Need advice

[Gigi Blanton]

Hey folks!

Pardon the essay, but I may have an opportunity. I recently inherited a small property in a lower-end neighborhood - not much money in it, small houses and mobile homes, but not a lot of crime. City water, easy access to utilities. So far, so good.

There is currently a totally uninhabitable and unrepairable structure on the land. I've still got some friends from my days in construction who are willing to cut me a good deal on razing and removing this heap. (It's going to be a LOT of hauling off.)

I currently own two rental units, both mobile homes that are 25+ years old. My original thought was to haul in an older mobile home, fix it up & rent it out. However, that can be quite a pain, so now I'm thinking why not just sell it outright rather than rent it, and be the financier? Older MH's are very difficult to get financing on, so it's not like I'd have competition from the bank. Also, the amount of money I could actually get lump-sum from selling is just not that much, so I'd rather have the monthly income. No more maintenance, and home sales in this low-rent area are going up, especially in the last 6 months. (I would be tapping into a market of construction workers, we just had about 2,000 jobs open up.) Also, I'd do most of the fix-up myself as I've already re-habbed both of my mh's.

Problem is, I've never sold any RE ever. Have no idea how to go about doing this. Property's .97 acres, fenced, with very low taxes (<$100). I'm thinking carry costs will be very low to nil (I should be able to pay cash for everything), so if I need to hold it for a few months - which I really don't think will happen - I'll be okay, which is why I'm thinking about doing this. Actually, a realtor friend of mine suggested rent-to-own, and this is just a progression from that.

Thoughts? Advice? Resources? What am I missing here? Any and all input greatly appreciated.