Stop Saying Mobile Homes Don't Appreciate In Value!!!

[Logan M.]

There are many myths in real estate real estate and I want to debunk one right now.

Many real estate professionals tell clients not to buy a mobile/manufactured home because they do not go up in value, this is a lie. The one caveat I will add is that it is extremely location-dependent. 

To prove my point I will take my market here in Utah, this may not be the same for your market but I would be surprised if we are the only location reacting this way.

Below is a graph from Q3 2019-Q3 2023. We will remove Q3 2019 because for some reason the data on our MLS is missing some quarters of mobile home data from that year but $42,000 was the median sales price of Mobile homes sold, we hit a peak of $89,000 in Q3 2021 but have stabilized with higher rates and a real estate slow down to between 79,000-85,000 this most recent quarter.

That is a 49% increase from Q4 2019 to Q3 2023, averaging it is almost 10% per year!

I would love others to look up their market stats but I am not seeing mobile homes as depreciating assets in regards to their resale value.

[Dan H.]

Here is the reality, your chart proves they do not appreciate because in the most recent data (March 2023) from the Census Bureau’s Manufactured Housing Survey (MHS), the average sales price nationwide for a new manufactured home was $128,300 or almost $45k higher than the current price from your chart).

Every set of data presented in the chart shows the value below the current cost of a new Mobile home.  What your data shows is that at some point mobile homes had depreciated more than their current depreciated level. 

I will also point out that the green line of total units sold is omitted.  Seeing 3rd quarter 2019 had zero sold, recognize this graph is on a small to very small sample size.

This is like buying a $50k car that depreciates to $10k then due to an event (such as Covid) the car is now $20k and saying the car has not deprecated.  No one would consider that car to have not depreciated yet some people are not noticing the similarities (or not thinking about it).  

I do not know the new mobile home price in 2019 but will use $110k (rough estimate) but in your market the average in 2019 q4 was $42k, 2023 q3 is $85k.   Both are significantly less than the new price.

So the data shows mobile homes do depreciate.  What is less clear is will the current pricing hold or will the prices fall to be pre-Covid price plus CPI (likely in the mid $50k).  I tend to believe it is more likely the prices to fall than hold the price in the $80k+.

Data can be deceiving.  It needs to be analyzed with a critical eye.

good luck