All Forum Posts by: April Crossley

I just did a multifamily mailing in my area, 300 letters, I got 7 responses on the 1st letter.. and I've sent 3 rounds of letters since and each time I get between 5-7 responses. You might be pleasantly surprised and finding yourself NOT wanting to wholesale them. Multifamily investors are more in it for the long haul. A lot that you talk to will likely have owned for a long time and be looking to seller finance- this is what I have found. I have also found, in my area, yellow letters do not work in the multifamily game. The response I have gotten from these sellers is that they respond to my letter because it looks professional like I know what I'm doing and not handwritten "like I'm a newbie trying to buy their property at 50 cents on the dollar."   I just found the response interesting. I have done yellow letters in the past- but I will not use it for multifamily. At least not in my market. I know EVERY area is different. :)  I wish you the best with your campaign and agree with all the above statements.... mail, mail, mail. Now that I'm on my 4th mailing  to this same list I am getting some people calling me telling me to stop mailing to them because they aren't selling.. haha! I LOVE that... that is how I know I am doing it enough. Don't get discouraged. Just keep mailing.

@Account Closed thank you so much for the insight! I met with the one park owner last night and things went really well. He was very adamant about holding at least 50% of the financing- but I'm thinking he might HAVE to due to the way the septic systems are laid on the property with other properties he owns surrounding it.  Very meticulous owner, gorgeous park.  So I'm going to run some numbers now that I have gathered a good bit of info and I will certainly keep this thread updated once I have it all together. Our meeting went until 9:30pm last night.. so just tackling it all this morning :) I did check out MHU and I'm going to buy one of their books and post there as well.   Thank you for all of your great thoughts and feedback! :)

Love this thread! Thank you for starting.. I will be looking into all of this as well :)

Does the area you want to buy/hold in have an apartment association? My lease is 12 pages long. Drawn up by the attorney for the state apartment association- and distributed for free by everyone that belongs to that apartment association.  I never trust just downloading a lease from an on-line source. I always want something reviewed by a top real estate attorney in the state I invest in - and that is what the apartment association does.

Wow... @Account Closed thank you so much! I will check out the links and definitely connect with you. I have been on here reading forum posts all morning :)

Hello everyone! I am an experienced investor in the realm of single family and small multi units. However, with the demand for affordable housing on the rise I have been looking into mobile home parks.  So via some marketing to owners, I now have a 50 pad MHP and a 41 pad MHP on my desk with a 3rd owner calling me this afternoon to discuss a 3rd park.  The 50 pad park is gorgeous and I'm meeting w/that owner tomorrow at 7pm. The 41 pad is going to be a complete go in and do-over. It is horrible.  I have zero experience with mobile home or MHP.

NOW.. I'm freaking out.  So I'm going to read as much as I can on BP about MHP but was also wondering in the mean time if anyone knows someone that does MHP coaching? Or mentoring? That I could run these deals by or discuss? Not a problem for me to pay, and I fully expect to pay, for coaching through the purchase (if indeed we get that far- which I hope we do). I just feel that is a quicker route for me to go and would feel better about the whole process if I was guided by someone with experience. 

Thanks so much!

@Justin Berst

 Have you had much luck with that? Using List Source for multifamily? Just curious how accurate it is with larger buildings or if you are using it for smaller multis? And is it giving you the owner name/address or property management company?

@Ramon Jenkins

 @Linval T.

 Thank you :)

The same thing is going on where I live in PA, but not because it is an overly desirable area- just because there are investors that will do a rehab for REALLY slim profits. At the end of 2014 I flipped 4 rehabs to other investors.  They were all off-market finds, I settled on them, had my clean out guy go in and get all the junk out and then sent them out to my contact list for sale.  Not even exaggerating- I made $40,000 on one property just by flipping it to another investor.  I actually love it so much it has become my new model. All I do is relentlessly hunt for off market deals and flip them to investors that are willing to pay more.  I never have to worry about working with contractors and the profits are just as good.  I see a lot of investors that will work on them themselves (I don't). And a lot of investors, that unfortunately, are doing really shoddy rehab jobs (I've seen them-they are terrible). But to the shoddy rehabbers credit- we are living in a society where people just want stuff to look pretty. They don't care about quality. These guys are using low end products to not even rehabbing at all. I walked in one rehab that they just staged REALLY well. If you didn't lift anything or look closely, it looked great.  But someone bought it. I pity that buyer on settlement day when they get into that thing and its empty.

Once in awhile I will keep one and rehab it fully. But it is rare these days. You definitely have to be working the off-market leads and putting them under contract fast. In my area there are people that will flip for a 6k profit all day long.  I would never. But I try to use it to my advantage and sell them my stuff instead of rehabbing it myself :)

I recently started in multifamily investing after years of flipping and investing in single family homes.  You think with real estate experience the transition would be fairly simple, but I can honestly say, I had no idea what I was getting into.  When you are buying larger deals and buying out of state (aka: outside your comfort zone) - it is a whole different ball game. I have spent months learning and with the guidance of a coach got to the point that I put a 30 unit, off market deal in South Carolina under contract.... then it fell apart.

I wrote a blog under my profile about the top 10 lessons I learned since jumping into multifamily a few months ago.  I am new to BP and I see a lot of great discussions on here. I thought maybe my experience could help prepare someone that is new.  I often see people say they want to get into multifamily... and I can now look back and say that it is an awesome place to be... but I would never, ever recommend anyone jump in without guidance - experienced in real estate or not.

I'm not certain how or if you can link a blog to a forum post. But if you do take the time to find the blog on my profile page and you found it useful or have any questions, please let me know.

Cheers to all the multifamily newbies out there! I am back on the ride again looking for another deal :)