Posted by Claire on November 17, 2000 at 21:09:50:
I read Lonnie’s Deals On Wheels mid September. Got all excited. Started looking. Nine out of ten ads I called were dealers. Talked to a lot of people. Got sidetracked. Got derailed. Got back on track. Resumed looking. I am not comfortable with the market yet, and am not confident that I would recognize a good deal when I saw one. I’m also uncomfortable with the demographics in the Houston area. Most of the “better” parks keep out older MH. The low-end parks are mostly Hispanic, Spanish speaking, lots of illegals. I don’t speak Spanish. How am I going to draw up a contract in Spanish?? I haven’t located a low-end English-speaking (read: white) MH park.
Some people tell me the Spanish are great, pay their bills on time, etc., etc. Others tell me that I’ll have to go knocking on their door every month to get my money. “They” say it costs $1,500 to evict a non-payer. In other words, I’m getting bombarded with a lot of info that I can’t rightly evaluate. It does bother me that I don’t speak Spanish. I’d like to be able to talk to my buyers! It also bothers me that some of these MHP’s look pretty scary. Seedy people. Low-riders. I’m a woman, and feel a little nervous in some of these places. I just got back from looking at one MH, and my husband told me he was surprised I came back alive.
(That MH was a double wide '82 All American Ventura, 4 bed-2 bath, all appliances & w/d, set in a park with $250/mo. park rent which includes gas, water & garbage. They wanted $10,000 cash. Old couple, bad health, want to use sale to pay for a single wide & move to a different area with total park rent & MH of less than $300. I passed on this one. I couldn’t tell if it was good or bad. If it had been $5,000 I would have bought it. But they really need the money…They’ve been trying to sell it for a year, paying $3,000 rent for the last year while they’ve been living separately due to bad health. Lots of problems.)
I’ve got $7,000 cash available. I’ve been to the new MH dealers. They have trade-ins, some fairly good for under $5,000, but then I’d have to spend at least $1,000 to move it. I know Lonnie doesn’t recommend moving your first deal. I’ve looked at some real dog MH’s in really crummy parks that have single men staggering around semi-clothed. The seller is asking $1,500 for a shell that needs to be completely rebuilt, while I pay MHP rent while it’s refurbished! Even if it ends up looking good, what decent person would want to buy into that disgusting park?
I need to find a low-end park, that lets in old MH’s and has English-speaking, sober, decent people. Is there such a place in northwest Harris county or Montgomery county in Texas?