Tiny Home Cash Flow

The internet loves a hot take, especially when money is involved. I posted a tiny home I sold on a rent-to-own and got flooded with comments like “That’s just a $10,000 shed.” So I do what I always do on Property Profits: I pull the deal apart, show the math, and explain why the people yelling the loudest usually do not understand the real costs of a livable tiny home.

I walk you through the full tiny home investing process from start to finish. You’ll hear how I found the unit through a bad OfferUp listing with blurry photos and almost no description, why price drops can signal opportunity, and how I negotiated from a low opening offer to a $17,000 purchase by identifying the seller’s real motivation. We also cover the practical stuff that makes or breaks your numbers: transporting the home, leveling, electrical and plumbing hookups, and small build-out costs like steps and a deck.

Then we get into the structure that creates the cash flow. I explain how I market these homes, why I like rent-to-own agreements to limit maintenance responsibility, and how an $875 monthly payment over 16 years can add up to more than $150,000 in total revenue. I also share a quick example where I chose a straight rental instead, because the right strategy depends on the people and the situation, not your ego.

If you’re interested in tiny homes, rent-to-own, creative real estate investing, or building predictable monthly cash flow, hit subscribe, share this with a friend who needs a push, and leave a review with what you want me to break down next. What part of the deal would you negotiate differently?

Transcript

Haters, Pricing, And The Lesson

SPEAKER_00 0:00

So I posted a tiny home that I sold on a rent to own, and people like there were so many haters in the comments. You know, they were like, oh, that's just a $10,000 shed. Because I put in my post $60,000 tiny home. I own a lot of tiny homes. I know what they cost, right? But you know, people see these sheds on the side of the road and they're like, oh, I can get those for $10,000 to $15,000 on a rent to own, but they're freaking blank canvases, right? There's nothing in them. They need wiring, plumbing, electrical, everything, right? So people were throwing a fit. But anyway, I uh I sold this thing on a rent-to-own for $49,000 over 16 years. All right. That's like, I don't know, do the math, right? Uh $875 a month times $12,000 times 16. It's like over $150,000, right? So, like, jokes on them. Not that I care about haters. I just thought it was funny, and then it would be a good lesson to teach, right? One, show you how tiny homes putting in like tiny homes can make you money, right? But you gotta buy them right, structure it right, and people are gonna talk crap about anything you do when you're doing stuff. But I just love like wait till you see the thumbnail of this, it's gonna have some of their comments in it. I'm genuinely excited about this episode. All right, so let's do a deal walkthrough, all right, and I'll show you how I found it, what I did, how I all the stuff,

Finding Deals In Bad Listings

SPEAKER_00 1:33

right? Start to finish. That way, if you're interested in this or you want to do it or whatever, maybe you can learn from what I've done, or maybe you've done it and you know a better way, let me know too, you know. Uh, so, anyways, offer up, right? I was like, hey, I need another tiny home. I'm gonna look through all the marketplaces, all the stuff that I do, Facebook, all that. Well, first thing I go to an offer up. So I see a listing on there with like a really bad picture of a tiny home, but it's the exact model that I like. It's got the front porch, it's like uh, I don't know, it's just that you'll see it in the picture, but it's the exact model that I like. I own a bunch of them. And there's like no inside pictures, there's just uh oh, there is inside pictures, but they're blurry and I'm like, that looks remodeled, and it just says like for sale, like there's no description, and they had like 39,000, dropped to 25,000, and those are the kind of deals that catch my eye because if people don't really they don't know how to market a product that they have, don't care enough to do it, whatever. It's like to the untrained eye, it might look like a piece of crap, but to me, I'm like, damn, it's already a good deal, 25,000, a real good deal. Well, I wonder why I this hasn't went, and I'm like, it's probably the post, right? Anyway, I call the guy and or I message him on offer up first, and I'm like, hey, bro, I'll give you 10,000. He's like, I can't. Uh I could do 20. I'm

Negotiation And Seller Motivation

SPEAKER_00 3:04

like, bro, all right, look, I need to know what you can do. He's like, I could do 17. I was like, okay, why don't you uh get off FaceTime with me and walk through the the tiny home with me? It's like no problem. He was he was probably like a gentleman in his 50s, right? So he's technology okay, right? Not not savvy, but he could get by. So he walks through. What I'm doing when he walks through is I'm listening for like because you can hear squeaking and stuff like that. And I'm like, hey man, are there any soft spots, anything like that? He's like, bro, this is brand new. I was like, why the hell are you selling it? He's like, well, this dude uh I built it for, and he's like, full transparency, it cost me over 40 grand just to build it, right? Which I know this. And he's like, I built it for this dude, and six months later he died. So he lived in it for six months and died. So it was sitting on this property, and his son was like, hey, take this back. So he like took it back, he gave, like, gave it back to him. Maybe he paid him a little bit. I don't know what they worked out. But he's like, now I just, you know, want to make some money on it, right? I'm like, okay, cool, makes sense. And I'm like, but why don't you just like keep it where it's at? Write it out. He's like, I tried that, that's why I put it here. He said, My he was in a nice neighborhood. He's like, my damn HOA said that I can't have it here, I have to have it moved. So me being, you know, I've been in this business, I'm like, okay, motivation, he has to move. HOA's on his ass, he has to move. All right,

