Post Edited (04-14-11 20:46)
Dale
In Burlington we are just riding the roller coaster so to speak. We brought in 6 new 16X80 homes from Fleetwood. The first 2 sold as soon as they were completed. The other 4 just arrived and should be done in 30 days. Our net occupancy is up so far for the year but sales action is definitely not on fire. The repo/ rehab business is almost dead and I can see a point where the donuts/cash/capital to buy new homes will be all gone. Oh well more to said about buying communities that cash flow positive with money in your pocket from day one no matter what the occupancy at acquisition. The word speculation should be removed from our vocabularies. The beat goes on .The bills are paid and food is on the table.
Think positive (Cash Flow That Is)
Rick Ewens
We bought our second park last fall and have been busy taking care of deferred maintenance and have replaced two older homes this year
with vanderbilt repos. This park is 32 lots with 5 rentals homes and has been approved for 30 more lots. We hope to develop some of these lots before next spring in anticipation of a large construction project coming to our area. Our other park is 24 lots, mostly rental units. By the way these parks are two miles from each other and 6 miles from home. At this time we are 100% at both parks which is great considering last year we reach almost 30% vacancy once. We can still cash flow even at 50%, so you can see the importance of buying a park at the right price. Although these parks cash flow extremely well we pour almost all of our profit back into these parks. The first park we bought is on course to pay off in 8 years, try that with any other asset class. Although times are hard there are still many opportunities for those brave enough to stick their neck out.
Anyone else care to share?
Tom
Cool beans, Tom!!! I just drove over a 1000 miles to get to our park and I believe I envy you being so close to the action.
All of a sudden we have 4 vacant homes and not getting a lot of calls. So I can say that business is down right now. It is amazing that our rates for rental homes has virtually remained the same for the last 8 years. That’s good for the renters. However we have been offering a clean mobile home with a 60X100 foot lot for about the same rate per month as the lower income apartments in town that have neighbors sharing adjoining walls.
Keep up the good work,
Mike