MiKessler Daily Investing Journal

I just got an agreement on a single family home. The seller is willing to sell it for exactly what he owes. I have to pay agent commissions but other than that I will be able to get into this deal with nothing out of my pocket. My plan is to ask a lease option buyer to pay 6K down on the home to secure the option to buy the home at 135-140K. I'm buying this home at 117K. they will be paying me monthy $985 per month which is just above what this area will rent for. I should be able to cashflow about $150 per month in addition. I just started putting some ads out there and I'm already getting some calls. I just got a call on one of my Mobile Homes I'm selling. The seller has 15K to put down on a home and he is also selling his personal home on a seller finance. I'm going to see if I can make him an offer as well. This is exciting, I just hope I can put all of this together and lets make some money by the end of the year. This is my favorite part of real estate is putting the deals together.

Hey Mike
I was going to PM you but figured you might want to share your answer with those that follow your journal.

I'm going to check out three mobiles all in the same park. The owner wants to sell them for $1000-1500 a piece. One needs $500 to get rent/seller ready and the other two need about $1000 to get ready. I read your journal and like the idea of the park owner not charging the lot rent until the mobiles are sold/rented. That's like getting them to pay you $500-600 upfront.

Since the mobiles are personal property do you still record the note you create after selling the mobiles on owner finance?
Fish

Thanks for your post and what an awesome find. Not everyday you can buy them in 3's like that. That is the right price, and you can rent or seller finance them for quite a bit more and make a good cash flow with very little invested.

Yes mobile homes are personal property all titles are recorded at the DMV. The way I protect myself is to make sure I'm in the lien position on the title. When I sell the home on contract I'm on the title as the lien holder, once they pay me in full then they I will send them the title.

As for the Note: it is Federal law when you do a seller finance note you are suppose to disclose a few items. You need to disclose a note, truth in lending which has the apr and total cost of the loan. If you have any questions about that I would get with your title company they will help you understand what each of those are. Also I provide them a payment amortized sheet so they can see where they are at with there loan. I also have a promissory note I have them sign and notarize. It took a bit of work to set it up, but after the first deal, it is the same paperwork every time.

Well that was a long response, but hopefully that helps

Thanks
Mikessler

It was great talking to you yesterday on the phone! Great journal! Please stop by and check mine out sometime.

I have been out of town to the Domican Republic. I took my wife and 2 kids down for a couple weeks off. We had a wonderful time. The weather was amazing, the beach sandy is awesome. The whole time I was down there I was thinking, someday i will have the money to buy some land on the beach and build a sweet home. Not just to stay at, but I would love to own it and rent it out like a weekly vacation spot. I think it would do really well. The cost of labor there is really inexpensive, you can have maids, to everything for your guests and everything. I'm just thinking big that all.

But to be honest with you, i was anxious to get back and get to work. I have a couple of deals cooking right now. Before I left I gave my assistant Mickey a challenge. If she sold any of my homes while I was away I would give her an extra $150. and guess what, she did. She had a buyer ready for me when I came back. It is another Mobile home, I am recieving $1000 down and the buyer will be giving me $250 per month for the next 7 years. So it is pretty awesome.

Well, onward and upward

I have another Mobile home i'm selling. I had to take this property back from the buyer, he lost his job and started having medical problems. He was a nice guy and is still paying me back on the late payment.

I found a new buyer for it this morning. he looked at the property and loves it. he has cash and i'm hoping we can put it together. They offered a little lower than what I want out of it. I countered back, I'm giving them a great deal since they are buying it with cash.

also i'm closing on another seller financing deal right now. They just got approved in the community today and we will sign the papers on monday next week. I love it when they sell. I'm now working on MH# 18 I think. we have already painted it. I'm just picking up the used appliances. I will have my flooring guy in there hopefully by the end of next week. On to the next, and the next

Hi Mike,

really appreciated your thred on MH's. My partner was over and we were putting an offer together and I saw your thread and starting reading it aloud. We ended up with a seller that called in my bandut sign and had a MH for sale and we went and looked at it. His mother livd there and movd out a couple of months ago after her husband passed 2 years ago. Really nice and he asked 3500 for it or bo. We still haven't put the offer togetether cause we have to figure out to get a value on it and the seller found out the park had his mom sign a broker contract for 90 days for the park to sell it. We spoke to the owner of the park and they don't allow non tenants to live there and won't allow Lease options, so I'll just have to find a MH park that does.
How do you get thru this and how are you getting these mobile homes for free? Please let me know if you can and thanks for the posts. Louis[/quote]

Louis,

Great question. yes most communities here as well won't allow you to rent or LO the home either. When I purchase them or get them for free. i fix them up and re-sell them on a seller finance contract. Most of my buyers don't have cash, so they are very happy that seller financing is available.

