Posted by Marty (MO) on August 24, 2003 at 24:19:30:
I applaud your prudence, but to me it looks like you gave up an asset that was appreciating in value to pay retail for a mobile home that’ll drastically depreciate. It looks good short term, but to me, the only way mobile homes work as an investment is if you buy wholesale.
We started in MHs in April and have done 6 high yield investments with very little invested. The system is not complicated, but you need to buy DOW before you throw more money down the drain.
Good luck,
Marty
My wife and I (and two kids) currenently live in a nice trailer park in a newly purchased manufactured home. This is after owning 3 different homes and a condo during our 10+ year marriage. For more about how we ended up in a park, here’s an article I wrote – http://mauder.com/articles/sr_trailerpark.htm
Anyway, since we got married, we’ve been talking about getting into real estate investing, but haven’t done anything about “our dream”. Like most people, I get paralyzed by the details, and I’m scared to venture out into something totally new (I’m a computer engineer now).
So, since we move to the trailer park, we’ve been teased a bit and ridiculed because everyone knows homes on wheels don’t appreciate. It’s not an investment and you basically lose money the longer you live in one. I’m not sure if that’s true or not, but it certainly seems to make sense. I doubt if we would get our money out of the home now if we sold; although it is in perfect shape.
We paid around $60K for our new home and now I’m really getting serious about real estate investing. The more I read about Lonnie Scruggs and his techniques, I’m thinking that might be the way to go.
Is it possible to get financing based on the equity in a manufactured home? Or would I be totally on my own to come up with the money to make my first few deals until I get some cash flow going? I can put my hands on about $6-$7K in cash, so I’m sure I could make at least one or two deals.
As a general question to anyone reading, would you recommend I start with mobile homes, or try to purchase another regular home as a primary residence, move out of the park, and then be able to use the equity in my new home to get my real estate investing “career” off the ground?
…is a matter of learning to buy wholesale, first and foremost.
Next step is to make your home a profitable investment (The Richest Man In Babylon).
You screwed up on both accounts.
You want to be an investor? First undo your mistakes. If you can do that you CAN be an investor. If not, I won’t let you make any further investments without a note from your mother.
Dave, we ALL make mistakes, especially at first. Its what you do about them that counts.
Anyone can learn to be an investor. OK, so keep learning. Read the books and read the board until you get a better understanding of investing principals and practice, just like all of us did.
Learn from others mistakes as well as your own.
Its what you learn that determines what you earn. No free lunch on this point.