Sold a Home Twice in Two Weeks

So, we sold our first park-owned home! (We had already sold another one that we own personally.) The lot rent would replace one of the two that had homes moved out since we arrived. That made us happy. Plus, it was just before Jim went to Florida for a well-deserved week off. (We won't talk about the honey-do list waiting there!)

When Jim arrived back at the park, the man who had bought the house stopped by to tell him that he had been transferred to the Birmingham area - much too far a distance to commute. They would be moving back out. The only good thing for us was the non-refundable option deposit we had collected.

In the meantime, a couple who lived in the park had previously expressed an interest in purchasing this home, which was a 16 x 80, 3/3. They had also been looking at one of the doublewides, but the payment on this was less per month. They had already paid for their credit and background checks. When this house again became available, they decided that this was the one they should buy.

These people have already moved in, wanting to be in a new, bigger home for Christmas. We added $1,500 to the price of the home because they wanted a deck. (We are putting decks on all the doublewides.) Jim had to move the porch and steps that he had previously built on the front of the home to the back. Their new deck is being finished today!

Our personal company bought their original home. It is an 80's 3-bedroom model that needs new floors, outside painting, and roof coating among other things. It should easily sell when we get it fixed up because of the demand for cheaper 3-bedroom homes. We wrote two checks to the sellers, which we had them endorse payable to the park and to the park sales company. This was their downpayment,so they only really had the money in their hands momentarily. This made this a legitimate sale to our own company without us having to pay sales tax twice because we would have had to title it twice.

The unfortunate part is we did not immediately increase our total monthly lot rent, which we are in need of doing. The good part is that we kept good tenants happy and are now on the way to accessing our Clayton line of credit, which will enable us to buy more homes to sell. We still need to sell two more homes in order to do this, however, because we bought all the homes that we currently have in our inventory at good prices. We are looking forward to tax season so we have actual buyers for the homes we now have available!

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