How to Appraise a Used Mobile Home
Originally, mobile homes consisted of wheels, tongues for transporting structures and axles. Before you can appraise a used mobile home, you first must determine its legal structure as a personal property or as real property. Real property permanently attaches it to a real estate parcel of land. This involves removal of its axles, tongues and wheels and surrender of the home’s title in exchange for becoming part of a real estate parcel.
What you will need:
- Information on the home
- Sales information on comparable home sales
- Collect the details of the house including its make, model and the year of its construction. If constructed after June 15, 1976, it will have a red metal label of HUD (Housing and Urban Development) attached to it and that will contain the detailed information you need.
- Obtain data on used mobile homes in the area from mobile home dealers and managers of mobile home communities. Get information on comparable homes of the same model, make, and year sold, but preferably in the past year.
- Inspect the physical condition of the home and determine its condition. Can you describe the condition as excellent, good, fair or poor? Consider the condition of the comparable mobile homes in the area. Consider how the subject mobile home ranks by comparison with the comparable homes in the same area.
- Determine the median market value of the subject home. You can find this by calculating the average sales prices of all the comparable used mobile homes in the area of the same age, condition and size. You will adjust this median price up or down based on its age and condition.