Deals On Wheels

Table Of Contents

Dedication 10

Introduction 12

Foreword 16

Chapter 1

Why Used Mobile Homes 20

My First Deal 21

Working With Park Owners/Managers 24

How To Make 75% 25

Will Finance 27

Buyers Two Biggest Concerns 27

Chapter 2

Which Homes Offer The Best Profits? 32

Avoid Moving The Home 33

Two $2,500 Homes 34

One $5,000 Home 35

Chapter 3

How Much Should You Pay? 38

How Much Should You Sell For? 38

NADA Book 39

A Quick “Flip” 40

Test Your market 42

Chapter 4

How To Find That First Mobile Home 44

Park Owners/Managers 45

Classified Ads 46

Buy From Private Sellers 48

Run Your Own Ads 49

Private Publications 50

Bulletin Boards 50

Mobile Home Movers 51

Mail Carriers/Park Workers 52

Best Source Of Leads 52

A Trip Into The Twilight Zone 53

Ask Questions 55

Non-Performing Assets 57

Include A Deadline In Your Offer 60

Ride Through The Parks 61

Knock On Doors 62

Business Cards 62

Trade Something For A Mobile Home 65

Look In Bad Parks 65

Working with Dealers 66

New Homes Vs Used Homes 67

Chapter 5

What To Look For 72

Floors 72

Plumbing 74

Ceiling 74

Windows 75

Appliances 75

Wheels And Axles 77

Electric Service 77

Aluminum Wiring 79

Chapter 6

Negotiating The Purchase Price 82

Blue Jeans & A Pick-up Truck 82

Sometimes You Can “Smell” A Deal 83

The Squirrel Dog Technique 85

My Favorite Question 89

Let The Seller Name The Price 92

Get A Trade-Off 95

Check The Title 96

Chapter 7

Making Repairs 100

Floors 100

Disconnecting The Commode 101

Floor Vinyl 102

Bath Tub 102

Shower Stalls 103

Faucets 103

Ceilings 103

Carpets 104

Chapter 8

Finding A Buyer 108

Wording Your Ad 111

How Much Down-How Much A Month? 114

Is 0% Interest Better Than 12% Interest? 115

Keep A List Of Potential Buyers 116

Put The Seller To Work For You 118

Everything Has Two Prices 118

Chapter 9

Negotiating The Sale 122

Make The Payments Affordable 123

Give Your Buyer A Choice 123

Add Something With The Home 124

Negotiable & Reasonable 125

The More The Merrier 128

A Word Of Caution 129

Check With The Park Manager First 130

Chapter 10

Sales Contract 134

Selling “As Is” 134

Truth In Lending Statement 135

Chapter 11

Promissory Note 138

What To Put In The Note 139

Late Charges 140

Train Your Buyer 141

Note Can Be Paid Off, But Not Assumed 142

Chapter 12

Insurance & Personal Property Taxes 144

Have Proper Insurance On The Home 145

Personal Property Taxes 147

Chapter 13

Title Transfer 148

Dealer Regulations 148

Non-Dealer Regulations 149

Chapter 14

Dealer Tax Ramifications 152

How To Stay In A Zero Tax Bracket 153

We Have A Choice 154

Chapter 15

Lease/Options 156

Lease/Option Vs Selling 156

Follow The Rules 158

Minimize Trouble Calls 159

Chapter 16

What If They Don’t Pay 162

Why People Stay Broke 163

Small Claims Court 164

Keep Copies Of All Documents 165

Free Mobile Home 166

Chapter 17

How To Get Started 168

Starting With $3,500 169

How To Recover Our Cost 170

Setting Goals 173

What Does TV Really Cost You? 173

A “Deal A Month” 174

Sell The Front End Of The Note 178

Power Of Compounding 181

$60,000 Yearly 183

Chapter 18

Ideas For Park Owners 186

Renting vs Selling 186

Lease With Option 188

Lease Several Lots 190

Chapter 19

Christmas Shopping 192

Original Version 192

Keep A File Of Sellers Ads 194

Written Offers Get Results 195

How Did We Come Out On This Deal? 197

Any Change Will Be For The Better 198

Chapter 20

Lack Of Knowledge Can Be Expensive 202

Penalty For Early Withdrawal 202

What Is Education? 203

Your Attitude Will Make, Or Break You 206

Chapter 21

What’s Wrong With Our Schools? 208

TV Takes More Time Than School 208

How To Stay Broke 209

What A Difference 210

Compounding Power 210

Chapter 22

The Perfect Cure 214

10-10-10 Rule 215

Learn The Concept 216

Invest In Yourself 217

Chapter 23

The Man Who Sold Hot Dogs 220

Buy A Hot Dog Mister? 220

Time Value Of “Time” 221

Realizing Value 222

Make Every Week Friendship Week 222

Make A Commitment 222

Appendix

Purchase Agreement 226

Sales Agreement 228

Credit Application 230

Promissory Note 232

Lot Rental Agreement 234-235

Buy/Sell Info Sheet 236

Smoke Detector Verification 238

Power Of Attorney 240

About The Author 242

About The Author

Lonnie Scruggs was born and raised in Virginia. He has been in
some type of business most of his adult life. For nearly 30 years he owned, rented, managed and maintained his own rental properties. After becoming a burned out landlord, he began selling off his properties and started buying discounted notes and mortgages. When it became more and more difficult to find good notes, he found a way to make his own. He discovered how to create his own “Mobile Home Money Machine” by buying, selling and financing used mobile homes.

