Started at 16: How a 20-Year-Old Built a Mobile Home Flipping Business in Florida

Luis Mera (00:00)
One of my strengths is the communication with the people. This market we can call it a little informal market. It’s not like a normal housing or normal real estate. You don’t have mobile homes in Zillow, you don’t have mobile homes in MLS. One of my strengths is communication, have to go outside to the streets to go find my deals

and get to know people and working with people. Everything is about the trust and communication. You have to gain the trust of owners and manage parks and this communication builds the actual business.

Scott Bursey (02:03)
Welcome back to the Real Estate Pros podcast powered by Investor Fuel. I’m your host, Scott Bursey. Glad you’re with us. And today we are diving into the world of mobile home investing with a special guest who has been part of the manufactured mobile home business since he was 16 years old: Luis Mera.

He is a dedicated fix-and-flipper in Florida who has turned early mentorship into a thriving full-time career alongside his father. Listeners, you can expect to learn how family dynamics play into business momentum and what actually it takes to succeed in the mobile home niche today. Luis, welcome to the show.

Luis Mera (02:43)
Thank you so much, Scott. I’m really glad to be here on the podcast.

Scott Bursey (02:47)
It is awesome having you here, Luis, and to help our listeners get up to speed. Please give us the ninety-second highlight reel of how your career ignited and where you’re pouring your fuel now.

Luis Mera (02:59)
Well, it’s good. I’m doing my mobile homes at the moment. I’m twenty years old at the moment. I started, like you say, when I was sixteen, really young age. What we’re doing right now is fix-and-flip mobile homes. We buy, fix, and flip the mobile homes for affordable living. So, yeah, at the moment, we’re doing great.

Scott Bursey (03:15)
That is absolutely incredible to hear, Luis. And what really caught my attention about you was the way you’ve been able to take the foundation you built as a teenager and successfully transition that into a full-time partnership with your father. Now, building on that, curious to know, Luis, looking at your business model, what do you consider to be your biggest strength in the Florida mobile home market?

Luis Mera (03:40)
What’s

cool? One of my strengths is the communication with—with the people. This market, we can call it a little informal market. It’s not like a normal housing or normal real estate. So you don’t have mobile homes in—in Zillow, you don’t have mobile homes in MLS. So one of my strengths is communication, have to go outside to the streets to go find my deals

and—and get to know people and working with people. Everything is about the trust and communication. You have to gain the trust of—of owners and park managers, and this communication builds the actual business.

Scott Bursey (04:16)
How are you taking that trust and putting that into effect to close deals faster than the competition?

Luis Mera (04:23)
It’s hard. It’s hard. It’s hard when you—when you sit—it’s hard when you’re twenty. Because you’re too young. We’re talking about big, big money. You’re actually talking about a lifetime of family that they trust in—in you to either buy it or sell it. So it goes little by little. Once you close the first one, they—”Hey, you actually—you’re a trusted person.” So it’s a lot of,

yeah, be honest with people. Show them actually who you are, and then it comes with the information that guide them step by step, how to close the deal, how to buy, how we do the titling, everything. So once they know the information, once you know you guide them, they actually trust in you, and then you can keep going and scale the deals.

Scott Bursey (05:56)
I love that. People do business with folks that they know, they like, and they trust. And Luis, what is a current weakness or operational challenge you’re actively navigating in your business right now?

Luis Mera (06:12)
So

a weakness I still have at the moment, we’re still working on it. We’re trying to get there. Is scaling, getting to the system, getting everything in and out. Just, I’m building right now a couple of apps to—when I walk a property, just through the app, I—I rate the—the house so I know what, you know, what could the investment be. So maybe like a calculator.

You don’t find it in—in Google, you don’t find it nowhere. So I have to build my own. So I have a couple of calculators. I own—I developed a couple apps so I can help myself scale, same as CRM for clients and—and all this stuff. So one of my weaknesses right now is getting organized with the system—clients, opportunity, houses—to actual organization for—through the money,

which the money to the fix-and-flip, this, how, etc. So the system, it’s—it’s where—well, my weakness right now is organization.

Scott Bursey (07:07)
That makes total sense. Wow, building your own apps. That’s fascinating. And wondering, what unique opportunity do you see right now in the mobile home sector that most investors may be overlooking, Luis?

