I was just reading an article about manufactured homes and that you can buy them as small as a cabin for under 20k. It got me thinking.....


How hard would it be to buy some land and just add cabins as you can afford? I mean start out with 4 cabins and work up to 20 cabins over 5 years? Rent on these cabins would go for $500-$800 a month were I live. I would start out making around $2,000 a month and work my way up to $10,000 a month. Plus when I go to sell the property it would be worth way more than I put in IMO.

Im still researching this and was wondering if it would just end up costing me more time, money, and headaches than its worth.

Most areas have building and zoning regulation on where you can place these trailers. Density can also vary greatly depending on availability of water, sewer and other utilities.

All mobile homes "trailers" depreciate about 30% the same second you sign the purchase agreement then continue to depreciate. After 7 years it is difficult to get financing and that available is at poor rates. After 10 to 12 years the typical unit will be almost worthless and the only value would be the land. Any rental income would be on a downward spiral as the property ages. Mobile home repairs are generally not permanent just patches and generally look unattractive and tenants are very poor at protecting your assets.

In general if you are actually considering this, with very few exceptions depending on resort type locations you would probably find yourself with a really bad investment. Depreciation on a permanent structure is a good thing because the structure probably has physically depreciated less, however in trailers they actually depreciate and really loose the value that is unrecoverable in most situations.

You would be better off going over to Los Vegas and playing the slot machines, similar probabilities of a pay off but a lot more fun.

I'm afraid I must agree. I am also in CA and many communities have adopted tough zoning requirements in an effort to keep mobile and manu out.

Demand is low. It seems as if a lot of folks seem to think buying land and throwing manus on it is the road to riches. Locally I've not seen it work yet.

IMO a very unsound investment.

I am in Ga I personally do not do the trailer business,if you want to read a book on it look up Lonnie Scruggs he is the king of this stuff.

I do have friends that have been int he trailer rental business for over 40 years and have about 55 trailers they own and the land.While they do good,the margins get smaller and smaller every year.Some of the time you will have vacancies and if your lucky have them all fully rented out.Sometimes they trash them and move in the night or accidentally set them on fire,some renters are good people but alot are people who can't pass credit checks, have criminal backgrounds,and are transients that move from county to count and state to state.

Most of the good renters for 100 to 200 a month will stay in the nicer townhomes or a regular house than live in a trailer.

Local cities and counties want trailers gone,some of the main reasons is they bring in fly by night people that committ crimes and are hard to track down,the other reason is they are eyesores and it's hard to bring in new development when that is across the street.

The other biggie is property taxes,trailers aren't valued that much so they bring in not much revenue in taxes for the cities and counties.

For instance you have 10 acres and 50 trailers,each trailer is valued at 20k assessed at 10k so the property tax is 150 dollars,so you take 50 trailers and you get a tax base of about 7,500 a year.Now if you had 40 homes at 200k valuation apiece on the same 10 acres you would be looking at say 2,000k for each home for a yearly tax base revenue of 80,000k instead of 7,500 it is really simple to see why the counties and cities do not want them there.

Each year my friends get hit with more ordinances and expenses,it's the cities and counties legal way of saying sell to a developer to put in a nice development or we will make it harder on you each year.

I believe the trailers parks are becoming a thing of the past,in our county the require a purchase of at least 5 acres before you can out one residence on it now.