How To Market A Mobile Home: Seller’s Guide For A Quick Sale
There’s a lot more to selling your mobile home than just listing it for sale. As with any purchase, buyers need to be convinced that the product they’re getting is worth their time and hard-earned money. Marketing your mobile home to potential buyers doesn’t have to be hard. In fact, it can actually be quite easy so long as you have a product that’s worth buying. Continue reading for a guide on how to market a mobile home, including how to phrase your advertisement, where to place it, and how to appeal to the most people possible.
Composing your ad
Key phrases
How you phrase your ad can have a serious impact on a buyer’s decision, so it’s important you choose your words wisely. In 2016, CoreLogic conducted a study on listing details of more than one million real estate sales in 2016 to find the most appealing advertisement phrases to buyers. The listing phrases found to boost home sales included “fenced backyard,” “open concept,” “natural light,” and “updated kitchen.” The simple addition of the word “beautiful” is also a great selling point. We highly recommend including these phrases in your ad if your mobile home includes such features.
It’s important you let the buyer know if you’ve made any updates or remodels to your mobile home. Buyers want to know that the mobile home they’re moving into has been handled with love, as cheesy as that sounds. Don’t be afraid to brag about the community you live in either – a 2013 study by the National Association of Realtors shows 78% of home buyers surveyed responded that neighborhood quality is more important than the size of the home. Just don’t stretch the truth. You don’t want to cause distrust between you and the buyer.
Don’t undersell yourself
Buyers will make an effort to negotiate the price if you choose the wrong words in your advertisement. From 1997 – 2000, real estate economist Paul Anglin conducted a study that correlated words and phrases in advertisements with the length of time a home stayed on the market. He found that the phrases “good value,” must sell” and “motivated” were linked with houses that took longer to sell.
While there’s a possibility these words could work in your favor, there’s a better chance that the buyer will take a hint to negotiate the price down. Don’t let them know that you’re eager to sell.
Include well-shot photographs
A picture is worth a thousand words, and one bad photograph in your listing could be a dealbreaker. It’s suggested that you stage your home in a way where it shows the least personality possible. That may sound like a strange suggestion, but let us explain further.
Buyers want a house that matches their needs and personality, so cluttering your room with personal items and accessories could prove to be a real turn off. Try staging your rooms as bare as possible to give an idea of what the room could look like to a potential buyer. It’s also a good idea to photograph during a time when the natural light is coming through your windows. Let the buyer know you put some effort into your photos.
Placing the ad
With the online real-estate environment growing every day, it can feel pretty overwhelming when determining where to place your ad. A 2016 study by the National Association of Realtors shows that buyers found the homes they purchased for in the following ways:
- Internet (51%)
- Real estate agent (34%)
- Yard sign/open house sign (8%)
- Friend, relative or neighbor (4%)
- Homebuilder or their agent (2%)
- Directly from seller or knew seller (1%)
- Print newspaper advertisement (1%)
There are a variety of great websites you can use to advertise your home. Free websites include Craigslist, Zillow, Ebay, and Trulia. There’s also MHBO.com, which is dedicated solely to buying and selling mobile homes. Listing your home in as many of these places as possible will expose your home to most buyers possible.
It might also be worth your time to check out mhvillage.com. Like MHBO.com, this website is dedicated to mobile home buyers and sellers. It’s also the biggest site for mobile home listings in the nation. You should know, it costs $59.95 per listing.
While the internet is listed as the top resource for potential buyers, don’t be afraid to take multiple routes if your budget allows it. Placing a “for sale” sign in your front lawn is an effective attention-getter that won’t cost you much. Placing signs across town and in local grocery stores is also a great way to grab people who aren’t actively seeking you out.
Make yourself available
It’s not enough to only put pictures of your house online. Potential buyers will want to tour the place themselves. Try keeping your weekends and evenings free in the event that someone wants to stop by. And depending on how many people are living in the house, it’d be a good idea to try and have at least one person available as much as possible. However, don’t leave a note on your door saying when you’ll be back, as this only invites possible thieves into your home.
You know how to market a mobile home … now it’s time to find that buyer
Knowing how to market a mobile home will get prospective buyers to your door, but a sale usually won’t happen overnight. Don’t be frustrated if the process takes longer than you expect. We know you’ll find someone so long as you put in the effort and don’t undersell yourself. And don’t forget that you always have the option to rent out your mobile home as well.