All Forum Posts by: Jessop Adams

My family inherited a mobile home park in a small Nebraska town along Interstate 80 that we are interested in selling. I am looking for tips on listing it for sale and the best avenues to market it.

The park is on two city blocks and has 4 mobile homes in ok condition, but all are vacant. There are two other MHs that we are getting taken to the landfill due to being in poor condition. There are hookup spots for a total of 9 mobiles in the park but there is space for more mobiles if someone wanted to expand the park. Water is not metered separately but electric is.

The difficulty is there are no other parks in this town to compare it to and it was not managed in a way where I feel like I can rely on its historical financial performance. The parks in the nearest town charge around $200/mo for lot rent and up to $750/mo for nicer mobiles. We have cleaned up the park and remaining mobiles and would expect the remaining MHs could be rented for up to $500-600/mo and lot rent to be around $150/mo with water included.

We are obviously considering consulting with a local realtor but any tips and advice would be welcome so we can be prepared for those conversations.

@John H. Hill Jr. If you purchase a property in a typical arms length deal and you get a title search, it will tell you whether a second mortgage is on the property. Typically you will want to make sure that the second is paid off with the proceeds from the sale as a condition of closing. If you do acquire a house that has any mortgage, first or second, that was executed by the previous owner, it is still a lien on the property and the mortgagee can still foreclose on the property if the obligations of the underlying indebtedness are not satisfied. So you may not have signed the note, but if you don’t want the house foreclosed on you might need to make sure it is paid.

If you acquire a property in a trustees sale and the trustee is selling the property to satisfy the first lien holder’s indebtedness, then this forecloses off the second lien holders mortgage. If it is the second lien holder that is foreclosing, then you take subject to the first lien.

I am looking for my first deal and currently looking at a local 4-plex, all 2 bed 1 bath listed for $175,000. From my realtor contacts and market research I think the market rent is between $550 and $600 for this type and quality of units. Two of the units are vacant, but the other two are leased at $400 with one expiring in 6 months and the other expiring in 11. Without getting into the weeds on expenses and financing, but using conservative figures based off sellers numbers, I am reasonably confident in its ability to marginally cash flow at $550 at a $165,000 price, but it would be a negative cash flow in the first year with the two $400 units. Any ideas on what price to offer or creative solutions in making an offer seem more attractive?

Do Not Send The Money. How well do you know this individual? It is very easy to fake an identity for this sort of scam. Plus, a signed contract for real estate without earnest money up front may not even be binding against them. You would want to check with an attorney. If you are fine with settling on a lower earnest money then just say you will lower it by $2000 rather than sending it to him.

It should not hurt your credit score.  However, if the property has multiple years of tax liens, you will want to maker sure they are paid before they can foreclose on the property.  Additionally, the longer you wait on paying them off, the more interest accrues.  If the property is truly worth $360K, then speaking with your lender about getting a small loan to pay off the full amount of the taxes might be another solution and amortize the payments out over a longer period so you can make payments easier.  

What type of letter format have you had the most success with in sending out? Does something as simple as "I want to buy your property" work or do you include who you are, what you do, how you found their property, what price you would be willing to offer etc.?

Nebraska is currently getting ready to hold its tax lien sales and I was thinking of sending letters to out of state landowners who are past due on real estate taxes that I may be interested in purchasing their property. Does anyone have success in doing this? And would anyone be willing to share an example of one they have used?

I live next to a community where a large employer has been acquired by a competitor located in another state.  There is a strong possibility that the acquisition could cause the loss of hundreds of jobs in a relatively small community.  The speculation has caused the housing market to become flooded with homes and home prices to drop due to the increase in supply.  

As people are wanted to sell their homes in case their positions are terminated, I thought there may be opportunities to acquire some residential real estate at discounted prices.  Additionally, I thought there may be a good opportunity to find a seller who would like to rent their home back from a buyer with a longer term lease at higher than market rental rates and a monetary option to terminate should they actually lose their position. I thought about even possibly keeping some of the sales proceeds in escrow for the deposit, first and last month's rent and the option amount.  

Given the fact that a mass layoff could even further add houses to the market driving prices down which adds risk, but I was wondering if anyone had attempted something like this before and would appreciate any advice or tips.