and there are many “if/then scenarios” however I do hope this helps and starts to point you in the right direction. Moving forward you will likely have follow-up questions and concerns. Never hesitate to reach out any time here or emailing me directly. All the best. Keep in touch.
Talk soon,
John
[…] his journey from mobile home newbie to semi-experienced investor building his cash-flow portfolio.MHI Lesson 25: Mobile Home Stories w/ Luis published first on […]
Leave A Response