Our Second Mobile Home Flip (Zebulon)

You probably wouldn’t believe it by looking at the “before” photos below, but the Zebulon, NC property was one of our biggest successes yet. I’ve really been looking forward to writing about our experiences in buying, remodeling, and selling this one!

The Backstory

Unfortunately, like many of these “ugly” house situations, the backstory is a sad one. The original owner was a Giant Schnauzer breeder who owned 2.72 acres in Zebulon. She lived in the double-wide manufactured home where she also ran her business. The property also included a detached garage and five fully heated and cooled structures where she was housing the dog kennels. She was breeding anywhere from 20-30 schnauzers at a time until she became sick with cancer. Her parents came down to take care of her and the dog breeding business. During this time, they remodeled the detached garage into a one bedroom apartment for them to live. Shortly after, Ms. Seller sadly lost her battle with cancer. Her parents stayed for some time in order to help clean out the properties, but they had plans to go back to Minnesota permanently. They decided to entertain the idea of selling the property to an investor.

My husband, Craig, received the call from Mr. Seller in July of 2021. They scheduled an appointment to walk the property within a few days. When Craig got to the appointment, Mr. Seller said he was sick and unable to meet with him. They said he could walk around the outside of the property; however, they’d have to reschedule to walk the interiors. We followed up with them on countless occasions but couldn’t ever get anyone on the phone. Not sure what else to do, we decided to ride out to the house and leave a handwritten note with an offer to purchase the property inside the gate handle. We were unsure if the Sellers would even see it, but it was our last ditch effort to try and get in touch with them. About a month later, we received a call from Mr. Seller. He said they were growing tired of driving back and forth to Minnesota, and that they were ready to move on and sell the property. We signed a contract in August 2021 and set closing for mid-October. We actually didn’t close until early December due to some issues that came up during the title search. Once our attorney was able to get the title paperwork straightened out, we were able to close on the property – which meant we were the official owners of a double-wide mobile home, detached apartment garage, and five dog sheds (all full of stuff!)

The Remodel

Unlike our First Mobile Home Flip where we only budgeted $15k for repairs, we were far more experienced and bumped this one up to a whopping $25k (read with sarcasm)! The scope included the following work: $4k for demo, $6k for flooring, $6k for paint, $2k for cleaning, $2k for landscaping, $4k for a new HVAC system & $1k to pressure wash all the structures. The plan seemed doable at the time – that is, until we realized we’d have to rent five 30-yard dumpsters just to get rid of all the junk/trash inside and outside of the properties and sheds. Also, our budget didn’t include an allowance for a new roof, something the property desperately needed in order to resell. Other repairs we didn’t factor into the budget were some necessary electrical work, new appliances & fixtures, replacement doors/trim, hauling away the nasty above ground pool, and we didn’t include ANY repairs to the little apartment garage. Not to mention, the MANY coats of Kilz primer and paint to remove the dog and cigarette smells inside the mobile home. Think I’m being overdramatic? Take a look at the video I took of the bathroom and see for yourself!

Somehow we managed to complete all the repairs within about 4 months and we only went $40k over budget : )

Selling the Property

When we first bought the property, our attorney asked us about the land being subdivided into two separate parcels. We didn’t think much a the time since Mr. Seller told us all the land was all one parcel. Prior to listing the property for sale, we were playing around on Zillow and decided to look up the address. The lot lines on Zillow clearly divided the property in two – one 1.75 acre parcel including the mobile home and one acre(ish) parcel including the apartment, driveway and septic field. RUH ROH (dog joke if you’re paying attention). It took some time, but we were able to track down Mr. Seller all the way in Minnesota and have him sign an addendum that granted us title of the additional parcel. *FINALLY* the property details were resolved and we were able to list the property. We listed it with an asking price of $350k. To pretty much everyone’s surprise, we received one offer within a week that was $10k over asking. Maybe these potential buyers were searching for 3 acres out in the country…or maybe it was the heated and cooled dog sheds? Either way, they seemed very motivated to purchase this unique compound.

Although the buyers were preapproved for a bank loan on the entire purchase, their lender changed their loan terms upon finding out the accessory dwelling (the garage/converted apartment) was not a manufactured home. Since the garage was “stick built”, meaning it was framed up like a regular home, they would not loan on it in addition to the manufactured home. Seems strange to me but my best guess is that it had something to do with depreciation and value down the road on the differing types of properties. Anyway, the buyers were still interested in BOTH properties… I mean, the driveway was only connected to the garage/apartment property so kinda necessary for access to the mobile home. We came to an agreement with the buyers in order to help them finance both properties. First, we scheduled an appraisal for the mobile home. The appraisal came back at $296k which was suitable for the bank loan. We agreed to owner finance the difference of the contracted price ($360k) and the appraised price for their loan ($296k). This arrangement has worked out great for us; we were able to pay off our hard-money loan for the original purchase of the property, pay our company back for the out-of-pocket construction overages and continue to collect a small payment from the new owners each month.

Final #s & Photos

We purchased the property in December of 2021 for $120k and sold it in June of 2022 for $296k, plus the additional $64k we’re owner financing over the next 30 years. Although we encountered some roadblocks during all phases of this project, we were able to persevere and achieve our most successful property flip to date! You can see the listing photos below or check out all the *before & after* side-by-side photos here.