How to Determine the Value of My Mobile Home

Trying to determine how much cash your mobile home is worth can be a daunting task. Evaluating mobile homes is a little different than in the case of immovable properties, and so you’re going to have to put in a lot of thought and effort into assessing their cash value. Although the process is complicated and can take up a lot of your time, it is thankfully much less convoluted than determining the value of an immovable piece of property, such as a house or apartment.

Values of mobile homes can be accurately estimated by their individual owners, provided that they know how to go about it and which factors are the decisive ones. Most of the time, there’s no need to splash the cash on an appraiser, although some buyers may require bringing one in just to get a second, professional opinion on the value of your mobile home. In these cases, the burden of paying the appraiser’s fee should be on their side.

If you’re an owner of a mobile home and are thinking of selling it, but aren’t quite sure of its value, then you’re in the right place. Keep reading to find out what the most important things for you to assess are, and what to include in your home’s value report.

The Easy Way: Order a Report Online

One of the quickest ways in which you can get an accurate appraisal of your mobile home’s value without leaving your house is by ordering a report over the internet – via a site like NADA or another institution that deals with approximating the values of various assets. It’s a simple process that requires you to fill out a form where you’re going to have to provide the following information:

• the manufacturer of your mobile home
• the year the home was produced
• width and length
• its condition
• special features
• your state and region

Once the form is complete, all you’re going to have to do is choose the type of report you want to receive. In the case of NADA, you’re going to have three options:

• Basic Used Home Value Report: $26. In this case, you’re only going to get the base book value of your mobile home. It’s advisable to choose that report if you’re willing to do a bit of work and appraise various parts of the home yourself, should potential buyers require more information from you.
• New Home Value Report: $30. This report applies only to newly manufactured homes and is a great choice if you want to get the home values of multiple unused mobile homes.
• Professional Used Home Value Report: $50. This report type is the most expensive one, but it also provides you with the most information about the values of different parts of your home, and how much money you could get if you stripped the property of some of its aspects. Choose that one if you want to save some time on estimating the value of your home.

Do It Yourself

When it comes to ordering online reports that estimate the value of your home, you need to keep in mind that these documents only assess the book value of the asset itself. The book value of an asset is put together by taking its initial value and subtracting things like depreciation, damage repair costs, and any other things that might have impacted the cost of the mobile property. It’s a good start, but it does not tell the whole story.

For example, if your mobile home is fixed onto a piece of land, that is something that the report won’t take into account. A lot of the home’s value lies in its location. This means that you have to assess your surrounding area. If the property is located in a mobile home park full of similarly manufactured homes, you’ll need to include that aspect in your appraisal. The sheer fact that it’s in a park doesn’t really mean much, but what matters is the park’s reputation, as well as all of the amenities that are in its vicinity.

A location close to a school, a large city, and access to various quality-of-life improving facilities like underground parking lots, shopping malls, and health clinics can sometimes have a bigger impact on the pricing than the state of your mobile home itself. Hiring appraisers to assess the value of the land your property’s on might be a good idea since it can be tricky to perform that evaluation by yourself. Your real estate agent can help as well.

Aside from the land, you’re also going to have to factor in the quality of the interior and exterior of your mobile home.

Interior

You’ll need to have in-depth knowledge of the mobile home interior’s state in order to answer all of the questions the potential buyers may raise. Every single thing that requires repairs will either need to be fixed before you put the home up for sale (which requires investments on your side), or it can decrease the value. Here are some of the most important things to assess:

• Plumbing. The condition of the pipes and the water pressure inside of your mobile home are of the utmost importance. No private buyer will put down a payment on a home with water leaks or subpar pressure. If you find issues with the home’s plumbing, you should fix them right away.
• Electricity. Just like with plumbing issues, you shouldn’t try to sell a home with faulty wiring or other electrical issues.
• Floors. An uneven floor might not seem like a big deal, but it will influence the value of the mobile home. The same thing goes for any type of holes or cracks in the flooring.
• Walls and ceiling. Things like mold, irremovable stains, or unstable walls might force you to knock down the price by a couple of hundred bucks.

Exterior

The exterior of a mobile home is particularly important because that’s what the mobility of this property depends on. Here are some of the basics that you should take a look at:

• Underside. Thoroughly checking underneath the house is the first thing you should do. It’ll help you find any issues with insulation or the stability of the entire structure.
• Roof. Get up on top of the roof and inspect every square inch. The roof’s condition is not only a matter of aesthetics, but it also helps keep the mobile home warm, especially during the winter months.
• Tie-downs. Make sure that all of the tie-downs that help fix your mobile home to the ground are in good shape. If not, replace them immediately. Mobile housing with faulty tie-ins is a major safety hazard.

Sell Your Mobile Home for Cash

Not everybody has the time and money to thoroughly inspect every aspect of their mobile homes, hire an appraiser, or conduct all of the necessary repairs. It’s an expensive, time-consuming process, not to mention the fact that going through all of it does not ensure that you’ll find the right buyer immediately.

This is why you might want to consider selling your mobile home for cash to one of the various institutions in the United States that are in this line of business, such as the Highest Cash Offer. Present us with a description, detailed photos, and the proposed valuation of your mobile home, and we’ll get back to you with a cash offer that takes into account our own evaluation of your home’s condition, as well as your own expectations.