Tearing down old mobile and buying used

[Madeline Davies]

So Im finally in a position to buy. The market in Northern Nevada is bubbling, but due to circumstance my move needs to be made now. This is my first time buying. After the price of the land, I would have about 60k total to work with debt to income ratio wise.

There is a fully hooked up plot of land going for 30-40k under market value in a decent neighborhood. The mobile on it has not been cared for and cannot be converted. Its trash and needs to be replaced. 

The kicker is I need conventional financing as the owners won't finance. I can find used mobiles in the area for cheap, but they are in MHP's and may or may not be in good enough condition to move. 20-40k range.

My idea is to find a way to buy the land only and demolish/move the mobile during escrow so financing will go through. Then place a decent condition used mobile bought from one of the MHP's in the area. There are several within 5 miles.

I have zero experience and it seems like a technical grey area. Im not sure what the costs would be, let alone the legal viability of buying a mobile from a park and removing it immediately with paying 1 months lot rent at most.

Any and all imformation/experiences/advice welcome

[Harriet Baldwin]

@Madeline Davies this sounds like a bit high-difficulty for a first deal, but I could be wrong.  

It is not our core business, but we have installed new manufactured homes on vacant land (for outright sale) and in mobile home parks (for rental; we are not the park owners), and each state has its own degree of regulation. To vastly over-simplify, manufactured homes are regulated by HUD (administered by HUD or the state), mobile homes are locally regulated (town/city code office). But zoning still applies - the local code officer in NY has to sign off on the foundation or piers, but doesn't deal with the manufactured home itself.

If NV requires licensed/registered installers (NY does), you might reach out to a couple and see what they think about your plan.  In NY state, we also needed to register our company and I took required training to qualify as a manufactured home retailer, even though we are selling the home & the land together as real property (not personal property).  

Manufactured homes are an interesting niche, so I don't want to tell you not to focus here, but the whole move-a-home-during-escrow sounds like a risky proposition (what happens if you don't get approved?  Will the seller let you move the home back off their land at that point? And then where do you park the units?).  But if you can work out the details, could be a great deal...