Mobile Home Update

We’ve had a bunch of stuff going on with our mobile home investments over the past two months, but I haven’t had much time to write about our progress, issues, and current status…so here goes:

Mobile Home #1

Our very first mobile home purchase took a turn for the worse last month when our buyer (who we were selling to with financing and had been in the home since October) decided to move out, without giving any notice. We didn’t receive a January mortgage payment, and upon investigating, we found the MH had been abandoned and left in pretty rough condition (actually, they bought it in rough condition, so it wasn’t much worse).

We had realized after we originally purchased that home that we probably didn’t want to be taking on mobile homes that required too much work, and therefore decided that we didn’t want spend a lot of time/energy rehabbing this one once the buyers left. So, we bit the bullet and sold the home to a cash buyer at a low price.

We had purchased the home for $2000, put in $150 in rehab and another $125 in transfer costs and taxes. We had received $1400 in down-payment and loan payments from the original buyer, plus another $750 from the cash buyer who ultimately took it off our hands. After all was said and done, we lost $123.47 on this deal…the first time we’ve ever lost money on a deal! But, it was a good learning experience and I’d rather take the $100 loss than have to deal with that run-down home…

Mobile Home #2

We’ve had our buyers in this home since October, and they are fantastic. They pay their loan payment on-time every month (before the 1st even!), and they’ve been a pleasure to work with in all respects. They still have 14 payments left on their mortgage, and the way things are going, I’m pretty confident they’ll get it paid off. They had been talking about paying off the loan with their tax refund this month, but I don’t think that’s going to happen.

We’re into this property for about $1400 after all costs and expenses, and we expect that if these buyers pay off the note on-schedule, we should make about $2500 in profit, for a bit more than 100% return in 18 months.

Mobile Home #3

These buyers have only been in the home for two months, but have made both their payments on schedule and we haven’t had any issues with them. They have 12 more loan payments before their note is paid off and they own the home.

We’re into this property for about $1300 after purchase costs, rehab, paying off back lot-rent, etc. And we expect that if these buyers pay off the note on-schedule, we should make about $2600 in profit, for nearly a 200% return in just over a year. Not too shabby…

Mobile Home #4

We purchased this home for $1500, put in about $420 in rehab and tax payments, and then turned around and sold it to a cash buyer for $3500. In the week that we held that property, we made $1579.29 in profit on a $1500 purchase, for greater than 100% return in one week.

Mobile Home #5

We purchased this mobile home a few weeks ago for $500 and put in $560 in back lot-rent and rehab costs. We quickly found a buyer who needed financing, and sold it for $3500 ($500 down-payment and $3000 mortgage to be paid over 13 months).

Projected profit on this one (assuming the buyers pay off the mortgage on-schedule) is $2650, for a 250% return in just over a year.

So, overall, I think we’re doing pretty well with the mobile homes. MH #1 was clearly bad purchase (in retrospect), and who knows what adventures we’ll have with the remaining three buyers who we are financing the purchases for; but from a purely financial standpoint, we’ve been able to buy and sell these homes for substantial profit margins, and (so far), the work required to purchase, rehab and resell the homes has been pretty minimal, especially compared to typical single family homes.