Vanderbilt repo questions

I am looking at homes on the Vanderbilt repo site and I have some questions I hope some of you can answer.

  1. Not all that much in a 50 mile radius of my community. Is it too much to go out 200 miles or is this simply too far to move a home?

  2. Do I insult them if I bid low? For example, they ask $18K on a home and I offer $4K subject to viewing.

  3. Should I put in the comments section that my bid is negotiable or just leave that out?

  4. Any other sites you recommend that offer wholesale prices? Lots and lots of homes on the TAMMAC.COM website but they don’t offer wholesale pricing.

Thanks.

Rolf

We have moved homes from as far as 150 miles, depending on what we could buy the house for. Check with your mover to find out what he charges per mile.

We have found that we can buy Vanderbilt homes for .40-.50 on the dollar; not much lower. We just bought one for $7,500, but that is about as low as we have ever bought one (from anyone). Anything worse than this requires TOO MUCH rehab work! (You will get to see this one next week.) We ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS look at a home BEFORE we put in a bid. We have turned around upon opening the door sometimes, without setting a foot inside. Remember, pictures lie. (A dealer just outside our park bought one sight unseen and was trying to unload it to us. Note I said unload.) On the other hand, you could have a really good home underneath the junk. (We removed 3- 55 gallon drums of crushed beer cans and 21 bags of other assorted garbage from a home that did not need much work. We crushed the beer cans.)

We carry a bottle of hand sanitizer in the truck…we also carry a step ladder when we are out looking. Many homes don’t have steps, or at least any you want to actually try to use! With the ladder you don’t have to climb in on your hands and knees. (Yuck). We also always look to see if the a/c is still there. (You might not care in Ohio.) If it is not there, we automatically deduct $1,000 from what we would offer in the first place.

Vanderbilt awards to the top bidder the first time. There is no working of bids. You had better bid your best price. Greentree works their bids, so you have to approach their process differently.

One other tip - be sure you know if you are going to have to pay lot rent to a park when you take the home out. Some parks are very diligent about this, others just want the home out of there. We have paid as much as $1,000 in lot rent to other parks, and this must be factored into your bid.

Good luck.