Mobile Homes as buy and hold?

Question

Anyone have experience good/bad with purchasing mobile homes in mobile home parks?  How do they cash flow generally?  Any problems with the HOA's?  How are renovations different in a mobile home than a regular house?  Permitting issues?

Andrew Syrios · Answer

I haven't bought any mobile homes in parks before, we have bought a few on their own land. They can work if you get them cheap enough. But buy for cash flow as they don't appreciate well.

Many parks don't allow you to rent out the mobile home there, so check on this first. Personally, with the park fees, restrictions, low quality of many mobile homes and low appreciation potential, I would look elsewhere. That being said, investing in mobile home parks themselves can be, from what I've heard, very lucrative.

Mark Gruetzmacher · Answer

Account ClosedI think purchasing inside of mobile home parks are definitely an option.  The first hurdle is finding parks that allow rentals.  Try to keep the price down as well is also key.  For me right now my housing market is tough.  The purchase price vs rent price is less than 1% for rents.  Now for mobile homes it is way different obviously.  I myself try to stay under 15K for the mobile home but I also like homes that are in the late 80's or early 90's.  My market mobile homes are expensive so the deals are few and far between.  I have come across a few decent deals and one real killer deal but like anything else you have to have patience.  Now on my mobile homes rents are in the 600-800 range for a single wide.  Minus lot rents of about 235.  It leaves some room for cash flow and expenses.  I say check out your local market and see what it is like and what is out there.