Welcome back,
In today’s 42-minute Mobile Home Investing Podcast episode #33 I’m honored and so proud to introduce you to active Mobile Home Formula investor, Patricia to the co-hosting microphone. In a short period of time Patricia has already gained an incredible amount of market knowledge, thicker skin, 20+ individual mobile homes cash-flowing in her portfolio, and 10+ mobile home wholesales.
Over the last 2 years Patricia, her husband, and John have been working to build her name, portfolio, and reputation in her local mobile home investing market. In today’s podcast we talk about what is working and not working today. Learn from our mistakes on today’s video and Podcast below.
Special Thanks to Patricia for giving value to other mobile home investors she’ll likely never meet.
Becoming a 1-Stop-Shop
If you are not helping local mobile home parks, mobile home sellers, and buyers than someone else is solving their needs. As active investors we try to go the extra mile to help solve mobile home problems of local buyers and sellers, so they may move on with their lives. The more people we help, the more value we create, the more profit we earn.
✔ When dealing with sellers: It is our job as active mobile home investors to truly understand a seller’s situation, wants, and needs moving forward. In addition to making offers to purchase mobile homes you may also have to help a seller find a new home to live, hire movers, resolve title or deed issues, revolve hidden liens or tax issues, and many other unique or not-so-unique situations. This is part of the reason sellers choose to work with you.
✔ When dealing with buyers: It is our job as active mobile home investors to deal with quality buyers that are serious and have the ability to close. When dealing with buyers it may be in your best interest to insist the buyers be proactive to provide all paperwork and references you ask for in a timely manner prior to closing or leasing.
✔ When dealing with parks: It is our job as active mobile home investors to increase local park revenues, make park managers’ lives easier, and work in as many win-win ways as possible. As an active mobile home investor you may wish to add mobile homes to local communities, remove unwanted homes from the park, sell properties to these communities, repair and resell homes within the park, and/or more. The more ways in which you may help, the more valuable you may become.
Genuinely caring about the well-being of buyers, sellers, park-owners, etc. may naturally help encourage you to go the extra mile when trying to solve problems and overcome challenges when helping others. Often times the folks we help have few other options or may be naïve/unsure about their situations.
Pro Tip: Be willing to solve the problems/challenges that other investors are not willing to solve.
Inside a 55+ age-restricted park (senior park)
If a mobile home park does not allow buyers or residents under the age of 40, 45, 50, 55, 60, 65, or any other age it is obviously eliminating a certain segment of your potential buyer pool. In some areas of the country this matters, and in other areas it does not. In certain areas around the country there is a fairly steady demand from senior buyers to be in certain/specific desirable parks/communities/locations. Additionally, in certain areas/states around Fall/Spring will see large influxes of seniors moving from northern states to southern states, and vice a versa to avoid unpleasant temperatures.
Author’s Note: In my older videos I have expressed a public dislike for mobile homes inside senior communities. This feeling has absolutely changed. I’ve since come to understand that some mobile homes inside senior parks can absolutely be desirable by certain buyers for the right prices/terms. However if you are just starting your mobile home investing career I would encourage you to invest within all-ages parks for your first 3-5 deals, then start weighing your options with regards to senior park homes more closely. With that said there are various safeguards you will want to try to implement to reduce headaches, holding costs, and time while reselling. These safeguards include…
✔ Truly understanding your local market and your potential buyers.
✔ Purchasing the correct mobile homes in desirable communities at the right time.
✔ Negotiating free/discounted lot rent if purchasing a mobile home directly from a park.
Disclaimer: If you are under the age required to be approved to live in the community, this may or may not be a deal breaker. Based on experience, roughly 50% of senior mobile home communities around the country will work with an investor they know is underage when properly approached and befriended. This means that roughly 50% of senior mobile home parks will be willing to have you purchase and resell a mobile home within their community as long as they understand you will not be living in the home but will have a park-approved buyer purchasing the home in the very near future. With that said there is still the other 50% of the senior mobile home communities. These communities will perfectly understand your ambition and goals however they will not allow you to work within the park simply due to your age. These parks may not even work with you with an age-approved cosigner.