I work with community owners a lot. That is how you are going to get your best relationship with that community. I always ask for at least 2 months of free lot rent so I can fix up the home.

I get a lot of homes for free. I have 1 community right now that has about 30 vacant homes just sitting. I made a deal with the owner. If I fix them up and sell them, he needs to give me the homes. He is very happy to collect the new lot rent, and I now collect a monthly payment from the buyer. it's great. I've done it over and over. Hopefully that helps, let me know if you have any other questions, and you can follow my deals for ideas.

Thanks
Mikessler

I have some work I need to finish in the morning. It is going to be an early morning. My buyer is purchasing the home on wednesday afternoon this week. They are very excited and the home isn't ready. I have some granite work I need to finish, and hook up the washer and dryer.

Some recent news today. They buyer may be purchasing the home with cash. I'm ok with that. Wow that would be sweet if I can collect all of my money up front. I miss out on the interest monthly, but that would be awesome.

I have the other home I'm selling as well. This buyer talked me down a bit off my price, but it is with cash. They plan on closing this week as well. So it is a busy week.

I'm very excited, my dad came to me the other day and said he is an open bank account. Basically he wants to invest with me now. That opens up new doors. So i'm now going to start ramping up my offers on homes and get deals to rehab and retail sell. I know we will do really well.

Very excited about this next year. This has been a turning point in my life this year, I see the direction, now I just need to make it happen

Mike thanks for the reply, it was very helpful. I have 2-3 different mobile homes to go look at and will be talking with difeerent connunity owners in the near future. This is awesome info. I am not sure what seller finanicing is though. Does that come with a down pmt? I started a thread asking for more info on them. I have a partner that was personally trainined, by Matt Larson and who is a licenesded contractor, but I don't know if we have the same vision and he only has 2 days a week., so I will be leaning more closely to Deans 30 days to cash Book. I was able to get 59 Buyers and 17 Tenant Buyers using a technique from here and maybe I can call my buyers to see if they want to go 50 until I can afford to do it myself using your techniques here in lansing. I also am pretty easily able to find motivated sellers and so far can probably schedule 20 walkthrus a week with a realtor, but also need to implement that. I am going to do 5-7 walkthrus on Tuesdays and then do the offrs the next day and hopefully I can learn to stand on my own feet instaed of relying on a contractor. That is what I think I will be doing. Thanks a million and I will be following your deals if you dont mind. Louis

Louis,

Absolutely. Glad to help out anytime. Let me know if you have any other questions.

I usually update my journal a few time a week and will post this new closing I am having today on it so everyone can see the details on how I did it.

keep going, your doing great

If I didn't say already, I'm taking out a small $2000 against my car and have decided to buy a mobile home and get paid using your techniques. I will reread your posts again and again.

Louis

If your taking out a loan with high interest I wouldn't do it. You can find private money and use other peoples money that won't be nearly as much.

Also find the deal first before you ever borrow any money as well.

I'm excited for your enthusiasm to be successful with this. It really takes undying determination to be successful in real estate.

Keep up the good work

I'm very excited to move forward onto the next one. Last night I just closed on a Mobile home to a senior couple. Here is the whole deal. I just love it.

I got the home for free from my motivated community owner. I put about 3000 into this home, it didn't need a whole lot. I have my worker that does most of the work, he is learning and growing more every day. My buyer bought this for $13500. They gave me $1000 down and I am financing them a loan of $12,500 for 6 years with payments of $244 per month at 12% interest.

They are very excited about the home and will be moving in this weekend. They are planning on using a 401K they have access to in a couple months since he is retiring. they plan on paying off the loan. So I will be making a little over $10,500 for the home. It isn't a huge deal, but I will take them all day long.

If they would have financed the home, I would have made an additional $5K on the home, which I would have made over $15-$16K on this investment. But I would rather have the 10K now and fund my next deals.

I love this business, and I'm glad to share success. It is motivating to me to read others success stories, so that is why I posted mine

Last night I worked late on this home I just sold. It reminds me why I'm looking for a handyman type guy that will do this work for me. My time is best used when I'm looking for properties and setting up deals and not doing the rehab work.
That is my main focus for next week. I need to find a guy that can do handyman type work for me. I've got to make it happen!!!

Other than that, it went well, I only have a couple small things to do tomorrow so they can move in.

Hey Mike, I'm going to focus on wholesale SFR and set a goal of 1 walkthru a day and doing a MAO per day until I become fluent, then after I close a couple, would you be interested in partnering up with me on a few MH deals for 50/50?

I would be more interested in a mobile home community. I'm looking in either arizona, texas, nevada, utah, new mexico for a mobile home community. I would be interested in one the seller is willing to seller finance and will take a down payment.

