Have you been looking at buying a mobile home on leased land in the greater Sarasota Florida area but have been running into issues when looking for sales comps?

Wait, what are sales comps?

Have we lost you already?

No problem, let’s start from the beginning to give you a better understanding of exactly what sales comps are and how they work!

Mobile Home for Sale in Sebring

Mobile Home for Sale in Sebring

Real estate comps are recently sold homes that are similar to the property you’re trying to buy or sell in terms of location, size, condition, and features. Comps – an abbreviation of “comparable sales” – are used to determine a home’s fair market value through the sales comparison approach to pricing property.

Individual comps are assembled into a comparable market analysis and presented by a real estate agent to their client. This is done by both the listing agent working with a seller to set an asking price and the buyer’s agent helping a home buyer determine the amount they should offer.

The sales comparison approach forms the basis for a real estate agent comparative market analysis (CMA), which estimates the value of a property. The sales comparison approach uses the principle of substitution to determine what a specific home is worth. According to this principle, you can figure out the value of a home by finding out how much it would cost to purchase a similar, equally desirable property.

When looking trying to track the price of a normal real estate transaction a Buyer or Seller can easily find what other homes in the area have sold for. This is also known as a sales comp or sales report. These reports can be found through real estate professionals in the area who have access to the records at the county courthouse where all the sales for real estate in that county are reported.

If you are not currently working with a real estate professional then you, as the individual Buyer or Seller, can go to the county courthouse yourself and obtain these sales records since they are public records that anyone can view at any time.

Can we pull sales comps in mobile homes? 

We have a question that came to us from one of our viewers who contacted us through our Facebook Messenger to ask the following question, “Mark, could you discuss how I can pull a sales comp up on other homes in the area so that I am able to know how much other mobile homes are being sold for you?” The question went on to say that they own the early 1970s, double-wide in Sarasota, Florida, and would like to know what they should price their home at

Mobile homes located on leased land, however, are a totally different ball game when looking to obtain a sales comp for any given area.

mobile home for sale

Mobile Home for Sale in Florida

The reason for the difference is that mobile homes on leased land in the state of Florida are viewed as and taxed as personal property and not real property. What this means is that the mobile home purchase and sale follows the exact same sales process as that of a vehicle as the sale is recorded at the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV).

When the DMV records the sale price of a home they do not record it at the county courthouse, or, for that matter, any other place other than letting the Department of Revenue know exactly how much a mobile home sold for and what taxes are owed on the home.

As such, personal property is going to be viewed the same way as a vehicle is, which includes a title and not a deed.

The reason why this is important to know is that there is no way to pull an accurate listing of what mobile homes on leased land actually sell for since they are not deemed as real estate. In a real estate transaction, all sales are recorded with the County that the sale is completed in, as well as those numbers being put on the MLS for reference. The MLS stands for multiple listing services, which is a place where a realtor can pull comps for all sales of real estate in the area.

Since there is no tried and true way of finding out what mobile homes that are deemed as personal property are selling for, the only way we have found is to speak to other Sellers in the area and ask what their homes actually sold for. Take this as a word of caution from me personally because asking a Seller what their home sold for can be about as accurate as asking me how much I weigh. I mean, sure, I will tell the truth!

I am being goofy here, but I am also being serious. You basically have to take the seller’s word for it, unless they will be willing to provide you with a purchase agreement that states exactly what was paid for the home.

Since there is no way to find sales comps for mobile homes on leased land, I would also suggest any Seller contact a licensed mobile home broker in your area, such as The Mobile Home Dealer, and ask them for their thoughts on how you should price your home.

This is where the sales comps end for mobile homes that have been sold in the greater Sarasota Florida area that are located on leased land.

There is, literally, nowhere these sales are recorded for the general public to gain access to.

So, with this understanding, when someone tells you that the “comps” in the area say this or that be wary as this may very well just be hearsay and not have any valid points to it at all!

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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