Mobile Home Investing Q&A #12 – Building A Full-Time Business Flipping & Cash-Flowing Local Mobile Homes

Welcome back,

In today’s video we are lucky enough to be joined by active mobile home investor, Erich. I use the word, “lucky” in the previous sentence because Erich is usually busy working with local mobile home parks, sellers, buyers, partners, and handymen daily. In only a matter of months Erich has made a local name for himself, formed relationships with a handful of nearby mobile home communities, and started on his way building his local portfolio of mobile home properties. In the video below we’ll…

• Drive by and discuss some of Erich’s mobile home investments.
• Discuss getting started with limited cash.
• Talk about working with partners, handymen, getting started, staging homes and more.
• Tour some of Erich’s current properties he is working on.

A special thank you to Erich for opening up his business and providing way more content and value than was asked of him. Thank you!

Becoming a 1-Stop-Shop

If you are not helping local mobile home parks, mobile home sellers, and buyers than someone else is solving their needs. As active investors we try to go the extra mile to help solve mobile home problems of local buyers and sellers, so they may move on with their lives. The more people we help, the more value we create, the more profit we earn.

✔ When dealing with sellers: It is our job as active mobile home investors to truly understand a seller’s situation, wants, and needs moving forward. In addition to making offers to purchase mobile homes you may also have to help a seller find a new home to live, hire movers, resolve title or deed issues, revolve hidden liens or tax issues, and many other unique or not-so-unique situations. This is part of the reason sellers choose to work with you.

✔ When dealing with buyers: It is our job as active mobile home investors to deal with quality buyers that are serious and have the ability to close. When dealing with buyers it may be in your best interest to insist the buyers be proactive to provide all paperwork and references you ask for in a timely-manner prior to closing or leasing.

✔ When dealing with parks: It is our job as active mobile home investors to increase local park revenues, make park managers’ lives easier, and work in as many win-win ways as possible. As an active mobile home investor you may wish to add mobile homes to local communities, remove unwanted homes from the park, sell properties to these communities, repair and resell homes within the park, and/or more. The more ways in which you may help, the more valuable you may become.

Genuinely caring about the well-being of buyers, sellers, park-owners, etc. may naturally help encourage you to go the extra mile when trying to solve problems and overcome challenges when helping others. Often times the folks we help have few other options or may be naïve/unsure about their situations.

Pro Tip: Be willing to solve the problems/challenges that other investors are not willing to solve.

Pre-screening potential buyers automatically when selling (as mentioned in video)

When selling or renting mobile homes it is important to have clarity in your plan moving forward. If you do not have a sales funnel when you are selling mobile homes, then you are the sales funnel.

Why we care? Saving time, energy, and wear/tear on your home. If you will only be selling one property every now and then you can likely handle all phone calls, screening applicants, and signing contracts without the help of automating the sales process. However, if you are selling multiple mobile home properties at all times then it may be helpful to have some automated hurdles that help screen out unqualified, lazy, flaky potential-buyers that may likely cause headaches and waste your time.

✔ Zero Automated selling funnel: (Typically where most investors naturally start.) In this scenario you are advertising and marketing in a variety of sources online and off-line to advertise your mobile home for sale. Once potential buyers start calling you’ll handle 100% of the calls, showing the properties, negotiating the deals, the application process, paperwork, closing, and beyond.

✔ Semi-automated selling funnel: (Good for most investors after deal #5.) In this scenario you are advertising and marketing in a variety of sources online and off-line to advertise your mobile home for sale. Once potential buyers start calling in from your advertisements these potential buyers will be taken through a series of instructions (these instructions will vary) to find out more information about the property, the location, condition, repairs, terms of the sale, prices, application requirements, underwriting requirements, down payments, deposits, and more. This method typically uses a combination of automated phone messaging systems, automated email messages, questionnaires, videos, and/or more before you ever need speak to any qualified buyer.

✔ Fully Automated selling funnel: (Good for very active investors.) In this scenario you are advertising and marketing in a variety of sources online and off-line to advertise your mobile home for sale. Once potential buyers start calling in from your advertisements they will be talking to and dealing with someone besides yourself. This fully automated selling funnel may take a few forms including a combination of live people, technology, videos, etc. to help outsource the selling process. In this scenario you are 100% hands-off. You may even choose to have someone else on your team sign all your paperwork with your renter, buyer, or tenant-buyer at closing.