Also they would need to be distressed, meaning a lot of vacant lots. then we can work together to find single homes I can move into the community.

I have a few new goals this week. I need to find 2 handyman guys that I want to try out to help me part time with these mobile home's i'm rehabbing. Second is to get back into the Single Family homes market. Now that I'm coming back into the market I want to hit it hard. I will be making at least 10 offers this week, I would like to be doing at least 20 offers per week by the end of the month.

This is where I want to go to get where I want to be.

Hi Mike,
Great posts and info.How did you come up with your 12% figure to charge your buyers for your owner financed deals? Why not 6% or 15%.Thank you.
All the best
Chuck

Good job Mike. All you do is work. My office is next to yours so I can tell everyone you are a hard worker. (Except when you sleep on the job.) Ha! Ha!.

Keep up the effort. It does pay off.

A couple years ago when I started investing in MH's I asked around to companies that finance older MH's and the average was 12-15%. I use the lower end because I'm a nice guy. But really I could charge 15-20% easily. When you go to sell a MH on seller financing you are really selling the payment per month. If the payment works for them you could sell what ever interest rate you want.

Great question. Hopefully that helps

Roy does work with me and I wouldn't listen to a word he says. He is full of hot air!

No in all reality, Roy is a great investor that works hard. He just closed a couple wholesale deals, he is doing everything dean teaches.

See you tomorrow Roy

Well I made most of my goal. I found a granite guy to install for me, also I found a handyman guy that is going to finish the one MH i'm working on right now. I didn't do a very good job with my offers. I only got one out. I did solidify getting an offer in on a short sale with a friend of mine. But I have to do better this week. I have to get out 10 offers for sure.

I will make my goal by the end of the month.

also I found money here as well. I found a hard money company that will do some great loans. They will give me 65% of the ARV and they will also do 80% of purchase price then I can get a seller financing second. I know I can close a number of these deals.

I'm very excited for the next couple months.

I have been working hard this week trying to get out 10 offers. I'm a little rusty getting out a lot of offers. I have spent some time getting my templates put together. Also I'm setting up my contracts digitally so I can just change the info on the computer and not have to print out every contract. I should hopefully have it up and going by the end of this week.

I've put out 5 contracts so far, I have 5 more to go. I'll make it. I'm excited, I have 1 offer in on a home of a friend of mine. He is short selling his home. Also I'm following a 4 plex right now that has some zoning issues. The seller is an older lady. I'm in touch with the grand daughter. They are very nice. But it meets everything i'm looking for, I hope I can get that one under contract.

I just helped another investor fund a deal. I lined up the money for him, it closes today. That investor will make about 3-4K on the deal, so everyone is happy.

I'm very excited with the new leads. We'll get something here shortly.

Well last week I came close to making my goal. I was able to make 7 offers on properties. I need to follow up on a few of the offers. I just made one yesterday and will hit 10 offers this week.

I have my other printing business that I run and coming to the end of the year it is amazing how we did. It has been a great year. We more than doubled in profits on what we did last year. This has just been an overall amazing year. Now that i'm a coach for dean and Scott, it has slowed me down with doing my real estate business. But it has been the best thing I have done since I married my wife. It is now forcing me to become a better investor and really take my business to the next level. I am really looking forward to next year. I want to kick it off with an accepted offer to purchase early next year. That is what I would really like to accomplish.

I have been trying to get others to do work for me, it is getting better but I'm still way to busy. I get up early in the morning and I don't stop until late at night. I enjoy what I do, but there is little down time. I watched Dean and Joe Polish the other day and something really rang a bell for me. I need to watch it again. But it was comments on saying no to the things that don't matter if I say no, so I can say yes to what matters and is important. I'm going to watch the replay of that again, I loved it. It really applies to me and know I can grow from what Joe taught.

I messed up and should have finished my grandpa's bathroom vanity yesterday. I forgot I haven't hooked up his sink. So he has had to use the kitchen sink. This is important to me to help him out, and I need to say no to other things that aren't as important. I will make it right today.

But that is how we learn and grow, if we don't struggle there isn't any motivation to change and do better.

Aw...sweet things for the people you love and whom love you!

"...it has been the best thing I have done since I married my wife. It is now forcing me to become a better investor and really take my business to the next level."

"...I messed up and should have finished my grandpa's bathroom vanity yesterday...I will make it right today."

FAMILY first!
~Merry Christmas!

Hi Mike,
Thanks for the response.Great info and great journal.Keep up the good work and keep us informed. All the best Chuck

Good Evening Mike - Just read your entire journal and I took plenty of notes. I am very interested in MH and I always have been. After reading your journal it sounds like this could possibly be a great starting point for my husband and I. So my question for you is...

what was your first step in this specific area? From what I have read it sees speaking to the park owners is key.