Moving Costs And Utility Hookups

SPEAKER_00 4:40

cool. And I'm like, all right, I'll do the 17,000. And so I I go, uh, I line up a mover for 2,500 bucks, and all these numbers I'm giving you are like what I did. Excuse me. And I line up a mover for 2,500 bucks, and the way I found the mover was I've used several movers and they were a little higher. And this guy's like, hey, the guy that moved it for me was 2500 bucks, so I called it. Told the movers I gotta park, I want to put there, all that stuff. So, and they'll level it and all that for that. They won't, they won't hook it up. So, anyways, bought it for 17,000, had it moved for 2,500 bucks, and then I gotta hook up the electrical and and the plumbing, which is another five grand. Maybe six by the time we were done with it. And then I had to build the steps out on it, which I'm doing now, which that was cheap. The deck and the steps, I think I spent uh five or six hundred bucks. Not too bad. So, anyways, all in, what what is that? $22,000, $23,000, whatever the hell it is, right? Low 20s. And all in. Okay.

Marketing And Rent-To-Own Terms

SPEAKER_00 5:51

So then I market it on or my team does on Facebook, uh, I don't know, all sorts of stuff. Uh face Facebook pages, websites, what whatever, right? And there's this one dude that wants it, it was $9.75 a month. We were saying retail, and he's like, hey, I'll do $8.75 a month. I'm a truck driver. I'm good with that. I'm like, cool. $49,875 a month, 16 years. Done. Right? Can I move in this weekend? I didn't ask for a down payment, anything like that. I usually don't do that on these kind of things because I want I don't want them on my books as far as maintenance. That's why I do rent to own. All right. So then we'll drop the rent-to-own agreement, and it has all their payment schedule, has what it is, what it isn't. We're not doing maintenance. Um, and it breaks out like our lot rent is $525. We charge water for $100, and electric is separately metered. Alright. So now I'm gonna get $875 a month for 16 years for a $17,000 purchase. Let's call it $20 something because people are like, well, you spent okay, let's call it even $25,000. I just did a contract for over $150,000 in revenue. Okay. So

Ignore The Noise And Repeat

SPEAKER_00 7:18

that's why I posted this thing online. I was flexing in front of it. People are losing their crap, like just throwing a fit. So I I hope this video encourages you, for one, to make some cash flow, like to and and to show you how to look for these deals. Make some cash flow and know that people don't know what the hell they're talking about. They don't know what the hell they're talking about, and they will try to discourage you, they will talk crap. I had, I don't know, how hundreds of comments, I'm assuming at this point. Who knows? Who cares? But my point, I don't care about that. My point is for you to stay the course, you to stay in the direction. And if you haven't started it, when you point yourself, keep going, right? Like, yeah, you gotta make pivots and stuff, but don't listen to people that aren't where you want to be, that aren't doing what you want to do, that don't have the same vision, that aren't hell, that aren't encouraging. I saw a post uh from Alex Mosey the other day, or maybe a list of podcasts post. And he's like, you know, when you say your your ambitions and the friends that don't support you, you know, talk crap or whatever, those are the ones you get rid of. Same thing, right? You circle matters. But, anyways, back to the story. I've got a ton of vacant spots and I'm gonna keep doing that over and over and over, right? And I mean, I just did it again on one that I didn't post. I bought the tiny home for $10,000, and but I didn't rent to own this one, I just rented it for $7.75 a month because it was some Walmart workers. I really liked them. They needed an affordable place, and I I feel like they can afford that tiny home. So I didn't sell that one on a rental to them. So I don't I didn't think they could uh afford to buy it. But I I thought that they can afford to rent it at a slightly reduced rate. I like them, I think they'll be easy, uh, easy to easy tenants. So sometimes you make those decisions. All right, so recap. If you want to find a tiny home, look for crappy listings, right? Offer up Facebook Marketplace, Facebook groups, just search tiny home. Tiny homes with wheels, tiny homes without wheels, you know, all that kind of stuff. And you got to get a deal. All right, for this to work, you gotta get a deal. So let's, you know, let's say that I paid, you know, $40,000 for it. Like, yeah, in the long run, I it'd be fine, but I want to see how how much time it takes me to get my money back. So at $875, it comes back. Comes back pretty quick, right? I don't know what that is, but you know, two and a half years maybe, top of my head. So I hope this helps. Uh, thank you for hopping on, listening to me rant about this. Hope you learned something. My name is Travis Wells. This is the Property Profits Podcast. Thank you for joining. If you need to get a hold of me, want to get a hold of me, Facebook Messenger is the place. Uh, send me a message, DM on there, follow me on there, follow uh Travis Clay Wells on Instagram, give our YouTube some uh some love. It's uh it's not getting much right now, but that's okay. You know, we're consistent, so it will happen. And as far as this podcast goes, if you could share with your friends, leave me feedback, genuine feedback, what you like, what you don't like, how I can be better, what you want to learn about. Uh maybe disagree, agree, all the stuff, right? We're just we're here to like learn from each other, right? And and I'm documenting stuff as I go for you, right? And for me. So till next time, see y'all.