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4 Widely Believed Mobile Homes Myths (& Other Common Fallacies)

John Fedro
4 min read
4 Widely Believed Mobile Homes Myths (& Other Common Fallacies)

Welcome back,

Mobile homes typically receive such a bad stigma for being such a decent type of affordable housing that keeps so many Americans safe, protected, warm, comfortable, and happy.

The purpose of this article is to help shed some light on the common misconceptions we hold about factory built housing and a few other incorrect facts we seem to view as truths. This article idea came about while speaking to a few fellow investors at a recent real estate investing club meeting.

What we discovered was that during our grade school years, we were all subjected to negative stigmas and perceived outlooks when it comes to mobile homes. As with many other misguided lessons we were directly taught or came to learn through osmosis in school or at home, your mobile home outlook has likely been corrupted all these years.

This negative outlook you may be holding onto has likely cost you potential profits by not allowing you to even consider investing in this under-realized, affordable real estate housing niche.

4 Common Myths We Believe About Mobile Homes

1. Mobile homeowners are poor.

While riding the bus home from grade school, I remember the negative stigma and unkind words the kids of the local mobile home park had to endure. Us SFR kids didn’t know anything about these mobile home kids, their parents, or their lifestyles. All we knew is that something was different, and different was apparently something to be teased.

For the past 12+ years investing in mobile homes, I have seen adult investors still holding onto their childish roots by assuming all mobile homes and mobile homeowners are valueless, lower cultured, and/or poor. While this is sometimes the case with mobile homeowners, it is also sometimes the case with single family home owners (and investors) as well.

2. Mobile homes are not valuable.

Value comes from supply and demand. The ultimate value a mobile home’s worth is what a buyer is willing to pay for the subject mobile home at a particular time in a particular location.

Related: 5 Creative, Profitable Ways to Increase a Mobile Home’s Value

Each of these bullets can be expounded upon in great detail, and this one is no different. Mobile homes are bought and sold daily — sometimes bought and sold by motivated buyers and sellers, and other times bought and sold by owners and buyers willing to accept top dollar for the property due to any number of external factors.

3. Mobile homes are destined to be blown away or destroyed soon.

A big objection I hear about mobile home investing is simply from ignorance. Taking the first step and owning a “moveable” investment scares many investors. I mention ignorance above because only with experience and/or the advice of a trusted mobile home investor, dealer, and/or owner can a newbie mobile home investor understand that their investment can be a safe one when properly purchased.

Factory built housing has changed dramatically over the past 40 years. If a tornado or hurricane bears down on a mixed neighborhood of site built homes and factory built homes, the entire neighborhood is going to see some damage in most cases. Insurance helps curb most worries; however, the simple fact is that mobile homes, when properly taken care of and secured correctly to the site’s foundation, are safe and more than adequate shelters from most natural phenomena.

4. There are very few mobile homes around me.

Mobile homes are located in every state and in almost every town, except for Hawaii and the District of Columbia. Factory built housing accounts for roughly 8% of the homes you and I drive by on a daily basis.

Most of these manufactured homes are attached to the private land the owner of the home, not inside the mobile home parks that many of us first think of. This is a choice that these land owners have made: to remain in a comfortable home and also keep their cost per square foot at a fraction of the cost compared to similarly sized site-built homes.

Bonus: 3 Other Commonly Taught Myths

1. There is no gravity is space.

While watching astronauts take giant leaps for mankind on the moon or drift in space around the International Space Station, it’s easy to assume there is no gravity in space. At the height above Earth that satellites and the ISS orbit remain, there is still a majority of the gravity we feel here on the surface of Earth.

The reason it seems astronauts are weightless in orbit is because they are in a constant state of free-fall as they orbit the Earth. While walking on the moon, astronauts are no longer in free fall and so they are subject to the moon’s gravity, which is about one sixth the strength of Earth’s.

Related: The Top 6 Reasons Mobile Home Investing Sucks (and How to Get Around Them)

2. Germs take five seconds to infiltrate dropped food.

This one seems silly; however, if you have ever mentioned the “Five Second Rule” in the past, then it has affected your life in some small way. Most of us have the understanding that once a dropped chip or piece of food hits the ground, it has been contaminated by some degree of germs, foreign pathogens, dirt, and/or bugs.

The simple idea that counting to five has any bearing on germs waiting to pounce on your food is nonsense; yet this common saying incorrectly makes its way into most of our minds from time to time.

3. The Great Wall of China can be seen from space.

Roughly 5,592 miles long, the Great Wall of China is the longest man-made object on Earth, and it is often said it can be seen from space, even from as far away as the moon. Both NASA and even China’s first astronaut have said this is not possible.

The Great Wall is narrow and irregular, measuring about 32 feet wide on average and can be hard to distinguish from the surrounding environment. Seeing the wall from the Moon would be equivalent to seeing a single hair from roughly 8,000 feet away.

What are some common misconceptions or myths (about real estate or anything else) that drive you crazy?

Leave me a comment below, and let’s discuss!

Note By BiggerPockets: These are opinions written by the author and do not necessarily represent the opinions of BiggerPockets.