All Forum Posts by: Ben Winchester

Hi @David Gotsill

I thought I had notifications turned on, never heard anything, and assumed no one replied. I finally circled back to my post and saw you and another person replied. I need to get that figured out. I really appreciate your response and figured I’d update just to close the loop if anyone else stumbles upon this.

You are in fact correct with your guesses about the practical issues. I met with an attorney who asked all the same questions you did. The attorney basically wanted to know why we wanted to dissolve the HOA and were there common areas owned by the HOA. Some people wanted to dissolve the HOA because they were under the impression our neighborhood was not in an HOA. They probably didn't read their closing documents because it was pretty clear from the start. Those people didn't want to pay the dues and didn't like the idea of CC&Rs. We do have some areas that are owned by the HOA, they are actually protected tree zones that require some upkeep.

The attorney I spoke to basically said that it's possible to dissolve the HOA in a prefect world, but my situation would make it extremely difficult. Since the HOA owns these protected tree zones we would either have to convince the city to take them back, or find someone else willing to own, insure, and maintain those parcels. He said both are highly unlikely to happen since the city already pushed them off to the builder, and there is no value in the parcels for a 3rd party to want to own them. If that were to happen, it would then take a vote from the home owners, some legal filings, and then approval from the city. I don't remember the exact percentage of the vote but it was either 75% or 90%. He said something about 75% was doable but would most likely require some court arguments. 90% was sure fire.

His recommendation was to instead amend the CC&Rs to something everyone agrees upon and not to dissolve it entirely.

Looking to see if anyone has any experience dissolving an HOA in the state of Oregon. I know each state is different and Oregon seems to be governed by a certain statute but I'm having a hard time figuring it out. Before I went and bought an hours time of a real estate attorney, I figured I'd post here.

Also, the CCR's don't have a dissolution section so it's not spelled out there like I was hoping.

Brandon Turners book on “managing rental properties” It’s a long title like all the other BP titles haha And the other book is the bigger pockets book on tax strategies (also a long title I can’t remember right now). Both of these I’ve been slowly working through and have lots of flags sticking out so I can remember certain sections!

@Joe D. Thanks for the reply. BP locked me out because I accidentally posted this twice on the app. Anyway, I appreciate your input.

I believe this is a single wide mobile home w/ a slide out/ 672 sq/ft/ built in 1969

They are the closest thing to comps I could find. I would not say they are true comps because of minor size differences (1 for sale for $32,998 is 728 sq/ft) and the $7k one needing minor improvements to match interior quality. But they are not too far off from being true comps.

As for the park side, I have no idea. That's kind of why I'm posting this is to get some more input on what is required on that end of it. foundation/concrete work sounds expensive and unlikely it would match the new home.. do all mobile homes have to have some kind of foundation/concrete, or is it park specific? Electric is a good question I would have to look into. New skirting is included with the price of set up, at least that's what I was seeing from a couple websites and over estimated those costs to include that.

I really appreciate your input! I think I would need to call around to a few of these parks to see what they do as far as paying for a new home to be moved in and then I could get a better estimate on holding costs when I find out how much the spot rents for per month, and whether or not they even have a space available/ any other requirements for new homes being moved in.

One thing that is intriguing about this whole process is the idea of being able to create your own comps. My area seems to fluctuate pretty drastically from park to park when it comes to pricing. Parks in nice areas have homes listed close to $100k when parks in bad areas are around $25k. If I could get my hands on a home, then I can move it to the nicer area. obviously this is just an idea in a very elementary stage but I've never heard of anyone doing this for that reason, which is why I posted the question.

Michael Plante that’s a great question and I’m not sure.. I haven’t done an extensive search for rentals in those types of parks, from my surface searches I have not seen any units available for rent. I actually haven’t seen any spaces available in those types of parks. I’d probably put them in the B+ to A category in the mobile home park genre. The average price is more around the $40k-$60k on the C or B- category. The $100k homes for sale are usually a much nicer area which is probably the cause for the extra cost.

@Brent Coombs Thanks for the response. BP locked me out because I posted my same forum post twice on accident. The app still needs a lot of work. Anyway, after I posted this I started to have the same realization you mention here. It is essentially buy one thing and then turn around and sell it for a profit. It doesn't really matter if people have done it before as long as I do my homework, I shouldn't base my whole decision on whether or not someone else has done this before. There is security in knowing someone else has done it before, but even if they haven't, it could still be done as long as the numbers work.

@Thomas Leonard $30k for mobile homes in my county is on the extreme low end. There are mobile homes that are slightly bigger than the one I saw (1900 sq/ft compared to 1200 sq/ft maybe more than "slightly") and much older (built in 1920 compared to 1970) going for for $50k-$70k. The conditions of both appear to be equal but that is just based on pictures. It truly is crazy how much mobile homes are selling for in my area, I've even seen some sell for more than $100k.

