Posted by Craig McCracken (AL) on August 02, 2006 at 05:17:35:
Hi Tony,
First off thank you for your time. I find it interesting that a writer of books on this subject would reccommend anothers work. That has to be the best indorsement ever. That said I feel that I made a good choice in ordering DOW.
Craig
How did YOU get started ? - Posted by Craig McCracken (AL)
Posted by Craig McCracken (AL) on July 31, 2006 at 16:06:40:
I’m still very green and want to spend more time learning the ropes before I try to do my fisrt deal. Now that you know where I’m comming from, I thought it might be interesting to hear others stories.
How did you get into the buying and selling of MH’s ? Was this an extention of other REI’s ? Inquiring minds want to know. 
Craig
Re: How did YOU get started ? - Posted by Chris Reuman (Maine)
Posted by Chris Reuman (Maine) on August 01, 2006 at 21:12:47:
Hi Craig,
Thanks for the question, but you need to GOTC (Get Off The Couch) and look at mhs and talk to park managers, mobile home movers, etc… In this business for your first deal, if you read Lonnie’s book, DOW, and follow it, at worst, you will break even and learn a ton, at best, make a lot of money. The best way to learn is by trying. Enough said.
I have always loved real estate, but lived on the west coast and moved every year or so. I moved to Maine 8 years ago and bought a house which I sold in one year for $50k profit. I was bitten by the bug. I started in rentals: duplex, 6 unit, etc… but found the cashflow per deal to be poor when the prices started going up. Then I found mobile homes on land for rentals and the cashflow was/is great. Now I am doing a few land mh packages because the equity spread is great. In a rural area, I have come to learn that you have to always be looking for opportunities (profit spread) in every area. I own two parks, for future wealth building. I focus mainly on rentals, and like them the most. The Lonnie deals are good for cashflow, and hope to do more in the future.
As someone new to this business, I will share some advice. I have found two key rules in making money.
Try to work with motivated people: motivated sellers, motivated bankers, motivated hard money lenders, motivated realtors, motivated handymen, etc… That sounds easy, but how do you find motivated people. Here is the answer. For every position, interview 10 people. For mh deals or real estate deals, look at 20-40 deals. Visit 10 mhps, talk with 10 realtors, interview 10 banks, place an ad in the newspaper for a handyman (preferrable semi retired) and talk with 10 people, look at 20 mh and YOU WILL FIND MOTIVATED PEOPLE. The key to motivated people is that they want you to succeed. They want you to solve their problem. They want to lend you money, sell the mh, etc… If you hit a hurdle, they will help you find a solution. ie. You don’t have the money to buy your first Lonnie Deal. You meet with a seller and they want to sell for a wholesale price. If they are motivated they will give you an option to buy. You advertise and find a buyer and close the deal. Now people might say that the buyer can go around you to the original seller. That might happen, but unless the original seller wants to take payments, which they don’t, they won’t take the buyer. Now newbees that aren’t motivated will come up with a thousand excuses why they can’t make it in the business. Read the posts, people across the country are doing very well in this business. So work with motivated people and be motivated to make this work.
Don’t allow anything to stop you (find creative ways to solve problems and see opportunities). A real estate investor in the next town bought a run down motel and restaurant on the water for very little money. The problem was that the septic system was failing. Now this property could not keep a good restaurant due to the influx of tourist in the summer and no one in the winter. It had 10 beat up 400 square foot waterfront cottages and some land on the waterfront and behind the motel. This couldn’t be developed due to the poor septic system. The septic system couldn’t be fixed due to lack of good soil. (rocky coast of Maine). So every couple of years, new owner, owner fails, repeat. This guy comes along and pays 1.2 million dollars to run a sewer line across the Sheepscot River (2000 feet or more)from the next town. He gets an agreement with his town that he can develop his land and pay 1/2 the normal property taxes, and charge for anyone else to hook up to his sewer line. He renovated part of the motel into Condos, that have sold for $150,000 each (on the water), sold the 10 cottages for $250,000 each, and is developing larger ones for $500,000 and now has year round clients for his high end restaurant that he just finished. Now this guy took a problem that everyone else saw one way and he saw it another way. Now granted this is the extreme, but it can be applied to you and me. Look for ways to solve other peoples problems in creative out of the box ways and your profits can be huge.
I wish you tremendous success, and I look forward to reading about the great deals.
Best investing, Chris
Re: How did YOU get started ? - Posted by Tony Colella
Posted by Tony Colella on August 01, 2006 at 17:36:00:
Like most here, I started searching the net about investing in real estate and stumbled across this site. After reading for some time I had to ask, “what the heck is a Lonnie deal?”
Back then there was no mobile home forum.
I then had to ask, “Why the heck would anyone invest good money in a trailer?”
To answer my question I bought and read Lonnie’s 2 books, “Deals On Wheels” and “Making Money With Mobile Homes” and the rest is history.
Tony
Re: How did YOU get started ? - Posted by Lin (NC)
Posted by Lin (NC) on August 01, 2006 at 08:50:09:
I bought a duplex when I was in my 20’s, and though I got a good deal on it and rents were reasonably high, the cash flow was pretty miserable for the amount of equity I had. I had been reading CRE since about '99 and followed some of the posters who were doing Lonnie deals (Tony-VA, for example) and bought Deals on Wheels. I read it in one sitting and thought, “This is brilliant! I can do this!” I made more doing 3 deals than I did in 6 months working full time for an accountant. And I’ll be conservative here in saying that I spent 40 hours putting together those 3 deals. I bought a land/home package last year and rehabbed that. I’m holding that as a rental.
I’m not actively pursuing Lonnie deals at the moment - I’m looking for parks. My goal now is to buy a turn-around park and sell homes in my own park. I made offers on two parks in the last several days and I’m just waiting for counters from the seller. In fact, I’m supposed to get a fax this morning. One park has 89 spaces with only 43 occupied. That ought to keep me busy for awhile.
Lin
Re: How did YOU get started ? - Posted by Dan (Michigan)
Posted by Dan (Michigan) on August 01, 2006 at 08:42:22:
I got started by just doing it! Don’t let fear or inexperience stop you from going for it. Good luck.
Keep Investing,
Dan
Re: How did YOU get started ? - Posted by Craig McCracken (AL)
Posted by Craig McCracken (AL) on August 02, 2006 at 05:13:22:
Thank you Chris, and all the others who have replied. I have read so many posts here from people all over the country that have been successfull in this. My skepticism is starting to wane.
Sure hope my copy of DOW gets here soon. When it does I will need to Get On The Couch and obsorb all the information in it.
Craig
Awesome advice, everyone take heed! - Posted by JeffB (MI)
Posted by JeffB (MI) on August 01, 2006 at 21:35:06:
Great post Chris. Sometimes it is easy to get caught up in the day-to-day needs of running a business that I forget to really look for motivated individuals to do business with. It sounds so easy, but really takes a consistent effort to put that into practice.
Sometimes I think it’s good to go back to the basics to really gain a perspective of how we have gotten off track and what corrections are needed. Which is exactly why I read every single post on this board, you just never know when that great advice will be presented.