How I Made Almost $5,000 on My First “Lonnie” Deal

It took almost three weeks to complete the deal, but my first Lonnie Deal worked out just fine. I know that those of you who are thinking about investing in mobile homes have lots of questions (like I did and still do…) about how to do this “start to finish.” I’ll try to explain how this one went.

First, I contacted park managers and talked to people that I met in the parks and told them that “I buy and sell used manufactured homes and pay a referral fee for any leads that turn out to be a purchase or a buyer.” One guy in the mobile home park told me about a vacant home in the park.

After some investigating I found the owner and got a look inside. It was very clean and needed no fix-up or clean-up. I knew that it was worth 10K-12K, so when the owner told me that he had to have $5,000 – $6,000 for it, I offered 5K, and he said “sold.”

My only problem now was that I didn’t have $5,000… I made some calls and found an investor (a business associate who had a small 2nd on my house) who agreed to loan me $5500 for 4 years at 12%. I added $500 to the purchase price to cover any lot rent needed and other minor expenses. I ran an ad that said “WILL FINANCE” and, to make a long story short, I sold it today for 11K cash.

I also had two qualified offers for the typical Lonnie-type Deal (2K down and about $200/month cash flow for my full asking price of $12,950.

Here’s how the numbers worked on this deal:

Sold For

$11,000

Payback on Loan

– $5,800 (with a $300 “thank you” to my investor)

Lot Rent/Utilities

– $180 (while I owned it, 2-3 weeks)

Finders Fee

– $100

Newspaper Ad

– $60

 

Net profit to me

 

$4,860

If you keep plugging away, you’ll find the deals. Good luck. Thanks, Lonnie for your material and advice.

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By CREOnline Contributor

A content contributor to the original CREOnline.com.