The Manufactured Housing Forums

Do manufactured homes appreciate or deappreciate in value? I would like to set one up on my own land.

That is the great debate that has always followed manufactured Housing. Studies have been done that say that manufactured homes properly and permiently set on private land will maintaine the value of the property. If the area value goes up, so does the home, if not it won't.
But, for years the Real Estate industry and local assessors have said that Manufactured Homes lose value. They say that because "everybody knows" it. The fact is that no one knows that, and the people who think it, often are the ones who set after market values.
If you put a manufactured home on private land in a proper fashion, I say it will maintain the value of the land. But, if local real estate professionals and local assessors say different, what I say does not matter.
That's a lot of words to say two words; It depends.

Check out the FMLS listings in your area and you'll see that older m-h's on their own land are priced about the same as comparable site-built homes, all other things being equal (i.e. same number of bedrooms/bath, condition of house, and area). Also read the posting in this forum dated April 2, 2002 from "Judith" entitled "30-year old m-h on own land" wherein she states that she's considering paying $280,000 for a 30-year old m-h in California.

You might want to go to this site and read the documents...It addresses this and many other issues concerning manufactured homes and makes referances to the source of the information presented..

http://216.167.103.115/DR_understanding/index.html

Someone mentioned my message about considering paying $280K for a 30-year-old mobile home here in the Santa Cruz, CA area (and someone else did, but not I, and the main reason was precisely because it was more than 30 years old). But that's misleading, because it's on prime real estate -- you own the lot, not a co-op, not personal property, but real property -- in a place with the 3rd-highest housing rates in the entire country, landlocked by mountain and ocean, strong anti-growth sentiment in community and laws, and a "park" that's so unusual that they feature it in books about mobile homes. Very few there are movable anymore, because they're built in with foundations, landscaping (boulders, trees). Etc. and so on. Mobile homes here increase in value somewhat, because housing costs are so very high and there's such a shortage and always will be, probably.

So what someone else replied to me is more relevant. It depends on the classic advice about real estate: location, location, location.

Judith

P.S. Be sure to go to your local planning department and check and ask about zoning regulations, costs of connecting or bringing in utilities, etc. -- thoroughly and carefully.

jb