Posted by Steve-WA on August 28, 2003 at 10:38:54:
It was just a joke! Please . . . I won’t make you kick the kicker!
Aww, honey snoogums . . .
How to finance a 1$ mobile home? - Posted by Gavin Wilkinson
Posted by Gavin Wilkinson on August 27, 2003 at 11:41:47:
I have found a mobile home that smells REALLY bad. Needs new carpet, new water heater, new paint(inside and out), new carpet for steps, 2 new faucets, new vinyl floor and new range and fridge. So it needs 5-6 thousand for rehab.
The owner is willing to sell for 1$. I have no cash available. How do I find cash for the rehab?
My wife the Carpet Installer… - Posted by ScottH
Posted by ScottH on September 01, 2003 at 20:41:01:
My wife put the pad in the Repo we purchased. She swings a Mean Stapler. She was going along good until she cut her finger, then it was all over!
I had to finish!
Scott
Don’t jump to conclusions yet!!! - Posted by Doug (Alabama)
Posted by Doug (Alabama) on August 27, 2003 at 21:42:16:
Gavin,
See if the guy will give you an option to buy for $1. Then advertise it as a “Fixer-upper” or “Handy Man Special” and take offers. This way you aren’t out anything other than your $1 option money. Someone will come along that wants a cheap-o and take it off your hands. Minimal rish on your part.
My 2¢,
Good Luck,
Doug
Re: How to finance a 1$ mobile home? - Posted by Don Dion
Posted by Don Dion on August 27, 2003 at 13:55:39:
find a junk yard and sell the thing for scrap they will tow it away. That is your best profit. You might even be able to get $500 more from the park owner to get rid of it for them.
Wrong question = wrong answer, or… - Posted by Dr. Craig Whisler CA NV
Posted by Dr. Craig Whisler CA NV on August 27, 2003 at 13:11:40:
… a problem well stated is half-solved
(Ben Franklin).
You didn’t give any details as to the year and size of mobile home so I will assume that since the price is right, nothing else is.
Your question should have been “How can I resell it at maximum profit”, rather than “How can I throw bad money after good”.
Answer: pre-clean, only, then sell as is, where is. It rarely pays to rehab freebies and other slummobiles, BUT they CAN be resold ‘as is’ at a tidy profit.
Though you didn’t tell us, such deals are usually pull-outs anyway and moving costs are downright ugly critters, that eat profits the way I eat Big Macs.
Trying to rehab this one would probably carry you from tidy profit to TIDY BOWL. Don’t flush your profits down the drain by rehabbing this ‘palace on wheels’ unless it will be worth $20k + when done, and it can be sold without being moved.
If you are going to move it notwithstanding the above, then check to see if it has wheels and axels before you undertake to buy it and let it take you under.
If you are new, you’ve got to pay your dues. Any back taxes or space rent ‘due’ on it?
To ‘pre-clean’ means to just haul off former occupants, trash, larger dead animals etc., and do any improvements that make a SUBSTAINTIAL improvement at little or no cost in terms of your time or money.
Try to get rid of the smell if it can be done cheaply, since no-one can visualize living in something that smells so bad you have to wear scuba gear just to inspect it. If the odor is localized in one room, pull out the carpet, pad and seal the floor, then put in decent “free” used carpet that you can find behind any carpet store in their dumpster.
You can buy a knee kicker, used, in most pawn shops for about $40. That and a sharp carpet knife is all you need to have your wife install it for you.
Doc’s tip of the day: Negotiate the price. I mean that seriously. Just because the price is 1 dollar that doesn’t mean to forget all you’ve learned about negotiating. Before accepting it be sure you know the cost to move it and the fees at the local dump to dump it if need be. They are usually very high in the case of mobile homes. It could cost as much as $3,000-$4,000 to move and ‘dispose’ of it. If he is offering it for 1 dollar, the seller already knows he is in trouble. You just have to remind him "how much " trouble he is in and how much it could cost for you to save him. Use these potential costs as a negotiation tool, to try to lower the price by $500 or so. YES, I DO mean try to buy it for a NEGATIVE price. Why not, if the situation calls for it? Ask the seller to pay you $1,000 to take this PROBLEM off his hands. Then after you revive him, be a nice guy and offer to ‘negotiate’ your fee for solving HIS problem, down to only $500.
