As I mentioned in my previous post, as of this week, we have sold off all of our mobile homes and mobile home notes…
I just wanted to take a few minutes to recap our results with our mobile home deals:
In all, we purchased 5 mobile homes over about 5 months. I had two partners, who admittedly did most of the field work (We had just had a baby, so I spent most of the time at home working on the business side of things). So, while I can’t comment too much on the effort and difficulty of the transactions, I think it’s safe to say that the work was easier than flipping homes (mostly because there was less rehab involved), albeit with the added frustration of dealing with very low income tenants/buyers.
Our first mobile home deal was the only real estate deal I’ve ever done where I lost money. This was unfortunate, but gave me the perspective I needed to realize that I didn’t want to be the mobile home business (at least not at the level of buying/selling individual homes). Luckily, the rest of our transactions were profitable, and over the course of the past 9 months or so, we were able to double our very small investment into this business.
Here is a detailed breakdown of our financial results, not including overhead expenses:
| Mobile Home | Purchase Price | Total Income | Profit |
|---|---|---|---|
| MH #1 | $2,000.00 | $3,310.00 | ($123.47) |
| MH #2 | $1,593.19 | $3,744.00 | $1,190.69 |
| MH #3 | $860.00 | $3,520.00 | $2,650.17 |
| MH #4 | $1,500.00 | $2,690.00 | $1,579.29 |
| MH #5 | $500.00 | $2,150.00 | $1,804.00 |
As always, all our results — including these — can be found on our Results To Date page…
All-in-all, I would definitely recommend flipping mobile homes (Lonnie Deals) to new investors who are looking for a relatively inexpensive way to get their feet wet in real estate investing. Not only do many of the principles of wholesaling and flipping houses apply to Lonnie Deals, but for an energetic investor with a little cash to invest, mobile home investing is a great way to build up the bank account and move up to bigger and better aspect of RE investing.
Again, just my opinion… 🙂
[…] Flipping Mobile Homes: Ideal For Real Estate Beginners? Posted by: amanda | Category: Flipping Houses, Real Estate Investing […]
Looks like a great way to make 100% on your money. With very little risk.
I think you’re smart to get out at this stage in your business… realistically the numbers just aren’t big enough to get exciting.
I just found your blog. I am a Builder in NC. I have been trying to find hard money and private lenders for my rehab deal without success. I do have some cash, enough for your mobile home investing. Could you give me a good source to buy mobile homes,(wholesale)?
Dwayne –
All the mobile homes we purchased were found either on Craigslist or on the websites of various banks who had foreclosed mobile homes to sell. We also did a bit of direct marketing to folks who lived in mobile home parks…they often know what’s for sale in their neighborhood.
I have just started in mobile homes and in fact just bought my first park using some creative owner financing. I could not find any info on why you lost money on the first MH.I saw the post where you bought and sold it but nothing about when it started going down hill. Care to share.
Chris –
Check out this update on MH #1:
http://www.123flip.com/mobile-home-update
Even though the profits won’t make you rich (unless you scale it big time), it is still a nice way to get started in real estate. You can start with mobile homes and work into larger flip or wholesale deals.
Got to get started somewhere. You just need to scale it big time because the profits on each deal might not be that high.