Transitioning into real estate from mobile homes

[Ian Smith]

Hi all, my name is Ian. I am a 23 year old investor located in the Charleston, SC area. I originally got into real estate to work on the investment side, but I have also been a licensed agent since I was 18 years old and spent my first four years in the industry on a top producing team and have done about 100 closings and/or $30m in sales. For the past two years, a partner and I built another business that revolves around flipping mobile homes. We mostly do quick turnaround flips but also do rehabs. We are somewhat knowledgeable in the rental/owner financing side of the business, but have not dove into the passive income side of things yet. We have built a very strong market presence in our area and are on track to have the net worth of the business to $500,000 before the end of the year.  

Getting into mobile homes was a stepping stone for us to break into the commercial real estate market but we now have such a monster of a business that we believe it can continue operating with low overhead and still produce great profits/active income. We have also cast our lines in the residential vacant land market so that we can start working on land/mobile home package deals that can be sold and financed traditionally. That is our main game plan for 2023.

My question for you is, at this point, where would you go? I like to consider ourselves pretty go-getters so we like having active business(es) to keep us busy but it is time that we start planning for the future. We have many options to dive into such as mobile home parks, owner financing actual mobile homes, owner financing vacant residential lots, breaking into BRRRRs in our local market, etc. We have done our best to write out our options available but are still unsure on what is the best way to diversify and really break into the next tier of business. I heard someone say on the podcast "You can't expect to make millions if you are only making hundred thousand dollar actions." and I think that perfectly describes where we are at. 

Any and all input is greatly appreciated. Thank you BP family!

[Solomon Floyd]

Awesome background, congrats on the success. My best advice is to do something you love, if it's a podcast then make that move. When I got to where you are I focused on building my fund and growing other people's money, once that was established I targeted small business ventures (coffee shops, bars, adult stores). It seems like you are an unstoppable force, so whatever you do I imagine you will do great. Keep up the good work. 

[Amit Chawla]

@Ian Smith seems like you have a great starting point.  Other options would be to try contacting owners of mobile home parks and seeing if you can help them infill their vacant lots or help them in any other ways getting either tenants or homes into existing parks.  You can structure it in a way where the park owner rents the land to the tenant and the tenant also pays you monthly for purchase of the mobile home.  

If you are looking to get out of mobile homes entirely (which I don't recommend), then real estate is not much different and may actually be easier than mobile home management.  I'd love to discuss more if you're interested or have specific questions.  But it seems like you have a ton of options.  If you're business is making good cash-flow you can use that to start investing.  

[Rachel H.]

@Ian Smith It will depend on what exactly you want to do and the kind of lifestyle you want to lead. The bigger the asset, the more involved it can be and the more management it can take. There are some real estate investors who go big into commercial real estate which can take up a lot of your time especially if you're working with multiple partners. On the other hand, there are others who prefer to stay small and do individual deals on their own that do not work with partners for their deals. 

What you decide to do will depend on your personality and what type of team you want to work with when doing deals in the future including how large or small the deals you want to do will be. Hope that helps! 

[Daniel Apke]

Great background and its good seeing you scale. If I were you i'd master the land side of things. Theres a ton of money in residential land and its very easy to buy under market value land. My companies acquires 500+ pieces of land a year typically 30-40% of what they're worth. If you have that knowledge along with the mobile home expertise you'll be a lethal machine. I'd love to partner with you on some mobile home projects. I currently have about 50 pieces of land for sale and acquiring much more. Some would be great candidates for mobile use. 

[Chris Armstrong]

@Ian Smith make offers on bigger things with a team.  :)