These Are The 4 Reasons Beginner Mobile Home Investors Fail (Plus More In Our Q&A)

At the time of recording this live youtube session we’d been working with students from all over the country at Trailer Cash Academy for over a year.

And we gathered some great data and insight that tells us what makes someone successful in this business.

In this blog you’re going to learn about the 4 primary reasons why beginner mobile home investors fail. And then that’s followed by a few answers from our Q&A session that came after that. For your convenience you can click on the links below to jump to any section you want.

1. Reason #1 Not engaging with a community for support & accountability
2. Reason #2 Not tracking meaningful metrics
3. Reason #3 Not prioritizing your time
4. Reason #4 Only using 1 type of exit strategy
5. Q&A: What are some ways to get funding for investments? I’ve run out of capital
6. Q&A: What if the park owner decides to sell out and you’re informed you have to move your home within a limited timeframe?
7. Q&A: What if an investor owns the property?
8. Q&A: I’ve been having a bit of a tough time with park managers not allowing me to buy in their communities. What did you guys suggest?
9. Q&A: As a beginner, when is the time to invest in the accelerator program? Should I get involved in my local real estate network first and then take the class?
10. Q&A: After purchasing a mobile home, what tool is most successfully used to resell the mobile home?

Reason #1 Not engaging with a community for
support and accountability

If you guys know our story you’ll know that we first started trying real estate investing. And so we took a chance and went to our local real estate investing association (RIA) meetings. That’s how we discovered mobile home investing.

But we learned so much going to those RIAs. We learned a lot about networking. We learned a lot about leading with value and learned a bunch of different things about different strategies. And we saw that there’s not a lot of communities out there just for mobile home investors.

And this is why we thought creating something like Trailer Cash Academy would serve a need.
You guys need a community where everybody is on the same page, giving each other kudos when you’re getting wins, helping each other out, even funding opportunities that you guys have. It’s all about being associated with a network or helping each other grow and prosper.

You want to see other people’s successes and learn from people’s questions. You want to engage with people that are inspiring you to get out there and get out of your comfort zone.
Let’s expand a little on the meaning of ‘support’ and ‘accountability’ because this is really important guys.

You want to feel supported

You’re literally out here doing this on your own. The worst thing that happens, especially when you’re brand new, is that you’ve gotten a blueprint from this course, but then you run into something that’s not in the course.

Now you’re going on Google, searching everywhere, trying to find the answers. And you just don’t have anybody that’s been through this before to reach out to you and really give you some guidance.

Then when you’re not getting those questions answered it’s really easy for you to lose momentum on your journey. And then it’s easy to cop out and say ‘This doesn’t work.’ or ‘This is all a scheme.’

But no, it’s just that you didn’t get the proper guidance you needed. So guidance is a huge thing with regard to feeling supported.

You want to be accountable

When it comes to that accountability it’s so crucial that you guys first of all understand your ‘Why’. But also have a group of individuals around you, some mentors, that can help you hold yourself accountable to that. When you don’t have that accountability, it’s so easy to just simply quit.

Accountability is a huge benefit of joining a community that’s on the same page. It makes sure that when you jump into this, you don’t start getting distracted whenever something new looks exciting.

When you’re accountable you’re going to be consistent with your tasks and feel encouraged to stay committed to what you set out to do in the first place.

That has been what a lot of our most successful students are doing. They’re just locked in. They’re fully committed. And they’re engaged. They’re reaching out to other people for support and help, and sharing their journey along the way which helps keep them going.

Reason #2 Not tracking meaningful metrics

This is Huge, because what gets measured gets improved. It’s so simple and it’s simple in theory.
What we see a lot of new investors do that are not successful is they base all of their results and everything else off of emotion, all of their actions on emotion. They’ll say ‘Well I haven’t seen this happen. I’ve been working for 2 weeks.’

A lot of new investors just do not know what they’re doing with their time. They’re literally just out here guessing, taking all types of action, but not sure where that time has actually been. We’ve fallen into this ourselves. We are not perfect.

It’s so easy to get lost and fall victim to the emotion of everything. ‘Cause we’re gonna hit those roadblocks. Every time. And we still hit roadblocks. Every deal is different. Every situation is different. Every seller is different.

