Posted by roundhouse on July 06, 2005 at 17:49:52:
I take care of the handyman stuff for a friend of mine that has a duplex and a SFH.
The SFH is 1/4 mile from my house, the duplex is about 30 min away.
Ive NEVER been to the SFH in the 6 yrs the have owned it.
Ive been to the duplex more times than I can count.
I wouldnt want any duplexes. totally different mentality.
the folks in the duplex complain about low water pressure , saw a roach last night, trash truck wakes me up at 5 Am , etc,etc,
I was in Greenville today and rode by Eagle Homes (I didn’t stop). I generally ignore dealer lots but something caught my eye…a bright yellow sign in the window of a modular that said DUPLEX. Curious, I called about it as I have never seen a duplex modular. When I asked about it, the represenative said “It’s already sold. Someone’s already put down $5000 on it. It’s 2 bedrooms, 2 baths on each side. I don’t plan on getting another one but if someone wants one I can order it from Horton.” I jokingly said that it must of sat on the lot for a while for him not to get another one unless someone orders it. He pretty much acknowledged that he had had it a while and that “they cost $80,000 new.” I would guess that it was about 1000 sq.feet on both sides. Have either of you ever ran across one of these in the field? I only saw it as I rode by, but it was the first one I have seen.
Re: Tony and/or Scott , seen one of these yet? - Posted by Tony Colella
Posted by Tony Colella on June 30, 2005 at 20:38:40:
I had seen a picture of one posted at one of the local dealerships here a couple of years ago. It was priced too high to make it work for me unfortunately but is an interesting concept.
I haven’t looked into modulars much just yet but I suspect that if they are not already, they soon will begin to make multifamily housing out of them as well.
Yes I,ve been in one on a dealer lot.This dealer said he had 2 and wanted to move them out at about $52,000 each. This was back in 2001 or 2002. It was too big for the lot I was developing as I could only cover 30% of the land and already had a 2 car garage there. Dealer said retail price was 64-65000 then. I can’t seem to find file I had on it but I can tell you the model was Bellhaven and the dealer was in Frazeysburg,Ohio. Can’t remember s.f., but they were a very nice 2 br. modular unit.
Re: Tony and/or Scott , seen one of these yet? - Posted by Tony Colella
Posted by Tony Colella on July 01, 2005 at 09:21:24:
That’s where the idea of having 2 for 1 falls apart. A 2 bedroom, duplex mobile home of about 1000 sq ft each for that price simply does not work.
The development and semi development deals we have done, we were able to put brand new 3 bed, 2 bath doublewides on the lot for $20,000 each. Much nicer homes, better floor plan, bigger house (larger market appeal).
We cannot justify one of these duplex type deals at those prices when we could do 2 doublewides with better appeal, better cashflow, better appraisal value, and the ability to land bank and pull cash from each.
Upon reading the guy wanted $80K for a duplex modular I about fell out of my chair. As a builder I can tell you that I can build a modest no frills 2/2 each side duplex for the same money. The problem is finding the land to put it on. So the numbers just do not work. In fact I do not believe the long term numbers work for the stick built duplex.
I have many single family (sf) stick built rentals, a few sf modulars and a small park. I stay away from the duplex concept because my experience is that they are more headaches. Mainly in the area of turnover. The sf homes do not turnover near as often. And the park is rare to have turnover for obvious reasons. Turnover is my number one overhead expense. That is why I am here today b/c I want to acquire more parks and home/land deals.
I understand the original post was not looking to make the duplex jump. But my caution goes out to anyone who would think about such an animal.
FYI - However with all that said. I once was canoing the Rio Grande river for two weeks. The night before our trip began we located a motel in the middle of NO WHERE Texas. We pulled up to find that this Motel was actually a group of about 4 Single Wides each being divided into 2 motel rooms. They were not new but neatly kept and somewhat modern considering we were in the middle of the desert. I mention this b/c for this business person the numbers probably made sense. So every application is different!