Free is NOT the best price, always try to do better. ~:)
Regards, doc
check your direction - Posted by Steve-WA
Posted by Steve-WA on August 27, 2003 at 12:31:12:
do you want to be a MH rehabber? Or do you want to be a cashflow generator?
I would find someone who wants a fixer for $500.
I have done MHs like this, but I had some cash upon which to draw. You might want to pass, find a partner, or flip cheap. Then later, when you have some cash or credit, get into a rehab.
5/6K seems very expensive. I spent about 2.5K for the same thing. Is 5/6K what you want to sink into one deal? AND you don’t have it?
Either consider creative alternatives, or pass.
now, I may be new at this, but - Posted by Steve-WA
Posted by Steve-WA on August 28, 2003 at 09:54:28:
I have not found ANYONE who will pay ME to scrap and haul away my MH.
It costs ME from 1500 to 3K to get it scrapped and hauled.
This could depend on location, of course
just a comment . . . - Posted by Steve-WA
Posted by Steve-WA on August 28, 2003 at 09:51:52:
Hi doc
I have found that pre-hab narrows one’s buyer’s market significantly to tradesmen only, or relatives of same.
While I market for a tradesman/handyman sale from the get-go, I now pre-hab to two check points:
-
Relieve the eyesore on the outside: power wash, maybe paint, cut the grass, clean the yard, new shiny porch light, plant a flower - - - this increases curb appeal, and ingratiates me to the PM; more (MOST) important.
-
Livable condition. “Livable” widens my target market CONSIDERABLY. Maybe appliances, seal in the stink, patch the worst holes.
Additionally, regarding the free carpet:
Nowadays, I have found that unless pre-ordered from a carpet de-installer, they cut the carpet into 3’ strips when removing, to facilitate fitting into a dumpster. Also, most carpet stores will not allow you to dumpster dive because of their liability if you drag your booty across an old carpet knife blade and slice off a hunk of Big Mac fat.
These are generalizations, of course, but they are more the rule than the exception.
But I like the comment about the knee kicker, so your wife can install . . . it’s all about streamlining, bay-beeee!
Re: just a comment . . . - Posted by EB
Posted by EB on August 28, 2003 at 10:14:01:
What wife? After something like this you may be footloose and fancy free…except, of course, for the large settlement!
Just a comment re: Re: just a comment - Posted by Dr. Craig Whisler CA NV
Posted by Dr. Craig Whisler CA NV on August 28, 2003 at 14:01:38:
Hi, Steve. If you were a Southern Californian, I’d say high, Steve.
I’ve never seen’em cut into strips in CA, unless very narrow ones, to tie someone up with. In Southern CA it cost more to dump old carpets than to buy new ones. Furthermore California is in the western bible belt. We keep a little belt inside a carved out section of our bibles. Ever wonder why you see so many happy faces at Southern CA religous revivals? Now you know our secret. We believe that idle hands lead to the devil’s work, so down here we actually encourage looting. Don’t you ever watch the news when we have practice riots. Those guys are just small groups of Lonnie dealers stocking up on rehab materials and training for their next free carpet run. The rolls are so large they don’t fit well in any but walk-in dumpster bins, so techinically we aren’t dumpster diving. In the ritzier areas we prefer to say we are diving alongside dumpsters, if you don’t mind. Because of all the, uh, well, lets be politically correct for a change, and call them 'recent arrivals, labor is very expensive now, especially if you try pay in U.S. dollars. Unlesss you speak their language, they won’t work for less than a roll of good used carpet for each roll they carry off. They send it south, claiming that its cheaper than concrete and more comfortable than dirt floors. We don’t cut’em up either, we just roll up the whole enchalada and in the dark someone is bound to mistake it for a Texas size real enchalada and carry it off before we can say chili peppper. Or we put a a Big Mac eater on each end of the roll 'n say go, going, gone, just like at the auction downtown.
Regards, doc