So you really have to understand what’s going on if you’re not getting the results that you want.
You need to see what your input is to get the right output. You want to be able to see what you have been doing so you can not only predict where you’re going and the trends that are happening, but you can also make decisions based on the facts of what’s actually going on.

Any type of work that you do on your business can be called Revenue Generating Activity. These are the activities that you’re going to have to do each and every week in order to get yourself closer to that first or next opportunity.

What are you doing with your time? What inputs are you putting in? What have you done? Have you tracked what you’ve done?

Have you tracked how many sellers you’ve talked to? Have you tracked how many inspections you’ve done? Have you tracked your marketing? What are your metrics for that?

When you track your metrics you know where you are along your journey and you can decide how to feel about yourself based on what’s real.

Ask yourself ‘What are my goals based on this input? Do I need to increase the input to hit those goals?’ All of that’s so important.

Reason #3 Not prioritizing your time

You want to make sure that you’re focused on Revenue Generating Activity.

Especially if you have limited time, if your action is not focused on getting more clients, making more money or closing more deals then you’re wasting a lot of time. This is what we need to focus on, especially in the beginning.

One of the first questions we ask our accelerator students is ‘What is your time commitment to this?’

Because you should have that set out in advance. It shouldn’t be reactionary like, ‘Okay, I guess I’ll work on my mobile home business now.’ or ‘When I have time.’ It should be set out each and every week.

You should have a goal that you’re looking to hit and there should be time blocks on your calendar when you’re actually going to focus on your business. Otherwise life gets in the way and it just doesn’t get done.

We understand guys, you might have other priorities. A lot of you guys have jobs, kids and even school. We understand that those things are a priority. Even working out is a priority. That’s how it is for us.

There’s other things that are going to take a high priority. But it’s more about just getting it on top of your plate and then making that time with no type of distractions.

It doesn’t have to be the most important thing. We know you’re going to spend more time at work. We know you’re going to spend more time with your kids.

We recommend giving mobile home investing 5 to 10 hours a week but even if it’s even 1 hour a day say to yourself ‘This 1 hour, if I have to get up an hour earlier, if I have to go to sleep an hour later or even if I have to take my hour for lunch at my job, this hour is my priority for my business.’

If it doesn’t get any top of priority it’s going to fall to the wayside. This is going to be an overall process and you have to make sure that it gets some priority within your day or it’s so easy to not do it all.

Reason #4 Only using 1 type of exit strategy

This is a huge mistake we made in the beginning guys. We only knew one way to buy and sell mobile homes and we tried to make everybody fit into this box until we realized that’s just not how it works.

We literally were low balling everybody. Everybody got a low-ball offer. We were quoting people $1000, $2000 and just looking for anything we can get for under $5000.

But really we were jeopardizing our success because we would contact individuals and let them know who we were and they’d be like, ‘Oh man, you guys were the ones that low balled my friend in the park last month. I’m not interested.’

Our first couple of years by just low balling everybody we easily left hundreds of thousand dollars on the table, guys.

So what you have to do is open up the strategies, open up your knowledge base, and be willing to go out there and serve more people. Sometimes there’s individuals out there that still have a home for sale which is not under $5,000, but there’s still enough spread on the bone where you can serve your client. And still get paid during that process.

That’s why we teach 5 strategies guys. It’s all about actively listening and giving multiple offers to your clients if need be. When you have options for them, it opens up so much more communication and they’ll feel more willing to trust you.

When you have multiple ways to serve then you’re not just saying, ‘Hey, I’m just trying to find a cheap home for under $5,000.’ We really want to make sure that they feel like they’re being heard and not feel like they’re being taken advantage of.

By opening up the client to communicate and build trust you can learn more about their reason for selling and then say ‘Hey, these are the facts you’ve told us. This is what I can do. This is what I can’t do. Based on your needs, not mine.’

And that’s what’s going to increase your chances of closing more deals.

Q&A Session from the live stream

What are some ways to get funding for investments?
I’ve run out of capital

We would say first try to find some type of networking group, whether it’s online or offline.

If you have a good deal you can let the group know that ‘Hey I have this opportunity.’ Give these individuals a breakdown on the deal and to see how you can partner with someone to get that deal.