Related video: Investing in individual mobile homes inside Senior 55+ Mobile Home Parks
In the podcast episode below John and Patricia cover:
✔ 0:40 How Patricia started?
✔ 5:05 Cash needed to get started?
✔ 6:24 Patricia’s 1st deal.
✔ 9:14 How long until your 1st deal?
✔ 12:06 Patricia’s 2nd deal.
✔ 14:24 Handyman trouble.
✔ 19:14 Handyman advice.
✔ 21:39 Buying from park managers
✔ 33:04 Patricia’s goals.
✔ 34:44 How much free time is needed?
In conclusion you will never learn everything you need to know about real estate investing from reading books or watching videos. While there are many ways to make money in real estate, there are countless ways to lose profits as well. Have fun and take daily action to reach your financial goals. If you have questions, ask them. There are plenty of active investors around to give you help and guidance if you simply ask for it.
Have mobile home comments or questions? We’d love to hear them below?
Thanks for following along. Check out the podcast episode below. We hope it helps you and your mobile home investing business.
Love what you do daily,
John Fedro
support@mobilehomeinvesting.net
Listen to John and Patricia’s Podcast here…
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7 Comments
Michelle
April 3, 2021Hi John, I’m a new mobile home investor in the Tampa area and I have been educating myself from your YouTube videos for the past six months, which has really helped me to begin this journey. I purchased my first mobile home for $6,000, which was an empty shell, and invested another $16,000 in repairs and labor. The home has been on the market for the past three months for $35,000, but has now been reduced to $28,500 with a lot rent of $595. All of my capital is tied up in this deal so I am not able to pursue any other opportunities. What would your advice be in moving forward? Also, I’ve just been given an opportunity to broker a new deal but I’ve never done it before and I’m not sure how, please advise, Michelle.
John Fedro
April 6, 2021Hi Michelle,
Thank you so much for reaching out and connecting. Additionally, thank you for the detailed comment as this certainly does help me understand your situation a bit better. First things first, great work taking action and being willing to help buyers, sellers, and parks locally. I’m certainly familiar with the Tampa Bay Area and depending on where you purchase this home will 100% determine if you are able to sell this mobile home for a cash price anywhere close to $30,000. If we were working together I would definitely want to see a lot of pictures and would have a few dozen questions for you with regards to the exact situation that you’re in. In fact, if you want to email me over some pictures so I could take a look that would be just fine. $16,000 should go a very very long way inside of a mobile home. However if it was an empty shell I can certainly understand the cost. Since the home is already repaired and the money has been invested, the question is about selling the home and ideally making a profit. Make sure the home is advertised online and off-line as much as possible. If you are definitely looking for a cash buyer, then the purchase price will have to be 10% lower than the competitions and prettier than the competitions as well. However if you’re willing to take payments for the purchase price that can certainly open up the amount of potential buyers that are out there. There are definitely a lot of pros and cons with regards to taking payments, however you will be able to push your sales price up by taking payments from a buyer.
Great work continuing to market and advertise and find a seller that is happy to have you broker or wholesale mobile home. In reality, wholesaling a single-family home has less moving pieces than wholesaling a mobile home in a park. I am assuming that the mobile home will be brokering/wholesaling is in a park, if it is not then it follows many of the same rules as a single-family home… Assuming the mobile homes attached to land. It is important in my opinion to disclose what you are doing with the sellers. They do not have to know how much you are making necessarily, however they should understand that you are not the end buyer in most cases. We want to deal with sellers that want our help and that we do not have to mislead at all. I hope that this makes a bit of sense. Both of these answers are a bit vague however I do hope that they help point you in the right direction moving forward. If/when you have any follow-up questions never hesitate to reach out any time. Keep in touch moving forward. All the best.