His two books, Deals On Wheels and Making Money With Mobile Homes, explain in complete detail his simple, unique, and proven system of how you, too, can create your own money machine. Lonnie shows you how to put your money to work for you, instead of you working for your money. Lonnie says you should “Never Let The Mail Carrier Pass Your House Without Leaving A Check.”

Introduction From The Book

If you ask 10 different people for their definition of success, you would probably get 10 different answers. Many would probably say that being rich is the answer. I would disagree with that answer, because I think it takes more than money to make you successful, or happy. Having financial security is important, but equally important is to have the financial freedom. What good is 10 million dollars if you can’t take time to enjoy life?

I know people who already have more money than they could possibly ever spend, but they still won’t slow down and enjoy the simple things of life. It seems impossible for them to imagine that the world won’t end if they get away from the office and take a nice vacation. That office is like a prison to them, and their only priority seems to be to make another super deal. And they never know when enough, is enough.

Learning To Be Successful

I believe in order to be successful, you should first decide what it is you want to do. Once you decide what you want to do, then you should learn from the most successful people that have either done, or are doing, what you want to do. If you can’t associate with those people directly, then buy and study any books, tapes or courses they have available. If they give seminars, make plans to attend. And be willing to pay for your education.

It doesn’t make sense to take advice from your barber, or hairdresser unless you want to learn how to cut hair. But that’s exactly what some people will do. There’s always plenty of free advice, but most of it comes from the very people that are the least qualified to give advice. I’m a firm believer that advice should be measured by the success of the person giving the advice. If the person giving the advice hasn’t accomplished much for themselves, then why would you want
to take advice from that person?

Invest In Yourself

We (my wife Joanne and I) have always been willing to invest first in ourselves. And we’ve spent a lot of money, a lot of time, and a lot of effort doing so. We’ve attended many, many seminars over the years in order to learn from the people that are successful doing the things we wanted to do. And it’s been well worth the effort and expense. Without the knowledge that we were able to obtain from those seminars and teachers, we might still be working a job instead of enjoying financial security, and financial freedom.

It was at one of those seminars, while sitting around enjoying a “cool one” after class, that I got to talking about the used mobile home business. I was explaining to several people how we were buying, selling, and financing older used mobile homes, and creating some very high yield notes.

This happened on several different occasions, and I couldn’t help noticing the interest and excitement from some of the group when I was running some of my deals by them. I was a little puzzled and couldn’t understand why they were getting so excited. It was no big deal to me…I simply bought a used mobile home at a good price, sold it for a better price and financed the sale. When the deal was done, I had a good high yield note, and had obligated someone to send me a check each month.

Several of the folks asked me to write a book, or make some tapes on what I was doing in order to teach them. I said, “I just told you how…buy a used mobile home, wholesale for cash, sell retail on credit, and carry the note.” It seemed so simple to me, why would they need any more information? But then I realized that most things are not so simple to the person who has never done it. It only gets simple after you’ve learned how, and have actually done some deals.

On my way home from that seminar I kept thinking about what some of
them had said about wanting me to teach them how to get into the mobile home business. And it was then that I started to realize that maybe some people needed written material as a learning tools. So the idea for this book was born. Until then, I never dreamed I had a book in me. I’m just glad I didn’t die with this book still in me.

Now, I have to confess that up until then the idea that I would ever be writing a book seemed about as remote as becoming an astronaut. But after some encouragement from several people, and especially from one very special person, I decided “Why not?” After thinking it over, I realized that all I needed to do was put in writing what I had been doing all along.

So Bill, thanks for joining us at breakfast that morning and giving me the encouragement, inspiration and confidence that I needed to write this book. Sometimes all it takes to realize that you can accomplish something you never though possible, is for just one person to give you that little push you need. And that person was my good friend, Bill Roche.

So for whatever it’s worth, here’s the book that I never dreamed I would write. Even with all the problems I’ve encountered, I’ve really enjoying writing it. And I sincerely hope you enjoy reading it. But more than that, I hope it will inspire you to get into the mobile home business and make money. It’s a great business.

……

What I have attempted to do with this book is explain in complete detail just how you can make high returns on your money by buying and selling older, inexpensive mobile homes. By financing the sales of those homes, you can create some very good notes that will provide you an excellent cash flow with a minimum amount of work.

I would like to add also, that this concept will work on anything that you’re willing to loan money on and accept as collateral. So if you don’t like mobile homes, find something you do like and use this same concept. It’s a proven system that works. And it will work where you live.

Foreword

Let me begin by giving you a brief history of our background and how we got started in the mobile home business. For almost 30 years, Joanne and I were real estate investors. We bought, rented, and managed our own houses and apartments on a full time basis. You might say that we were two people without a “job.”

