You sold a mobile or manufactured home and the buyer pays you monthly. We tell you plainly whether buyers will bid, and show the worksheet behind any offer we bring back.
Why the first offer on a mobile home note can be a weak one.
The same worksheet comes with every offer.
| Remaining balance | $129,400 |
|---|---|
| Payments left | 168 |
| Buyer’s target yield | 8.0% |
| Purchase price | $115,000 |
| Discount from balance | 11.1% |
| Our fee | shown on every offer |
| Sell the whole note | Sell 60 payments | Keep it | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cash today | $115,000 | $56,200 | $0 |
| Payments still coming to you | None | 108 payments of $1,140 | 168 payments of $1,140 |
| Total you receive | $115,000 | $179,320 | $191,520 |
| What you give up | Every future payment | The next five years | A lump sum now |
Illustrative example. Totals add up the payments as scheduled; they assume the payer keeps paying and are not adjusted for the value of money over time.
Promissory note or sale contractTitle or recorded lienPayment historyLot lease, if in a parkA mobile home note is created when you sell a mobile or manufactured home and let the buyer pay you over time. Whether that note is easy or hard to sell depends on the answer to the question above more than on anything else.
If you sold the home and the lot as one property, and the home is fixed to a permanent foundation and treated as real estate, your note is normally secured by a mortgage or deed of trust. Buyers price it much like a note on a site-built house, with some adjustment for the type of property.
If the home sits in a park or on land the payer rents, it is generally treated as personal property, and your security is a lien noted on the home’s title in place of a recorded mortgage. Far fewer buyers take these notes. Those who do want a higher return on their money, and so they pay less for the same payments.
Among the types of notes you can sell, this is the one where a single fact divides the field. A note buyer wants to know what they would hold if the payments stopped. With land, the answer is a property that can be sold where it stands. Without land, the answer is a home that sits on someone else’s ground.
That brings problems a house does not have. Lot rent keeps running while the home is empty. The park may have rules about who can live there or whether the home can stay. Moving a home is expensive, and a home on its own tends to lose value with age.
A home-only note can still have value. The payer’s record carries more of the weight, because the collateral carries less. We go through that case on its own page: can I sell a note on a mobile home without land.
Your lien has to appear on the title. One problem we look for is a title that was handed to the payer at the sale with no lien noted on it. If that happened, what you hold is an unsecured promise, which is very hard to sell. It can sometimes be corrected with the payer’s cooperation, and the state titling agency can tell you how.
If the home and land were sold together, confirm that the recorded mortgage or deed of trust describes both, and that the home is not still carried on a separate title.
Once you have the title or the recorded lien, add your sale contract, the payment record and, for a home in a park, the lot lease. Then send us the details and say in the first line whether land is included, because it decides which buyers we approach.
Sometimes. Fewer buyers take notes on homes without land, and they look hard at the payer's record, the age of the home and whether lot rent is current. We will tell you early if yours is unlikely to draw a bid.
The terms are often used for the same thing. In general, manufactured home refers to homes built to the federal standards that took effect in the 1970s, and mobile home to older ones. Buyers care more about the age, the condition and whether land is included than about the label.
Look at how it is documented. A home with its own certificate of title, like a vehicle, is usually personal property. A home that has been legally joined to the land and appears on the deed is usually real property. The rules vary by state, so confirm with the titling agency or a local attorney.
Yes, when the land is not included. The collateral is harder to resell and fewer buyers bid, so they ask for a higher yield. A home sold together with its land is priced much closer to a house.