What does tearing down and removing an old home usually require. I’ve rehabbed some old homes but I may have some that are beyond repair.
Tyler,
On the park we just purchased, we tore down 10 homes all at one time. We hired a demolition company that came in and spent about 2 weeks to get em all done. It cost $10k for everything. I used to find scrappers that would tear down a home for free but then they would leave a huge mess and leave stuff that wasnt recyclable. Like Frank always says, its better to pay a little extra for a professional company and get it done with no hassles.
there are some good scrappers out there…make sure they have experience, make sure you check their references with other parks
I am going to tear one down and I will require all the metal to be left on site and removed only after all the junk is cleaned up. It’s rare that you will find a scrapper to do it for nothing anymore. At the least they will have you pay for the dumpster.
on the average smaller home, if you manage the dumpster you can fit a lot into one rolloff
I had a crew tear one down once by putting the dumpster in front of the home and tearing a large opening in the front of the home
they then started tearing out interior walls from the back to front and laying it all down flat in the dumpster
then the rest goes in on top…cabinets, carpet etc
at that point the home was striped to the studs and they took out wiring and any metal plumbing, furnace etc,
they then tore off exterior metal and windows leaving a skeleton holding up the roof.
staring at the front they cut out and removed the first two studs …then the second two third two and so forth (working from the outside of the home)
this caused the roof to start collapsing onto the floor of the home from front to back
once the roof was collapsed they put axels and hitch on and drove it away like a farm trailer
that was the easiest quickest and least messy on site tear down we ever had
Tyler,
we’ve had excellent luck selling ‘bombers’ instead of paying. Just did one this week. See attached ad. They fight over these - they take them to the farm for field workers, hunting cabins or to the lake for whatever you do with a stinky old home.
I tell them flat out - you need to do a ton of work to this before you move in - they just want this sort of home to take to grandaddy’s farm to live in. works for me.
that’s a huge swing - instead of , it is +500 = 2000 swing per home - and a whole lot less work for you. Hope this helps.
Thanks Brad. Thats a good idea. I wish my trailers were in as nice a condition as that one.
So how bad is too bad? I’ve got a tenant buying another home from me in the park because the home they currently own is in real bad shape. They want to scrap the home and get some money from it.
They said they would be willing to give the home to me for very little. But I’m not sure if the home is too far gone. If it would cost me 3K to fix everything, seems like it would still be worth it to keep the home in the park.
Thanks
The first question is if the layout and room sizes are marketable. In some of the old 8’ wide homes, the master bedroom and bathrooms are really too small to find a decent quality tenant. But if the room sizes and layout are acceptable, then there’s not much that can’t be fixed, and the numbers are normally way too attractive to make junking the home make sense. The only exceptions would be homes with mold issues or fire safety issues (such as bad wiring, etc.).
Here’s how the numbers work. It costs $3,000+ just to move a home into your park. So any home that is already in the park that costs $3,000 to fix is a no-brainer, as you would have to find a home that is perfect and needs no renovations for FREE to be at the same cost level if you scrapped that old home and brought in a new one. Then comes the fact that it costs, on average, about $4,000 to remodel a home, plus what you pay for the home to begin with (let’s assume $4,000 best case). So that means you could spend up to $11,000 to fix a home in the park and still be on par or ahead of buying a different one and bringing it in.
Some other advantages that a home already in the park has:
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You don’t have to worry about transport and if it can make the trip without breaking up.
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You don’t have the risk of it not fitting on the lot, or being able to physically move it into the lot.
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You don’t have the risk of the inspector red-tagging it for some reason on arrival (violation of setbacks, etc.)
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You don’t have the risk of damage to the interior that a good home sometimes has in transport
So renovating an existing home – and buying an existing home – is normally a smart choice.
I think it depends upon your long term strategy.
If you have a few lots empty and want to start bringing in new homes to bring the percentage of new homes up or if you have a particularly strong market…or in my case you are changing the nature of the business (i’m going from mobile homes to RVs) then a tear down makes sense
if you have an older park and the older homes are the norm and good people are still buying them, …there is value in fixing up…like Frank said you have AT LEAST 3000 worth of value just because another home costs that much to move. plus build in permits (Ohio is 650) and new concrete and electrical an/or plumbing improvements for the lot as well as marketing costs and uncollected rent while the lot is vacant…it adds up fast
and don’t forget that small homes are getting harder and harder to find…a total rehab just because the home fits the lot makes sense.
there are a couple of homes in one of my parks that I wish I still had and had not taken to the dump 10 years ago because what I am rehabbing now are not as good at those!
If I had a home that I could market and get the rent roll going for just 3 grand I would jump on it with both feet.