Luis Mera (07:21)
The first thing we have to see is how the market right now is. It’s a buyers’ market. The second is that we have to be honest about the economics of the country is going on through this moment. So manufactured homes are affordable for more people than the average. So we’re talking about less capital to start, less stress about the fixing, and

the same amount that you make in a house—maybe it’s a little bit less, of course—but the time that you put to this—this—this flip and the time that you put to a house and the time of stress, it’s worth the money. So I—I’m close to what I make in a normal house flipping, but I don’t have—I don’t have to go through six, seven months of—of fixing. It’s a month and a half of fixing the—the mobile home. So I would say the opportunity that they’re living now is

how to make the actual money faster.

Scott Bursey (08:16)
Thank you for breaking that down for us, Luis. And love to get your take on this: What do you view as the biggest threat to your business model in the current market?

Luis Mera (08:27)
Land development. Like I said again, there’s a lot of communities that you don’t own the land, so you have to pay lot rent. And then South Florida right now, it’s—it’s developing really fast and big, and—and expanding all the area we have. So one of the risks in this market right now is, first, the land development. So that way, if they sell the land, you—you—you invest,

and it’s gone. That way, I find out where to invest and where not to invest. So depends on communities, depends on corporations. I know the land is more long time, it’s gonna stay steady or—or—or more, yeah, they’re—they’re—they’re more stable, and—and then they’re not gonna sell the land. And then the other risk that I see right now in the market is the actual economics of the—of the population of—of the country.

We’ve seen a lot of everything that’s going on with the wars. I don’t want to get too political, but people, it’s scary to invest. They can see the numbers, they can like the numbers, but there is this question that they bring me to the table is, “What about if something happens next month? What about if we go to another war next month? What about if another

pandemic comes, and then we need—we need liquid cash to survive? What about if I buy this and—and you—I don’t own the land, I don’t have any equity on the land?” So that’s one of the risks that I see on this market right now.

Scott Bursey (09:49)
Is there a current strategy that you’re using to protect your business against the economic climate?

Luis Mera (09:57)
I do, actually I do. We are trying to put the least investment possible into the house to make it just livable. People can live in it, they can be comfortable in it. There’s nothing luxury, but that way I keep my—my numbers under a certain average so that people can feel that they’re buying something cheap, or they feel like they’re buying something affordable, or they feel they’re buying something

that makes sense for them. Either you can go a lot of luxury, putting in big kitchens, a lot of—a lot of good work rehab, or you can stay in the normal prices so people can actually afford the houses. That’s what I’m studying right now, is going through getting to actual numbers for the end value.

Scott Bursey (10:38)
It’s all about the data. I appreciate the transparency there, Luis. And I know our listeners are gonna want to hear this from you: What’s been the secret to maintaining the consistent momentum you and your father have built over these past four years?

Luis Mera (10:53)
It’s hard, to be honest. I’ll say that

you have to trust in yourself. You have to wake up every day; in the evening, if you don’t have nothing to go for, just go look for it. You have to—once again, communication. I go every day, make some drives around, talk to people, some park managers, see how the market is going, see how the people feel, see what the people are looking for,

if they’re looking for something to invest, if people are looking to buy and live, rent. So the consistency is to feel how the market’s moving. In this market, mobile homes, there is no one that can set what’s going on; it’s your own point of view. So you have to be out there with the people around and see the actual point of view of what people are going through. So I would say that the every—day-to-day with—with the people is key to get to,

’cause you have—you have to be

routing all the time. See, okay, this month is going through here. This semester we went through here. We have—we have to stop. Wait, hold on. Let’s think about it. One of the houses I wanna add, one of the houses that I had last year, I started fixing it at the end of the year, around November. I ended up fixing it by December; it was ready to sell. I put a lot of money into the house. I ended up selling it

by May of 2026 of this year. So it was six, seven months of holding the house that actually taught me what to do and what not to do, brought my numbers down. Sometimes less is more. So that last year taught me how the market was going to be, achievable all this year for the deals that I have done.

Scott Bursey (12:33)
What a powerful lesson. And thank you for highlighting that, Luis. Eager to understand, what does your professional network look like right now?

