Mobile homes scare me, plain and simple. Unless you count the invasion of mice when we lived in the country as a problem, our mobile home living when I was a teenager was uneventful. Yet when you hear about tornadoes, hurricanes, or any kind of bad weather it’s always the mobile homes that are ruined, people hurt and killed.
Today, mobile homes are actually a fairly affordable option for buyers – especially if they can find a home with finished walls and place them on a permanent foundation. What will FHA and VA approve for permanent foundations? Click here to learn more. With the caveat that my information is already outdated, two years ago when I closed on a manufactured home, there had to be 16 tie-downs for it to qualify FHA.
Meanwhile, as mobile homes continue to be one of the choices people make when purchasing homes, investors can consider not necessarily buying one themselves, but buying a mobile home PARK instead. This post by Frank Rolfe at Bigger Pockets was very interesting to me,
In a typical mobile home park, the phone might ring once per month for a lot for rent (normally an RV) – that’s the whole sales side of the thing. The yellow page ad comes up once a year, so that kind of handles marketing. I show up in court to evict someone every once in a while. But that’s about as much action as I get.
What about crime? I tell the tenant to call 911. What about rowdy neighbors? I tell the tenant to call 911. Loose dog? Call 911. There really isn’t much that ever goes on that the answer is not “call 911″.
This sounds like a pretty good deal to me as a potential investor. Have you ever lived in a mobile home? What was your experience like?
Add to:
I guess it depends on where you are with that “call 911″ thing. Here the owner of rental property is fined each time the police has to go out to the rental address. Some owners have complained that they are being fined more than they get for rent. I think it’s supposed to make them more careful who they rent to, but instead it’s adding to foreclosures and empty problem properties.
Posted by: Lucy | October 5th, 2009 4:21 pm |
Hi Jill, Got you from a google alert re: Mobile/Manufactured Home financing and FHA inspections and foundations. How did you come to learn about us? Please feel free to check out our blog and website anytime and by all means consider us your resident MH experts if you ever need any information or facts about the industry.
I was actually going to write a post on our blog about owning MH parks as investments. When I get it completed I will forward it on to you. I think you will find it quite interesting. Please feel free to re-blog it if you wish.
Posted by: John Arendsen | October 6th, 2009 7:45 pm |