All Forum Posts by: Robert Blanchard

Congrats!

Were the first 2 buyers from Craigslist?

Have you ran any comps to find out how much the land should be worth?  The Owner might be just dreaming on getting $90K.  

The second house is a Mobile Home which probably is not on a foundation.   They are usually just set on blocks and they are titled as Motor Vehicles in many states.   That triangular knockout by the ramp is where someone left the the hitch mounted to the frame.   Mobile Homes are worth much less  and that is why I brought up subdividing the lot.   Mobile Homes can have water damage due to poor maintenance on the roofs.  

Is this located out of Town/ City limits where the rules are less strict on some things?  

How many Liens or violations are recorded on the property?

How large is the lot?  Can it be subdivided?

Are you wanting to put it under contract and reassign it?

Or are you wanting to buy it and wholesale it to an investor?

Your third option is to find an Investor that would partner up with you and you improve the property and then sell it for Retail or close.

Sounds like someone is paying the taxes, maybe even a relative of the Owner who is in jail.  

Good luck on your search and purchase of this property.

@Clay Walker:  Are the MH's on a septic system or hooked up to a city sewer?   Septic issues can be costly to remedy and if there are rules on how large a lot has to be to have its own Septic it could limit on how many more Mobiles you could put on the land.

Since Mobile Homes do tend to have more issues than Stick Built, you could sell the Mobile and rent them the land.  If they get 3rd party financing (can be hard to do with MH), you could use that cash influx to purchase more Mobiles and do improvements to the land. 

 With the land lease, you could state that they need to give you 6-12 months notice before they move the Mobile off your land.   Most people will not foot the bill, usually in the $3-5K range, to tear down a Mobile.. move it.. and then set it back up.  In Lufkin a dealer has this ad up for a New MH for $40K , delivered (but not set up)

http://nacogdoches.craigslist.org/reb/5405774303.h...

In my area a new Single Wide set up is running over $50K.

If the Mobile's are less than 10 years old, you might not have that many problems.  8-12 years are when Water Heaters start to fail, and MH Water Heaters can cost more than regular ones.  They also can be tricky to get out of the Water Heater Closet , which is sometimes accessed thru a bedroom closet.  

If I lived in TX, I would be temped to do this deal myself since the entrance point is $250K. Where I live, you barely can find a SFH on a tiny lot in a B- to C neighborhood for that amount.

Welcome to BP!  How long have you lived in Ft. Collins?   Is that where you have your flips?

What is the appraised value or how much equity do you have in your primary residence?

If your credit has improved and if you have enough equity, why not try to get a new mortgage with a good rate and roll the both your 1st and 2nd into one mortgage? In doing this, it might be easier to get a LOC on your own residence down the road.

Depending on several factors, it might not cost much to do a refi on your primary residence.   Then if you have enough equity, you could pull out some money out of your primary residence to pay down other mortgages.  

With several investment properties, you might already have a relationship with a Lender that would be open to talk to you about your future plans and how paying off (or down) certain mortgages would effect the rate on the mortgage of your next investment property.

I have always thought that even if they are not interested in investing, they might have a relative or neighbor that needs help getting rid of a problem house.  Or even better yet, have an acquaintance that wants to get out of the stock market and would consider financing a deal or two and not want to much of the profit.

I do sometimes get the blank stares back as some of my extended family would never consider flipping a property since they have decent college degrees and make decent money. They have seen my Father make around 1/3 of their annual income off of one of his flips in less than 2 months. My Father was very hands on and did almost all of the work himself. Even if you write checks to Contractors, you can still make more return on investment than an IRA or other "boring" and "safe" retirement accounts.

Many people are happy to have their employer match their retirement funds and then wait decades for the money to grow enough to retire or go on an extended Vacation.

One of my longer term goals is to be able to take a 3-4 month long Vacation.

I do ask what some of my non REI friends long term goals are and most just say to retire by 67. I sometimes tell them that with REI they could retire 10 years earlier but most are not willing to take the risk of doing something that they do not know and understand.

For the sports fans out there:

"You'll always miss 100% of the shots you don't take." -- Wayne Gretzky

 I would want to have enough income from the other investments since the build out for some Commercial Projects can be over 24 months or if things went south on an investment, I would have a safety net built up.  I also would want to be a full time Property and Project Manager which would prohibit me from working a "conventional" 9-5 job to live off of.

I would find some where that I could buy land that could be subdivided and put Manufactured houses on it.  Not quite a MH Park but close.  Sell the Homes and rent/lease the land to the people that buy the Homes.   Impossible to do in my area but I am sure some where would let me put MH on a 1/8 or 1/4 of an acre.   Might have to go up to 1/2 acre if in a Semi Rural area where Septic Systems are the norm. 

After that Income gets to be enough to finance some Commercial projects, I would build or buy a Storage Unit Facility. Maybe even a RV Storage Lot. The own your own garage complexes are popping up by me now which might bring a decent ROI if you are the developer of one.