Luis Mera (12:42)
A lot of networking around. I’ve been—I’ve been in a couple of networking environments with—with people. I have wholesalers that are making six figures a month. I’m talking to people that do high-value rehabs and fix-and-flips. I have distributors that were doing

their own thing, their own company. For example, I have this friend that does all the flooring, tile, vinyl flooring, and then they go from there to start doing flippings. So it’s a lot of networking where everybody’s doing flippings, but everybody offers a service as well. So we’re working together. So either one is a contractor, one is an electrician, one is a distributor for floors, one is for drywall. So everybody is doing the same thing, but everybody

is working with everybody. So the money stays in the circle and keeps working.

Scott Bursey (13:35)
Has your network expanded since you decided to commit to this full time?

Luis Mera (13:40)
Yes. Yes. One of the last things that money working got me to was Chicago. Actually, I’m working right now with one of—well, I can say one of my friends, she’s in Chicago. She’s trying to get into mobile homes, same thing I’m doing here, over there. So it’s kinda a one-to-one guide on how to do it. So first thing is, I speak Spanish, so

when she has clients that speak only Spanish, she calls me through the phone, “Hey, Luis, I need to close this deal right now.” So I’ve actually been closing deals for her through the phone, not even being there in Chicago. So I’ve been doing a lot of networking around in a lot of states with the networking that I’m doing.

Scott Bursey (14:24)
That is incredible. And digging a bit deeper, what is the one piece of advice you’d give someone just starting in mobile homes today?

Luis Mera (14:33)
The first thing is the fear. I will say that, once again, you don’t own the lot. If you don’t own the lot, it’s different. It’s—it’s less risky. But the fear—the information to actually take the risk, and, man, you have to be consistent with what—what you like to do. You have to like this to wake up every day and—and

being through a hard time, doesn’t matter. You have to wake up and—and go and—and talk and—and get the deals, get to know people, get numbers. So I would say one of them is information. Go about, see who’s the corporation, who—what’s the name of the corporation, who owns the lot, what’s the time period for the land lease, who can lend the money to you for a mobile home. We have

a—we have a few hard money lenders that can lend money to fix-and-flip these mobile homes. So the information will take you to get to a really good place in mobile homes. But you have to start learning.

Scott Bursey (15:28)
That is solid advice, Luis. And Luis, you have given us a tremendous amount of solid advice today, but are there any additional words or golden nuggets or two you could leave with our listeners?

Luis Mera (15:42)
I do. As a young real estate investor, I would say that it’s never too late to start investing, and it is never too early or too young to start investing. The only way that you can have this freedom to do what you want to do in life is—is—is create a business. So,

yeah, start, man. The—the worst-case scenario that can happen is you stop, but you learn. Every—every loss is a—is a learning situation. But try to never lose; that would be—that would be hard to—to—to lose.

Scott Bursey (16:14)
Thank you for that, Luis. That really adds a lot of value to our listeners right there. And for our listeners that want to keep this conversation moving, stay in your lane, or collaborate with you, what is the best way for them to reach you?

Luis Mera (17:09)
Well, I do have my social media, and then as well my phone number for—for my business.

Scott Bursey (17:20)
Sure, you can give it here if you’d like.

Luis Mera (17:22)
So it’ll be 786-200-9599. And then my Instagram page, which I just started, it’s M H For You. So that’ll be Mobile Home For You. And that’s what my—my Instagram is right now. And I give a lot of advice. I just started doing my own—my own Instagram for business. So I—I give people step-by-step how to invest, the risks,

what to know, the numbers about lot rents, utilities, so they can follow me there and they’ll learn a lot from—from mobile home information.

Scott Bursey (17:53)
Luis, thank you for joining us today on the Real Estate Pros podcast. This has been an absolute masterclass.

Luis Mera (18:00)
Thank you so much, Scott. I’m so glad, like I said, I’m so glad to be here.

Scott Bursey (18:03)
And to our listeners, we appreciate each and every one of you. If you received value from today’s episode, please subscribe. We’ll be filling your tanks with a lineup of elite guests, just like Luis, who are accelerating and setting the pace for the rest of the industry. Until next time, keep your standards high and your vision clear. We’ll see you in the next episode, everyone.