We did all of our business as private investors, and never had a real estate license. Since we never intended to list and sell property and deal with the public, I didn’t feel that a real estate license would be of any benefit. On the contrary, a license would probably have been a hindrance. Having a real estate license would have required us to reveal that we were real estate agents every time we did a deal. And some buyers and sellers seem to have the opinion that if you are a licensed agent, you’re a trained killer. In many cases, buyers and
sellers seem to be more comfortable dealing with a private party, rather than a licensed broker.

We’ve bought some properties that were listed with Realtors, but never used an agent to sell a property. And there’s a reason for that. My experience has shown that the two biggest deal killers are attorneys and real estate agents. Also, I felt we were just as experienced, or more so, than most of the agents and brokers.

However, I do have a mobile home dealership license, which is required in my state (and in most, if not all states) to buy and sell mobile homes. But still, most of our mobile home business is done with private parties, rather than dealers.

When we were in the rental business we did everything from plunging the toilets, to making repairs, to evicting bad tenants. You name anything about tenants and rental property, good or bad, (especially bad), and I’ll bet you we’ve experienced it. And believe it or not, there was a time that we actually thought we were having fun. At least it seemed like fun at the time. Funny how time has a way of changing your thinking. It’s hard to imagine now how dealing with tenants, and working on rental properties could have been fun.

Has The Fun Started Yet?

Our entire company has always consisted of Joanne and me…we’re it. That’s the way it’s always been, and that’s the way it will always be. We purposely kept it that way in order to have full control of our lives. We have no office hours to keep, no employees to call in sick, and no one to complain to union officials about their rights being violated. And we’ve been able to keep the government involvement to a minimum.

We didn’t want the worry and problems that comes with running a company with employees and all the headaches that go with it. Maybe we could have made more money if we had, but I’m sure we would not have had the freedom, and the fun we’ve had by keeping it small and simple.

Staying in control of our lives, and business, has enabled us to do what most people can’t do. Since we didn’t have a “job,” we were able to stay home if we didn’t feel like working that day. If we decided to lock the doors and take a trip to the other side of the world, we did. So we’ve been able to enjoy not only financial security, but financial freedom. Financial security is a wonderful thing, but without the financial freedom to go along with it, life could be very boring and unfulfilled. If you’re smart enough to make a lot of money, you should be smart enough to spend part of it enjoying life.

So real estate has been very, very good to us, and I don’t know of anything I would have traded it for until I discovered the used mobile home business. But, it just so happened that one morning I woke up and discovered I had come down with a very bad illness…I was sick of tenants. It was then I realized that I had enjoyed as many tenants and rental properties as I could stand. I think the proper term is, “burned out.” I don’t know of any prescription, or pills you can take to get rid of this kind of sickness…you just have to eliminate the cause. And that’s what we started doing, by selling off our rental properties.

We sold most of our properties by offering to finance the sale, the same as we do with mobile homes. We got whatever down payment we were happy with and carried the balance on a note. The payments from the notes still provided us with a check from the property each month, but without the tenant and management problems that we had become sick of. When I discovered how nice it was to get a check with no tenants, no management, and no maintenance problems, I shouted, “Hey, this is all right, I think I’ve found a cure for my illness.”

This was about the time we started learning how to buy discounted notes and mortgages. So we used the money we got from the down payment on the properties we were selling, and started buying notes and mortgages. We soon learned that the note business was a fantastic way to invest our money. And it proved to be a lot better than managing rental property.

We continued buying notes and mortgages, but after awhile found it harder and harder to find good notes in the price range we wanted. It was then I started trying to figure out how I could create, or “make” my own notes. That’s when I stumbled onto my favorite way of making money–used and inexpensive mobile homes.

So, that’s what this book is all about…explaining how we’ve been buying and selling used, inexpensive mobile homes and creating “paper,” or promissory notes. These notes provide us with an excellent cash flow without having to work a job.

It’s our sincere hope that you will be able to benefit from the information in this book and be able to do the same. You are now reading the same book that has started many, many people throughout the country to making big profits in the mobile home business.

The opportunities are everywhere if you will learn to look for them, recognize them, and then act on them. But beware, fear and procrastination can be two of your worst enemies. Don’t let them be yours.

O.K., let’s get started…

ORDER NOW!

DEALS ON WHEELS E-book. $19.95 Immediate Download!

(Or call 1-800-542-2270 to use a credit card or send a check)

DEALS ON WHEELS Bound Edition. $34.95 + $4.00 shipping

THE SAME CONTRACTS AND FORMS THAT LONNIE SCRUGGS USES — NOW FOR IMMEDIATE

DOWNLOAD!

Get all of the Deals On Wheels contracts and forms in Word format. Just type in the blanks, print and go. You have a professional document with all the necessary data and information. The very same 12 contracts and forms that Lonnie Scruggs
uses:

* Application For Lot Rental

* Buyer Information Form

* Credit Application

* Lot Rental Agreement

* Mobile Home Purchase Agreement

* Mobile Home Sales Agreement

* Payments Received (Excel Spreadsheet)

* Power Of Attorney For Registering And/Or Transferring Ownership Of Mobile Home

* Promissory Note