All Forum Posts by: Charlie Price

I welcome any ideas/opinions differ by strategies or general comments on this small MHP potential deal I'm looking at.. This is a pretty much abandoned MHP. Uncared for maybe 15 years or so! 16 MH lots + triplex. 2.3 Acres - City water and Sewer on 9 of the lots, city water and septic on 7 of the lots. Actually sits on 2 separate adjacent parcels. Dirt roads. No concrete pads. Mobile homes are of the 70's. Pretty much Totally dilapidated. Could maybe save 4-5 of them with extensive rehabs. Otherwise they are trash. Triplex is fixable and also on city water & sewer. To my surprise there is actually 3-4 people living in the park. A couple of them for 10 years plus. The one tenant I met said he is paying $300 per month, another said he is paying $250. They said it is quiet and safe. I also talked to a next door neighbor right next door to the park. She said she pays $550 per month for a older modest 3/1 sticks & bricks home. She also said it was safe and quite. She said that she has a friend that wants to move to the neighborhood, but could not find a place to rent nearby. So I believe there is demand, at least for clean decent affordable rentals. There is a Super Walmart about 1 mile from this location, and a daycare across the street. The owner is asking just $92K for it both parcels and abandon Mobile Homes "as is". Never done a mobile home park, but rehabbed and leased up plenty of multi family fixer uppers. Just finishing up on a 30 unit complex I did over the course of 3 years with. Mostly my own $$ and putting incoming rents back into property. I feel I could turn the park around slowly in a few years using current and future rents as I fix it up. Also using some capitol from current cash flows from other rentals I have. As far as exit strategy a few years down the road after fixing by up and leasing out, I'm not sure how marketable a successful 16 unit Mobile Home Park, plus triplex, would be though once I fixed it up and got it all rented out. With utility repairs, concrete pad upgrades, electrical repairs (most all above ground electrical poles/meters are near trashed.), repairs on triplex, along with the numerous miscellaneous repairs that always come up there would easily be another $75K to get things, including triplex fixed up and ready to move in 16 mobile homes. Then there is the aspect of the mobile homes. Without much looking I've found a 3/2 basic MH I can get for just under $40K deliver and set up. If I filled the 16 sites with these I could rent them for $750-$800 per month. Or possibly owner finance them to new buyers. Trouble with this strategy is I'd need $640K or so to buy the mobile homes! Another idea for the mobile homes would be to buy used ones over time have them moved and rehabbed if needed. By the time I'd move the mobile home and get it rent/sale readying d set up I'd probably have about $15K +/- as or so in each. And then I'd still have old Mobile Homes and not most desirable. Per Bestplaces.net 2BR Apartment/Homes in area rent for $690 per month. 3BR @ $995. 4.1% unemployment and Median home Price is $93,400. Ya gotta figure if Walmart put a store a mile away it's got to be a somewhat decent potential. If anyone is interested in a potential JV partner I'd be looking for initial cash infusion, for purchase and initial cleanup. Once we got the purchase and initial cleanup done we could use cash flows to put back into property and build up slowly over a few years. The property is about 45 minutes from me, and 1/2 hour from my 30 unit apartment complex. I could manage the whole process here locally, and be on site regularly. If looking for something a little smaller I also have a line on a very similar deal that is just 7 trailers. In same/similar status as above. Same city, different area of town. City water & sewer. I'd be guessing, as it's not officially for sale, but $30K purchase and another $70K to get up and running including repair of 2/1 rental on property, clean up and get MH pads move in ready, and purchase of 1 new mobile home to get started. As far as me, I've been investing, rehabbing and being a landlord for 20+ years. My wife and I have 2 out of town triplexes that we manage remotely, a 30 unit apartment complex (local) that we are just finishing up on the rehab, and are pending on another 8 unit apartment complex here locally. My credit is around 740 and our net worth is $2M +/-.

Definitely doable with a little, or a lot of hard work and a little or a lot of luck. Especially if you've been to the school of hard knocks or have some similar education under your belt. My wife and I bought a 23 unit run down garden motel. Had to scrape together every last penny we had and pay $200K Cash as no bank would loan on it. Rolled up my sleeves and totally renovated 1 unit at a time and rented them out as nice clean all new inside apartments. About 8 months into it convinced a local bank to give us $200K to speed up rehab and pay ourselves back some. Poured rents back into property. Continually adjusted rents monthly to keep complex at 90-100% full. Changed set up & used storage space to create an additional 7 units. Two more left to renovate to make a total of 30 units. Rent units fully furnished and all utilities paid. Year two grossed $155K put most profits back into property except some small living expenses. Year number 3 (2016) grossed $239K. $155K NOI. Poured about $80K of $155 back into property. Year 4 should be around $300K gross with the additional units we put on line during 2016 and continue to work on now. Should be able to have higher NOI %, as not a lot of extra monthly expenses when the new unit comes on line. Of course we do have the larger capitol expense of the total rehab of each unit. I Self managed and did A LOT of the initial rehab work myself with one helper for interior and one helper for exterior projects all under my direct supervision. I'm there most every day Mon.- Fri. For 2-4 hours per day now. At least when I'm not traveling in the RV with my family. Last year took a 3 month 16 state trip out to California and back. Saw 17 National Parks! Plus took about 10 or so smaller long weekend or 1 week trips along the way. This next summer taking 5-6 months to RV from Florida to Alaska and another 20 or so National parks! Will manage apartments using current small loyal & dedicated staff. I'll check in on phone every other day or so when we're in cell coverage area. I Also run the marketing and try to take perspective tenant calls. My wife runs RE marketing company and full time taking care of 3 kids, 7, 5 & 2 years old, and puppy. She also manages 2 other out of town triplexes we own and cash from also to help out.

Be patient, I don't know the market at all, but certainly you can find better then that.......Maybe look for a partner/mentor that can work with you on your first one. Invest some of your soon to be profits into the mentor to learn from. There's many many things that we stumble accross learning after you've done it 30-40 times. Tough to learn from a book. Doesn't even have to be in your area. Just so your very involved and learning. There are likely deals hiding away most anywhere no matter where you are. Except So Cal LOL :-).

Big Risk = Big Reward. If it was me and it looked like a solid deal, I'd go pay an excellent RE attorney versed in the matters at hand to review the deal and advise. Might cost $1-$2K, but would be worth it if you did the deal, or if he/she kept you out of a bad deal

I cut cord In my home a year or so ago. It took a while for the wife to catch on. 7 year old had no problems. We love it now that we are used to it. I then then beefed up the WIFI network and transitioned it to my 30 unit apartment complex, with Firestick (KODI installed also) plus an amplified antenna for live local TV. I lease the apartments fully furnished including flat screen 32"-50" TV's with all utilities paid by me. I charge a premium and stay at or near 100% full. Firestick TV's work great for "tech" people. I had to revert back to cable for a few tenants that are older in age or non techie. Definitely a small pain. Worth it for me as I save about $1.5K per month in cable TV bills after I pay a hearty Internet bill and a few cable boxes. I worked up a general 1 page instruction on using it works pretty well depending again on how techie a person is. I also have a couple people that live there full time and work for me that help welcome tenants, get them situated and answer questions on Firestick. I am also there 3-4 days a week for a few hours generally. To answer your question, I would probably say no not to do it. Not worth the headache and people that may not want to deal with it and learn it for a short term stay. Some may love it, but you will get some that will hate it. Not worth saving $30-$50 or $75 per month IMO. One less phone call or aggravated tenant to deal with for you. Maybe in 5 years it will be different, but not quite main stream enough yet. Just my humble opinion. Hope that helps.