All Forum Posts by: David Hildebrandt

The goals one can achieve through seller financing are multi faceted. I would venture to say that in general it's not about obtaining a lower monthly payment, in fact often times the term of repayment might be much shorter and the rate a bit higher than what you can get at the bank.

The goal for me in obtaining seller financing, is that I am able to finance at all. Without a W2 income, getting a loan through a bank is virtually impossible, so financing with a seller becomes a welcome alternative. Often times you can finance a greater percentage of the property with the seller than you could with the bank.

@Jinwon H. I would if they compare in size, be nice to know what options your tenants have elsewhere regardless of building type.

You don't want to mix those messages in my opinion. I assume option A is to wholesale the property, I would gear my message to that end. I might put an asterisk in my signature denoting that I am a licensed agent in VA. Might bring a little clout to any assessment of their home you might provide. Get the phone to ring, assess their problem or situation, then provide the appropriate solution.

If you have phone numbers I have had success with slybroadcast to do ringless voicemails (not endorsing it as 100% legal) but certainly effective. This is the non pushy way, as the folks who call you back are generally the ones who are interested.

click2mail is the only source I have ever used. You can design your mailer on their site, upload your list and merge the fields, then send it out! Have trained my VA in the phillipines, so they can send mail virtually.

If I am ever not sure of the market for rents in a given area. I will call the vacancies listed within 1/2 mile or mile, schedule them for a Saturday morning and go see each of the places. Finishes can look way different online, AND there are a lot of nuances and detail to each unit...parking, utilities, application fees, pet policies, smoking policies etc. sometimes that info is not readily available online. I try to visit between at least 3 and 5.

Remember that a tenant can't rent a place that is already rented, so just because something rented for X dollars last month really has no bearing on what you can get this month. They are comparing everything available NOW!

If a certain credit score is one of your requirements you should abide by it unilaterally. Get yourself into trouble when you start making exceptions for certain people based on strengths they may have in other areas. These folks would have been disqualified if that was the case.

Not sure who TurboTenant outsources their checks to, but it has been very robust for me thus far. I am sure there are always people that will slip through the cracks, or be able to game the system. such is life in providing housing solutions. 

If this is a single family, as the post title indicates. Then the tenant should be taking over the utilities. You cannot set them up in the tenant's name (at least not in my experience.) They must call to take over responsibility. You should call the utility to indicate when you would like service terminated. Then call your tenant and tell them they must have the utilities swap over by a day that a few prior to the service terminate date (to allow some leeway.)

What do you mean by "holding the title with a lien until the loan is satisfied" why would someone do this ? Can you explain some of those strategies to generate revenue from mobile homes.

When you sell someone a traditional piece of real estate they hold the deed to the property. They sign a promissory note with a lending institution and the note is secured the property with a mortgage, thus the property is collateral for the loan. Should the new owner not pay, you have to go through the foreclosure process in order to remove them from the property. With a mobile home that changes. You hold the original title and the lessee gets a copy with an indicated lien holder, which is you if you are financing the home. Thus the process of removing them from the home is much shorter and simpler, much like repossessing a car. This is good, because 9 times out of 10 they wont pay off the note and you will "sell" the home again to the next person on payments with X dollars down.

- How do you calculate lot rent, home rent ?

Sell the monthly payment. Calculate the terms so that the total payment (lot rent + mobile home payment) comes out to be 80 to 90% of what someone could rent and apartment for of the same size/floorplan. 

- And how can you make revenue off utilities ?

Some responded that you can't make money off utilities. In a traditional sense gas and water cannot be marked up such that your tenants are paying more in total than you are charged for the bill. But if you think outside the box a bit to less traditional utilities then its possible. Lets say you have 100 serves of cable in your park. Normally each tenant would pay the cable company $40/mo for cable tv. You negotiate with them to buy the serves in bulk at $20 per and make the spread. If a park has individual propane tanks at each trailer, you can absolutely negotiate a reduced rate for propane and charge back the tenants.

- What are some other ways I can generate revenue from them seems like there are more ?

You have too small of a potential park for some of the ideas above to work. Some others might not make sense either but are big money makers. Coin Laundry, Snow Removal (if your streets are not dedicated back to the county), Lawn Mowing (technically each is responsible for their own lot, but you end up with several heights of grass and random lawnmowers strewn about)

Starting a park from scratch is a tough proposition. Think about it this way. Its going to cost someone 5 to 6k to move their current trailer to your new lot, so even if they are saving 100 in lot rent per month, that's going to be a long break even on their side. Also the cost of a new mobile home is such that having someone make that payment and have it delivered to your lot is also a long shot.

This is why most of the park owners I know are only willing to incur the cost of adding just a few pads each year (like 4 or 5 tops) to their lots. And they mostly find the trailers, bring them there rehab them and rent the whole package. Since the homes act a lot like an automobile, they hold the title with a lien until the loan is satisfied in full and can repo in a much shorter time than it takes to foreclose on someone in a traditional home.

So if you wanted to make your idea work there would be some substantial capital upfront (land, development, trailer acquisition, trailer upfit) before you might have a tenant. To end on a positive though, MHP can be cashflow monsters because you have so many opportunities to generate revenue (lot rent, home rent, master utilities etc.)

Sure this ad has probably been written 50 times! Sure there aren't any deals out there to be had!

Well, I am posting anyway. If you don't ask, you don't get. And 40 units at $150 a door is my financial freedom number. Why wait and build up unit by unit, I am full time now, I can handle it.

So lets hear about what you got and if you got nothing let me know how I can help you!