Pro Tip: Be cautious of using too much technology too quickly in your business.

Related article: Calling past landlords to verify rental history + recorded calls

Partners & Handymen (as discussed in video)

As an active mobile home investor you will almost certainly be working with handymen, contractors, and other partners that may or may not have your best interest in mind. In order to protect all parties involved throughout any transactions, contracts and agreements should be spelled out in detail. Some forms and documentation you will highly want to consider as an active mobile home investor are:

✔ Partners: Even family members or best of friends should have contracts or thorough partnership agreements before getting involved with any business deal together. Contracts and agreements spell out who was responsible for what when problems arise down the road.

✔ Handymen & contractors: Agreements spell out the complete terms, due dates, penalties, repairs, licenses, insurances, and other particulars between all parties for each specific deal. Your Scope of Work agreement (SOW) completely filled out by you and your handyman/contractor will specifically list which repairs and services are included for the money. Additionally, make sure you have a process for dealing and communicating with your handymen and/or contractors daily. Remember that you are the one in charge and it is important to verify your properties are being repaired in a timely manner as agreed. It can be important to receive new pictures and updates from your handymen daily.

Pro Tip: Aim to not work with any contractors, handymen, or partners without first calling a handful of their references and/or past clients.

Related article: 50 tips while working with mobile home handymen and contractors

Bonus: Erich’s advice for new mobile home investors

1. Everyone has said this, but it is so true so it worth repeating: it’s going to be relatively simple, but hard. It’s going to be harder work than you think, but it’s not rocket surgery.
2. Remember the hardest part is the start: and it’ll get easier as you get experience and become more competent.
3. Don’t be afraid of offending people.This was a huge one for me. Here is a concrete example of what I mean by this is: I was afraid of making low offers because I didn’t want to offend the sellers. So often, I didn’t even make an offer. Or waited too long to make an offer and then the deal would sell on me. I was afraid of asking for things because it felt awkward: I’d tiptoe around asking what their lowest price was, or on getting feedback on my offers because I didn’t want to offend them. I don’t mean be insensitive, but if you’re a natural people pleaser and skew towards avoiding conflict, this is a limiting fear and something you’re going to have to work on to overcome. But as John says: “It gets easier.”
4. Which leads to: Always make offers. As much as you can, make an offer, even if it’s not close to what the seller wants, let them know what you can do, and give them options. You miss 100% of the shots you never take. A seller can’t consider an offer they don’t have.
5. Don’t get into something that needs too much work. Also self-explanatory. Just because you can make money on it, doesn’t mean you should. Remember: saying yes to one deal means saying no to other ones that might come along while you’re tied up.
6. Know your local market really well: become a local expert. Much of my first year was learning my local market. It was frustrating, time consuming, but has to be done. This is your foundation. Without this, you won’t have the confidence to pull the trigger. Put in the time and the legwork. Pay ongoing attention to how your local market is changing.
7. Don’t move homes. As a newbie, you need to focus on simple cosmetic flips and grow your skill set, experience and a team. Don’t even try to move homes until you feel very confident.
8. Consider John’s training. It’s all laid out right there. When I haven’t been getting the results I wanted, if I take an honest look in the mirror, it’s because I’m not doing the work laid out in the course. He tells you what to do. Are you making X calls per day? Are you making X offers per week? Are you tracking your leads and following up? Are you meeting and speaking with park managers? Are you being consistent with these efforts across time? Or are you only sorta doing some of these and other things some of the time when you feel like it? I’m guilty of failing miserably in my consistency in these areas and it’s something I know I need to improve. The good news is even with my abysmal track record, I’ve still begun to see success and know there’s so much more room to grow!
9. Stick to one type of deal until you get really good at it. Only then move on to looking at other types of real estate investing. Looking at different types of real estate and styles of deals resulted in me wasting a lot of time on things I wasn’t confident about, nor an expert in, slowing down my progress in all areas.

In conclusion you will never learn everything you need to know about real estate investing from reading books or watching videos. While there are many ways to make money in real estate, there are countless ways to lose profits as well. Have fun and take daily action to reach your financial goals. If you have questions, ask them. There are plenty of active investors around to give you help and guidance if you simply ask for it.

Have mobile home comments or questions? We’d love to hear them below?

Love what you do daily,
John Fedro
support@mobilehomeinvesting.net

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