In this monologue, Nichole Briscoe ("Mobile Home Mommy") shares the landlord practices that have allowed her to operate mobile‑home rentals for six years with only two evictions. She emphasizes two pillars: a rigorous, why‑focused screening process and proactive, ongoing conversations with tenants. Briscoe details her multi‑layered interview technique—asking why, when, how, and what for every answer—to uncover motivations, income stability, credit history, and past evictions. She explains why she deliberately rents to people who have experienced evictions or long hotel stays, arguing that such tenants are highly motivated to avoid repeat problems. She illustrates how she adjusts rent due dates to match a tenant’s pay schedule (e.g., moving the due date to the 12th) to prevent late payments, and she recounts two COVID‑era eviction cases that illustrate the limits of her approach. Throughout, she stresses the importance of monitoring tenant behavior, asking uncomfortable questions, and intervening early with tailored payment arrangements. The video concludes with a promotion for her paid coaching community, positioned as an affordable, hands‑on resource for aspiring mobile‑home investors.
Chapters
Bad tenants don't exist, only bad landlords. And after 6 years of doing it this way, this is what proves it. Mobile Home Mommy. So y'all listen. I've been doing this for 6 years. I'm going into my 7th year, and I stand firm when I say this. I truly have only had 2 evictions. All right. I do feel like evictions can be prevented. It's all into these 2 things, screening and conversation. The screening process is very important. You know, you don't only want to know why, you want to know when, how, what. I'm asking questions on top of questions. So I'll ask, okay, well, why are you moving? What caused the move? Let's give a scenario. Let's say Jacob called me and said, hey, I'm looking for a place to rent. I need to be gone within the next 30 days. The next question I'm going to ask, okay, why does it have to be in the next 30 days? Oh, because me and my family need a bigger place. That's great. What's your current living situation? Well, my current living situation is we're here and we just can't live here anymore. Okay, why can't you live there anymore? If you want to get irritated and get off the phone with me, that's fine. You weren't the tenant for me. But I have to— I have a why for every reasoning or every answer that you give me, because I want to know all of the details of why you're moving, where you're coming from. Typically, when people pull up to the office and say, I'm going to apply, um, we'll talk in the office, but I also walk them out to their car, um, just to continue to have a I want to have a conversation to figure out what's truly going on. I want to know, are you getting your deposit back from your previous place? If not, why do you think you can't get your deposit back? I also want to know, what is the income? What is the credit? Credit is not a factor for moving into my property, but I do ask, what is on the credit? Oh, my credit is really bad. Why is it bad? 2015, I rented a place for my mom and we never paid it off. I'm looking for a repetition of habit. I'm also paying attention to— I'm also paying attention to the money. I don't care if you have bad credit, but when it comes to paying your bills on time, are you able to pay on time? A lot of people won't agree with me, but I rent to people who have faced eviction before. Ew, brother, ew. What's that? Because I find when people have faced eviction, they don't want to go through it a second time. They don't want to go through it a second time. Not only that, um, when I'm renting to people that have been living in a hotel for months, they've seen the other side. They understand that they have to pay that $400 a week that $350 a week, and that is very costly. Um, my last 2 tenants, they came from a hotel. One lady was there for over 2 years. You think I'm gonna have a problem renting to her? And guess what? Yes, I asked the hotel, how long has she been here? She's been here 2 years. Okay, has she ever been late? She had to move rooms? No, she didn't. Okay, great. I feel like, to me, even though she had an eviction 2 years ago, Her living in that hotel, being consistent for 2 years for something that's way higher than what I'm going to charge now, that to me, that's a no-brainer. All right. Again, y'all, this is how I personally run my business. This is what has helped me do my, uh, do this for 6 years and only had 2 evictions. I also have conversations with my tenants. Now hear me clearly. I moved in a husband and wife couple with 3 kids, and I noticed the very first month the rent was late. They paid it about 3 days later. The second month, the rent was late. They paid it 3 days later. So what I did was instead of ignoring it or saying, hey, I'm going to file for an eviction, I had a conversation. I'm like, hey, what's going on? I noticed the past 2 months your rent have been late. He explained to me, hey, I get paid on the 10th of the month. Normally my wife, her paycheck comes, but it's always shorter than then, and we didn't want to pay a partial payment. So guess what I did? As a landlord, I said, okay, going forward, since you get paid on the 10th of the month, your money will be due on the 12th of the month every month. They've now been with me for 3 years. And we have not had another late payment, even during Christmas. Because you know during Christmas everybody just disappear and oh I'mma pay it next week and whatever. Anyways let me get back. I moved the date. So again I'm having conversations with people so we can avoid the bad habits and we can just get on get you know. Get some clarity as to what's going on before I have to evict. Now, with the 2 evictions that I did, they tried everything. They just couldn't pay their rent. The husband lost his job. The wife lost her job. They had a couple of churches that were paying for it. And this happened during COVID You know, they just stopped paying their rent, as many people did during COVID And then once, you know, the— I'm going to call it the rent ban was lifted. I don't remember what it was called. They had a hard time catching up. Couple churches got them caught up, but then after that they had already lost their job so they couldn't get back on track. Again, a conversation, y'all. You don't have to listen, uh, like the man said on Reading Rainbow, you don't have to take my word for it. But you don't have to take my word for it. But this is what works for me. I make sure that my screening process is thorough by asking several questions and every answer has a why. I ask uncomfortable questions. If someone tells me They have felonies. Why? When was the charge? Have you been charged again since then? I just want to avoid the problems. And on top of asking thorough screening questions, I'm going to have a conversation. I'm going to have a conversation when it comes to payments, anything late, and paying attention to the behaviors. If I saw they paid late once or twice, let me just go ahead and move this date. Now, if we have a problem after we move the date, then that's a different conversation. You ain't got to take my word for it. This is the way that I vet my tenants when it comes to screening. If you all are in the process of building up your mobile home empire and you're like, hey, I want to work one-on-one with Nicole, there's a link below. It is my school community. It's private. It's very hand-holding. I'm in there 3 times a week, y'all. I keep it real. I'm transparent, and I help my people close deals. Okay. And guess what? My community is only $1.58 a day, cheaper than your 4 for $4 from Wendy's. So if you interested, click the link below. Hope to see you in the community.
