A Lonnie Deal is when you buy an older mobile home for a couple thousand dollars, then reselling with seller financing for 2,3,4 times more. Often you get all your money back within a few months. After that, it’s pure cash flow. There is much less competition for mobile home deals.
Get 10 or 20 Lonnie Deals going, and you can kiss your day job goodbye.
In Lonnie’s books, Deals on Wheels and Making Money with Mobile Homes, he describes several ways to find older mobile homes that you can buy CHEAP. Here were two of Lonnie’s favorite methods:
1. DRIVING FOR DOLLARS – driving through parks looking for old For Sale signs in the window or asking people if they know anyone who wants to sell. (this is how I found my first mobile home deal for $1800)
So, how do you find the parks? Go to Google Maps. Type in your town, then mobile home park (ie Tyler Texas Mobile Home Parks). A list of mobile home parks will come up with their address and driving directions. You can also see a street view of the park and surrounding area.
Yea, there will be a phone number too. And you'll be tempted to sit at home in your underwear calling all the parks to ask if they have any cheap mobile homes to sell. THIS WILL NOT WORK! DO NOT CALL THE PARKS… you need to go to the parks. Take time to build a relationship with the….
2. PARK MANAGERS – the park manager is the first person to know when someone has financial problems, can’t pay their lot rent, lost their job, or is planning to move…or when there is a death in the family. So making friends with the park manager is essential to your mobile home investing business. You can offer to pay the manager a referral fee for each home they refer to you that you can buy. They will help you sell mobile homes too.
Very rarely will you find good mobile home deals advertised on craigslist or other web sites. You won't find a good mobile home deal through a real estate agent either.
You have to “get out there” and talk to people to find good mobile home deals. You cannot find mobile home deals sitting at home.
Here are a few more sneaky ways to find good, cheap mobile homes that have worked well for me:
3. MOBILE HOME DEALERS: When someone wants to buy a new mobile home, the dealer will take their old mobile home in as trade. The dealer then has to move the mobile home to their lot to resell at a discount. If you tell (in person) to the dealers that you’re interested in buying their trade-ins before they are moved, they will give you a big discount.
4. MOBILE HOME MOVERS: Mobile home movers get great deals, and even free mobile homes offered to them all the time. Find out who the mobile home movers are in your area and let them know you are interested in any homes they can get but you would prefer that they stay in the park.
5. BIG PLAYERS: Did you hear the story about how I bought 64 mobile homes for $400 each? I bought them from one of the biggest mobile home players… ARC (Affordable Residential Communities). When they, and other big players, buy a mobile home park, they usually want to liquidate the existing park owned homes, especially if they are older homes. Find out if they are buying any parks in your town and if they will have any park owned homes to liquidate. Who knows, you might get a slew of homes for $400 too!
6. MOBILE HOME FINANCE COMPANIES… NOT HUD: Some local banks finance mobile home purchases. Contact them to see if they have any REO’s they would like to liquidate. Keep in mind that they are responsible for lot rent as long as the home sits in the park, so they are motivated to sell, sell, sell.
7. TAX SALES: They don't come up very often, but you can sometimes find great deals from your city or county tax sales. Go to the tax sale office to find out if there are any mobile homes on the list.
8. NICE PARK SALES DEPARTMENTS: Some mobile home parks are getting in to the business of selling mobile homes with seller financing too. You'll have a hard time doing Lonnie Deals in any of those parks because the park manager has to approve your buyer… and they probably won't. But you can do this… When someone wants to buy a mobile home in the nice park but they need to sell an older mobile home in a different park before they can afford the down payment on the new home, offer to buy the older mobile home. This helps the Nice Park sell more homes. And helps the buyer liquidate their homes faster. Everyone wins!
Now you know how to find old mobile homes you can buy cheap. The next step is to learn how to do a Lonnie Deal… here’s how…
Lonnie Scruggs’ 3 Book Special (includes “Deals on Wheels”, “Making Money with Mobile Homes”, and “Taking the Mystery Out of Money” ) will teach you everything you need to know. Lonnie Scruggs 3 Book Special
or see the ULTIMATE MOBILE HOME ONLINE BOOTCAMP now on sale for $99.50
