02/20/2025
I've been doing a lot of searches for land lately and I began to notice a trend- several listings included a mobile home but considered those homes to be of little to no value to the property. So I did more research on mobile/ manufactured homes and what I found blew my mind. 🤯
My heart breaks for people who make decisions, thinking it's the right thing to do but in the end it hurts them even worse. I understand some people may choose to live a humble life and one way they go about doing that is to purchase a mobile or manufactured home. But it's so important for them to know that decision will likely have a giant negative impact- it does more harm than good on their finances. This is also something I don't feel is talked about enough, so let's talk about it.
In recent years, the real estate market continues to prove to be a strong investment. Unfortunately, that isn't the case with mobile or manufactured homes. The numbers on the first slide show that the average annual equity actually shows a 3-5% depreciation, and if that person would have otherwise invested in a site build home, that individual actually loses out on 7-11% of equity when you consider the annual 4-6% gains on those properties. That's detrimental to a person or a family's wealth. In Dec '24, George Kamel (a personality for Dave Ramsey), wrote an article titled 'Are Mobile Homes a Bad Investment?'. In that article, he claims an even bigger loss: "History says a $150,000 double-wide mobile home will depreciate by more than $50,000 in just five years."
In addition to the astounding depreciation rates, I couldn't believe the cost to actually purchase a mobile home. Those costs are more than comparable to a site- built, traditional resale home that already includes the price of land (check out my last 3 slides). In addition to the cost of a mobile home are fees that include: buying/ renting the land for it to sit on, transportation costs and construction of the foundation and assembly of the home, and insurance. Insurances for a mobile home typically come at a premium since the structure isn't as sound as a site-built home. It's similar to giving a health insurance to a smoker.