Use other people’s money. That’s like the basic rule of real estate. But the thing with mobile home investing is you really have to find people that understand what you’re doing. You might have to educate them and say, ‘These are the numbers. This is the deal I’m working on. How can we work together and make money together?’

You can also go out and get business credit or lines of credit. That’s what we did to get started as well. So that’s always an option. We used 0% interest cards for 12 to 18 months. We’re not telling you guys to do that. I know that’s what we did and it helped us.

If you need funding that’s always a great option. Because mobile homes, they’re not that expensive. So $20,000 can go a long way when it comes to mobile home investing,

What if the park owner decides to sell out and you’re informed
you have to move your home within a limited timeframe?

We’ve seen that happen. That means there’s a lot of opportunity around it.

If you guys are in Phoenix, Arizona, you know about the parks closing in like Scottsdale or Mesa, Arizona. This is a great opportunity to help your clients in need. Many times they’re stuck. They feel like they don’t have any options. You should be able to go out there and educate your sellers on how you can bring them buyers.

And trust me guys, there’s a lot of individuals out there that are looking for. Those mobile homes in those parks for their land or another park.

So if it’s closing down don’t worry, unless the home is built before 1976, then it can be challenging. But if it’s built after 1976, it should not be a big issue to move. We just have to find a buyer that wants to move it to their land.

What if an investor owns the property?

Network with that investor. Figure out if they have a resolution for that problem. If the park is closing down do they have buyers? Do they have a buyer that needs that home?

Look, to bring value to that investor. Like, ‘Hey I know you have this home here. I know you own it. I know the park is closing now. I’ve actually got a buyer that’s looking for a home just like this for his park or for his or her land.”

Bring value to them and see how you guys can partner together and make that deal happen.

I’ve been having a bit of a tough time with park managers
not allowing me to buy in their communities.
What do you guys suggest?

It could be the way that you’re approaching them. There’s a couple of ways around this. It depends on what you are telling them when you’re actually speaking to them. Are you bringing value to them first?

What we do is we go into detail in our course about storage agreements. As an investor, I’m not looking to sign any type of lease agreements. Us personally, at this point in the game, we’re not even allowing a park manager to dictate what we’re going to do or not do in the community.

We’re gonna respect the laws and we’re going to exercise our rights as well as an investor. Even as a licensed dealer we’re going to exercise those rights as well and make sure that we’re playing the game accordingly.

When you have the right strategies in place, it’s not about the park dictating what you can and can’t do. When you have the knowledge, it’s about educating them on what you’re doing, how you’re still going to bring them value.

Sometimes you have to buy the home first, as we do. But nonetheless, they don’t dictate our moves.

As a beginner, when is the time to invest in the accelerator program?
Should I get involved in my local real estate network first
and then take the class?

We always say, there’s no better time than now when you’re talking about investing in any course. Whether it’s our course or someone else’s, we always say, if you’ve got the capital, take advantage and just keep moving forward right now. Because it’s so easy just to procrastinate.

Based on the facts there’s multi million dollar decisions being made by large companies each and every day that are taking a fraction of that time.

So really be honest with yourself and ask yourself what is your ‘Why’. How bad do you want this? What’s causing this lack of commitment to moving forward?

And then if anything just keep trying to find the program, find the results you’re looking for. Find the people you resonate with and keep moving forward.

The big thing here is we want to shorten the learning curve. We want to shorten the time that it’s going to take us to get to that result. So the longer you procrastinate on actually getting the information and the support that you need, the longer it’s going to take to actually get closer to that deal.

So there’s no better time than now. If you’re serious about this, if you’re ready to make a change, it’s time to jump in because you don’t want to keep procrastinating on those results.

After purchasing a mobile home, what tool is most successfully
used to resell the mobile home?

That’s a really great question!

Now that we go into detail within our program at this point. What we found is just utilizing your list is the best way to sell the home. We teach you how to build that list up so that they’re like begging you for a home.

For us and our business the best way has been to utilize our buyer’s list. You know we have homes that come up, and they go in sometimes minutes or sometimes hours. Because we got the list and they know that we have the inventory that they need.

Want To Become a Successful Mobile Home Investor?

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