Moving a Manufactured / Mobile Home

[Jaren Woeppel]

Hey, BP Community

I am in the St. Augustine, FL area and have a question the manufactured home investor community. I am looking at potentially purchasing a lot that currently has a manufactured home there. I have never invested in this type of property before, so I was wondering if there was, if any, value in the manufactured home? How easy and what is the cost associated with relocating a manufactured home? Are there buyers for these kinds of homes? Do they have to fit into a certain age / condition criteria to even be considered? If there is no value, what kind of costs and cleanup are there with removing the home from the property?

I know I threw a lot out there but I am hoping someone knowledgeable in the space will have some insight to share and it will help the general community as well.

Thanks,

Jaren

[Chase Louderback]

Hi Jaren,

Assuming the home is in decent shape and/or repairable, then there is definitely value there.  That value will vary dramatically based on the market, age of the home, size, condition, etc.  I'd suggest looking at mobile homes on Facebook marketplace and craigslist so you can at least get a feel for its value based on comps and demand in the area.

Relocating a mobile home isn't too crazy.  If you are taking it to the landfill it could be as low as $1,500 for a singlewide, but again this varies dramatically on the city/county and what they require as well as labor in your market. We have had to pay as much as $5,000 to demolish a single wide mobile home that was older and required asbestos tests/abatement and then demo.

If you sell the home for someone to move to their lot, then just be aware they likely have 4k+ in costs to move it plus another 3k+ in costs to setup decks, underpinning, water/sewer/electric/hvac hookups. That wouldn't even include the footers, which that price - as you can guess - varies depending on what the county requires.