In our fifth installment of “How To Not Get Your Mobile Home Sold”, we will cover the importance of understanding the current mobile home sales market in your area.
With real estate prices skyrocketing down here throughout all of Florida, it is easy to assume that the real estate prices will carry over to mobile homes on leased land as well.
As a quick review, guys, mobile homes located on leased land are viewed as and taxed as personal property in the state of Florida, as they have titles associated with their purchase and not deeds like traditional real estate. As we have discussed before, with having a title associated with your home there is no place where sales prices are recorded as is the case with real estate sales. With this understanding, a licensed mobile home Broker, such as The Mobile Home Dealer, will be able to help obtain real-time sales numbers for homes sold by themselves or other sales agents to get you, the Seller, an accurate number as to where to price your home for a fast sale!
Real estate prices go up and go down as we are all aware.
This rapid increase and decrease in property values throughout Florida do not affect the home mobile home space much, especially for mobile homes attached to the leased land.
I feel this is one of the best aspects of owning a mobile home on leased land because if the home is bought correctly and not over-improved during your tenure of ownership, the chances of making some money on your sale are very good regardless of when you sell or buy that property in the first place!
What we have seen recently in the field is Sellers believing that their homes have gone up in value at the same rate as single-family real estate.
Just last week, I went on a listing appointment and did area comps and other properties in the area that our team has sold. Armed with this information, I had a pretty darn good idea of what the home should be priced at to make a fast sale. When I met with the Seller, they had done quite a bit of homework on other home sales in the area which was great to see as most Sellers are not that prepared during a listing appointment!
The problem I encountered though with their work was that they pulled all comps from the MLS for real estate, not personal property sales. As such, they pulled the average square footage price for homes sold and believed that this number multiplied by their home’s square footage was a fair value of their home’s worth. The issue with this was that they assumed that they could factor in the cost of the land, like all the other real estate comps that they pulled, even though their home did not include land in the purchase as they were living within a land-leased mobile home park.
When I explained this to the Seller, they were not ready to hear what I had to say, their price was their price and that was all there was to it. This would not have normally been an issue if the price that they had come up with was over $100,000 more than what I believe their home would sell for.
The Winds Of Saint Armands mobile home
You heard that right, over $100,000 higher!
I did all that I could in the meeting to explain that their evaluation simply was not realistic, and frankly, not fair to all other homes in the market. as they were, in theory, stating that their home without the land was worth just as much as homes with land. With all that, the Seller continued to say they were right and their home evaluation was their home evaluation.
I wished them well and told them that we at The Mobile Home Dealer would not be the best sales team to sell their home.
If you are looking to not sell your home, pay no mind to what your home is really worth and price your home at whatever price you choose, regardless of if your mobile home is comparable to those homes……. or not.
Furthermore, there are other reasons some people cannot sell their mobile homes and these include but are not limited to
Underestimating the cost of selling. The cost of selling can sometimes be closer to 10% of the mobile home value. These costs include agent commissions, closing costs, repairs, and other concessions to the buyer.
Setting an unrealistic price. Just like I mentioned above, owners who are selling their mobile homes for an unrealistic amount far from the fair market value would have difficulty finding a buyer.
Ignoring repair and maintenance. A long list of things to be repaired can turn legitimate buyers away.
Choosing the wrong agent. Whether the agent is asking for a flat fee or a percentage of sales, as a seller, you should know your right to negotiate.
Limited showings or the lack of interest to sell. When you decide to sell your mobile home, make sure to cooperate wholeheartedly with your agent. Some people just leave everything to the agent and in many cases, the agent can answer buyers’ questions about the house, especially when it comes to repair and maintenance history. This is your responsibility as a seller.
This is Mark Kaiser with the Mobile Home Dealer, and we help mobile home Buyers and Sellers get to a better place in life.
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