Hello BP peeps, I don’t know much about mobile home buying and selling. I’ve listened to all the podcasts and have heard several of them when they focus on mobile homes, but I don’t recall any of them mentioning my question. Does anyone have experience with or heard of anyone buying a mobile home, moving it to another lot, and then selling it to an end buyer? Most of the times I’ve heard of just involve buying it and selling it in a flipping manner, or wholesaling it. I’m wondering if people do all the front end work of buying and moving before selling the home, or if that’s not a common thing people do. The deal that made me think of this is a mobile home for sale with a contingency written into the contract requiring the home to be moved upon purchase. My thought was, as an investor, I could purchase the mobile home, move it to a park where there are some good comps, then sell it to an end buyer in said park. The details: Price of mobile home: $7000 Estimate of the move: $5000 (40 miles) Estimate of the set up: $5000 Misc. costs (axle repair, new tires, new tow tongue, holding costs once at new park, etc.): $3000 Total cost: $20,000 Comps: $30,000 All these numbers are pretty conservative and taken from other forums and websites regarding the cost to move a mobile home. I’m sure there are other costs I haven’t thought of, and would love any extra input here. Maybe there are some regulations on the park side of things with like older homes moving in? What would the upfront costs be on the park side for the move in? I’m sure it costs some lump sum amount before the monthly fee of parking it there. Any and all comments are greatly appreciated.

Hello BP peeps, I don’t know much about mobile home buying and selling. I’ve listened to all the podcasts and have heard several of them when they focus on mobile homes, but I don’t recall any of them mentioning my question. Does anyone have experience with or heard of anyone buying a mobile home, moving it to another lot, and then selling it to an end buyer? Most of the times I’ve heard of just involve buying it and selling it in a flipping manner, or wholesaling it. I’m wondering if people do all the front end work of buying and moving before selling the home, or if that’s not a common thing people do. The deal that made me think of this is a mobile home for sale with a contingency written into the contract requiring the home to be moved upon purchase. My thought was, as an investor, I could purchase the mobile home, move it to a park where there are some good comps, then sell it to an end buyer in said park. The details: Price of mobile home: $7000 Estimate of the move: $5000 (40 miles) Estimate of the set up: $5000 Misc. costs (axle repair, new tires, new tow tongue, holding costs once at new park, etc.): $3000 Total cost: $20,000 Comps: $30,000 All these numbers are pretty conservative and taken from other forums and websites regarding the cost to move a mobile home. I’m sure there are other costs I haven’t thought of, and would love any extra input here. Maybe there are some regulations on the park side of things with like older homes moving in? What would the upfront costs be on the park side for the move in? I’m sure it costs some lump sum amount before the monthly fee of parking it there. Any and all comments are greatly appreciated.

Kathryn Bowden that is interesting that the agent was representing both parties. I have a feeling that’s why the EM split was so easy. If he had his own agent I could see that agent being very strict and saying no. But still a win for you! As for more insight on the Oregon market.. I can only speculate like the rest of the people. I’ve listened to a lot of real estate professionals saying the next crash is right around the corner, sometime this year and others saying in 5 years. It’s all speculation though. My personal experience with the town I live in (troutdale oregon) is that it has capped. Condos, single family houses, new builds, all have hit there respective caps. Now that could be from the winter and rain, or it could be from the market.. I speculate it’s mainly from the seasonal change but when it comes down to it, I don’t think the market (my market) will continue to increase at the same rate. That’s just my thoughts and observations in my tiny local market though. I have just been trying to observe patterns of prices and how long properties are on the market at their given price points and there seems to be a pretty clear price range where properties sit for a long time, and where they go pending instantly. I hate offering advice to strangers that I know nothing about, especially regarding real estate where every market is so different.. but I’m glad I could at least give you some hope with my story. I am extremely grateful our place didn’t sell. We listed at 200k and accepted an offer for $210 at the time (before it fell apart), there is currently an identical place, a stones throw away, that is listed for $259k.. I believe that is priced too high but even more conservative comps make me feel like ours is valued at around $230k. Anyway, I hope your market holds strong and you can capitalize on your equity when the time is right :)

Wow! The fact you got half the earnest money is a huge win for you! Congrats on that. I’m not a professional by any standards but I was always under the Impression that the earnest money was yours (the sellers) only IF they backed out by a means that was not mentioned in the contract. Most contracts have some sort of financing clause that allows the buyer to exit if the bank won’t agree to financing for pretty much any reason, including appraisal. In this scenario, I’m guessing the VA loan wouldn’t go up to the agreed upon price, since the appraisal came in short. Thus allowing the buyer to exit the contract with their EM, only if there was that specific clause in the contract.. and there probably was, but it would probably benefit you to read the contract in the future. I had a very similar experience about a year ago. Listed for $200k, multiple offers, we accepted an offer for $210k. Buyer had pre-approval letter from a bank, appraisal came in at $210k but the bank wouldn’t finance due to some past history with the buyer. So even though the buyer agreed to the price, had a pre-approval letter from said bank, during final underwriting, bank said actually.. we aren’t going to finance this for you because it puts your monthly payment too high and with your past credit issue, we don’t have faith you’ll pay us back regularly (obviously in a much more professional manner, yes I’m still bitter ha) long story short, we allowed a couple extensions to see if the buyer could get another form of financing, they couldn’t, contract was terminated and they got their EM back because of the clause in the contract stating if they couldn’t get financing, they get it back. Wasted about 2 or so months on the whole thing, to re list as winter was starting and got no more offers. We ended up not selling, ultimately for the better because the market continued to grow. Can I ask how you were able to split the EM? Did you threaten to take them to court or anything like that? Or did they offer it up? Just curious about it.