Talk soon,
John
Michael
April 15, 2021John,
I bought my first home in September of 2019 in cash and when I went to the closing, I found out that the seller didn’t have a title for the mobile home but a deed for the land only. In order to avoid delays and costs and out of my own ignorance, I went ahead with the purchase. Now I want to get rid of the mobile home and replace it on the land but I can’t without the title. I have a pretty strong feeling that the person I bought it from never had a title as it was a rental property and he didn’t offer any way of getting it for me. What are my options now? I live in Tennessee. Thanks
John Fedro
April 17, 2021Hi Michael,
Thank you for reaching out and connecting. I very much regret to hear that the seller jerked you around a little bit and never had title to this mobile home in the first place. Understood about your quick decision with regards to closing on the land as to not completely lose the deal. If the mobile home is already there than by all means you can probably fix it up and sell it or rent it if possible. There are certainly buyers that will purchase a mobile home without a title, however they will want a very good deal and they are fewer and far between. Like you said, you are not the true owner so you will not be “selling” the mobile home but rather selling the possession of the mobile home. In all reality the true owner of this mobile home is likely long gone. Additionally, as the landowner you may be able to file for an abandoned title if you know the mobile home serial number, VIN, or hide label number that should be located on the back of the home if it was built after 1976. You may file for an abandoned title over the process varies a bit from state to state. You may also file for a bonded title however this is not available in every state. I would encourage you to contact your state’s mobile home titling department to learn more about the abandonment process and possibly a bonded title for this mobile home. However you will need the mobile homes VIN or serial number once again. Lastly, you can certainly demo the mobile home by bringing in a dumpster and having the mobile home destroyed and placed into the dumpster with proper equipment. You can also hire someone to remove the mobile home as is or bring it to the dump. To demo a mobile home you are probably looking at a cost of around $2000-$3000. You may find somebody that wants to scrap the mobile home for material however they will usually take six weeks or longer to get this all done, if they actually finish things and do things correctly. I hope this gives you some options and things to think about. Moving forward if you have any follow-up questions about this or anything else never hesitate to reach out anytime. Hope this helps a bit. All the best.
Talk soon,
John
Eleanor Guerrero
September 22, 2021My mother and I have a deed for a mobilehome she bought in 1997. It is a mobilehome on a foundation. It is a Fleetwood mobilehome. She died in 2011. I have recently decided to sell her 2 1/2 acres with the mobilehome. I do not have title but I finished paying my mother’s mobilehome to Greentree mortgage. I secured a loan and paid off the home $36,000. How do I get the title since Green Tree was bought out by another company. It was bought out by Ditech but have looked for a phone number to talk to them but can’t find. I know the Serial Number of the mobilehome and it resides in Lemoore, CA. What do I do to try to acquire a title.
John Fedro
November 30, 2021Hi Eleanor,
Thank you for reaching out and connecting. Additionally, thank you for the detailed comment as the certainly does help me understand your situation a bit better. I very much regret to hear about your mother passing. I’m glad that you are able to continue paying off her note like this. Not only does the lien have to be released but the title will also be in the name of your mother. With a will, death certificate, and/or power of attorney obtaining ownership should be likely with these forms. Let’s talk about getting in touch with the lender 1st. This is definitely not the 1st time something like this has happened. Banks sell, resell, resell, and resell notes to one another all the time. You will find that some of these banks definitely do close down. However the address, serial number, and more than likely the file number will transfer from bank to bank. Sometimes we have to be a detective to call one bank that will only lead us to another and another. However we almost always track down where the loans are. If the final bank has gone out of business then this may be a situation where we have to go in front of a judge to get a judgment for a new title. However this would be the last case resort. I would 1st encourage you to get in touch with ditech and track down which lender/servicer is holding this note. If you are listed on the note as well then the bank will talk to you. However if you are not the bank may not discuss many things with you. They will need to send a satisfaction notice to the home address if possible. The satisfaction letter can then be taken to the state for a title to be received if you have power of attorney. However I would like you to hear all of this directly from the state HCD in California. In California mobile home titles are transferred through the HCD department. Explain the situation in detail along with the serial number and these folks should be very happy to help. They’re usually very helpful when I call although you may have to wait on hold for an hour. Hope this helps and starts to point you in the right direction moving forward. If you have any follow-up questions or concerns now or moving forward please never hesitate to reach out anytime. Keep in touch. All the best.
Talk soon,
John
[…] Related video: Podcast 33 with Patricia | Investing in mobile homes and mobile home parks safely. […]
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