All Forum Posts by: Anthony Conway

Working on a couple of these messes right now. You should be able to find it on the tax record somewhere. Someone has been paying the taxes on it in the past years? If it is listed in the sales contract you can take it to the general council of the DMV and show them you are the new owner of the mobile home, they will then issue new title. Look on the county tax record under vehicles or mobile homes and search the address to see if you find anything attached to that address.

Yes, as a MHP owner I can tell you , it is not something we love to do. Letting someone else have a rental in your park is essential giving up some percentage of control in your investment. There are a lot of different moving parts in managing a park and when they run smooth it can be a great asset, but when you give up control and things start running rough they can be very hard to get back. It is hard to control your tenants, cleanliness, age of homes, overall condition of the homes and the tenants when you don’t own the homes. I just posted earlier about how we let investors or outside owners enter our parks, essentially they have to bring value to the overall park, usually by bringing brand new homes in and letting us be the property manager on them. Before we were park owners we did have success in a couple of local parks, mainly the same as what we want people to bring to us now. If you bring value to anyone’s park I can not see them saying no, we use to bring value to Parks by telling/showing them the nice quality vinyl sided, shingle roofed homes. Freshly updated clean homes add value to the overall parks value, so value add. You can always try to find park owners that have homes they want to sell that need updating also.

Michelle Robbins I usually come up with a number in my head but don’t tell the buyer that number. Then when you find a buyer with the down payment you kinda car sales man it and ask them what monthly payment would work for them. Take there monthly payment they can handle and figure out the terms that would work best for you/ them. I spread it over 60 months and put anywhere from 5-10% apr on it. APR depends on job/credit history, amount of down payment, any risk you feel the need to cover more or less. Just like when you purchase a home they advertise it for $100k but then when you go to sign the final papers you see the amortization schedule and overall payments of $320 k with apr. so you can advertise a lower number in the same manner as that house $100k but really with terms involved you with get the $320k. Hope this makes Sense. We will advertise a cash price so people can see close to what the purchase price will be but but then tell them the owner financing term and payment are different for each applicant due to credit job history.

We own mobile home parks in Charleston, Sc and have investors that own some houses in our parks. We help investors purchase brand new homes set them up in our parks and manage them. This has turned out to be a win win for both the investors and us. You can purchase brand new mobile homes straight out of the factory for 40-80k depending on size and finishes. We are getting an average of 300 per bedroom, so 3 bed, 2 bath rents for $900. Lot rent is between $300-350 depending on double or single wide, management 10%.. investors can use self directed IRA’s, cash or finance the mobile home purchase. Here is a quick break down Purchase new home 60k Rent for $900 -10% management -$90 $810 -$300 lot rent =$510 Taxes - $30 per month =$480 Insurance optional -$30 per month =$450 Still have to account for cap-x, depreciation, damages, vacancies all that. This is just to show you some quick numbers and to make you see that you can purchase brand new mobile homes from the dealer with 5 yr warranties for way less then the $150k price you were talking about.

Although I understand the unique concept of container homes and tiny houses on trailer frames. I often think that people are overlooking the unique concept or trying recreate the wheel ( mobile homes). Mobile homes have been around for a long time and although they have a bad reputation they are essential the same thing that you are going for. They have some nice new models that would blow you away, prebuilt with all the amenities you need and ready to pass your cities inspection processes. The cost of brand new homes is much lower then what you are estimating and financing on new homes is available. Let me suggest that if you love how a container looks that much, buy a brand new mobile home, set it up on said property, pass all city inspections, then buy a container cut it apart and wrap the mobile home to look like a container. We have people that spent 90-120k on these tiny homes just to find out that the only place the city will allow it is in a mobile home park. Then they end of having the smallest (400sqft) most uncomfortable house in a mobile home park for the most amount of money, when they could have bought a 1300sqft double wide mobile home that is very comfortable for half the cost. Just my two sense. If you need help finding great mobile home manufactures and awesome new mobile homes I would be happy to point you in that direction.

A lot of times the park owner is just waiting for someone to purchase it, so then they can come after them for the back lot rents. Even though you were not the one that has not paid the lot rents and they can not technically make you pay it. They can very easily make it very hard for you to occupy or sell it until the unpaid lot rents are paid up. So let’s say the owner stoped paying taxes and lot rent for the past year. $300 per month lot rent plus some late fees the park owner could very easily want you to pay 3-5k to them before you can re-rent it. Or they just don’t want to deal with this particular home anymore because it has been such a problem and as soon as you buy it they tell you, you have 30 days to move it, also around a $3000 cost on a single. So you really need to talk to the park owner first and see what the situation is. Ultimately with MhP’s the park owner makes the rules and you do not want to fight them. As a MHP owner this is just my opinion and something extra to think about.

We do owner financing on mobile homes in our parks which works out a little easier for us. This is kinda the same just structured different. We sell the mobile home on payments with a standard MH purchase and sales agreement with payment schedule, non refundable down deposit form and a standard land rental contract for the lot rent                                              

Yes, we have sold handy man special/ owner financing deals. Couple things to think about with mobile homes that are unlivable. When was the last time it was lived in? when is the last time the power was on? Talk to the city to make sure it is still zoned and able to have a mobile home on the property. Talk to the power company to make sure power can be turned back on, if it has been off for awhile. Each cities rules and regulations on them is different so make sure to call and verify exactly what it will take to get everything functioning first. Then you can think about selling it handyman special to someone. I would actually try and structure the deal to sell just the mobile home  owner financing and do a lot rent on the land ( keeping the  land). Get 3-5k downpayment and work off payments on the rest. 

Thanks guys, I went and sat down with both our residential lender and commercial lender( same office) today. What we came up with is a mixture of what you guys said and what my two options were. But in the big picture both of them said it is easier to add the depreciation back into the deal then it is to add expenses back. Also to keep good track of the one time expenses like roofs and HVAC,s so they can easily add those back in and not have to play the guessing game. I understand that it is not legal to not expense some things and expense others but I am one of those people that keeps track of every Litlle move I make ever day and I could lighten up a bit when I want to use my borrowing power. A uncle of mine often said the more taxes you pay the better you are doing. One of the bankers said today if I pay the government a little more it could mean the difference of borrowing more for another multifamily that in turn will produce enough income to cover the taxes paid. I guess you got to pay to play.

Tom Gimer ITINs cannot be used to work? What do you mean by this? What I am saying is our government gives these people tax IDs specially to work. Also: say I was a home builder and hired a subcontractor to do work, this is not illegal. There is no way for me as homebuilder to know the 1099 I hired is legal or illegal resident. I know this thread has gone off topic. I just want people to know that our government knows very well about a lot of the illegals here and even gives them tax IDs to work with. So yes we rent to tax IDs with photo IDs to match and pay stubs or verified jobs.