With communities still recovering from recent storms, manufactured home sales dip
The real estate market for manufactured homes has been declining the last few years in Southwest Florida.
“It’s been a very tough two years, and I don’t know when it will get easier. It’s tough – you have to appreciate the hard times,” Mobile Home Lady Owner Antonette Fazlic said.
She said the manufactured home real estate is not great. She said year over year in January, sales were down 20% for Lee County and down 45% in December.
“Since July it has been double digits in year-over-year sales,” Fazlic said. “There’s about 40% more inventory today than this time last year.”
Liz Williamson with Four Start Homes and Realty One Group MPV said manufactured homes that are on deeded land tend to sell better than the ones on leased land because the leased land typically has higher lot rent, or HOA fees, than deeded land.
For deeded land, in the last 30 days – from the end of January to the end of February – 23 manufactured homes sold in just North Fort Myers out of the 284 active listings.
“There are 76 manufactured home communities in North Fort Myers alone,” Williamson said, adding that the manufactured home community may only have one or two homes in the community.
In Lee County – from the end of January to end of February – there are 600 available manufactured homes on deeded land. There were 51 pending sales.
“They are on the market longer right now,” she said. “It’s a whole set of issues. Insuring them is harder – some have just rebuilt their homes.”
Fazlic said Florida had a huge influx of people that came to Florida during COVID.
“For real estate in general, people have storm fatigue,” Fazlic said.
She said homes are still selling and there is an abundance of inventory – a great time to look to purchase.
“It’s a buyer’s market. It has definitely cooled off – the market is correcting itself,” Fazlic said.
Homes are not selling, she said, because people may not have a reality check that the market has shifted – changed.
“We see a lot of sellers chasing the market. If you price the home according to market conditions that day, then your house is going to sit. There are a hundred other homes at the same price point,” Fazlic said.
She said in order to sell a home, price it under market because it will get more attention, and the seller will get closer to the asking and sell price. If it is at the same price point as others, it will sit.
“It has to literally be the best house at the best price to get it moved. My job is not to be unrealistic and paint a picture that the market is not,” Fazlic said. “A lot of people decide to rent because they can’t sell their home.”
With that said, manufactured homes, she said, are still the most affordable way to live in Florida if someone is looking to retire.
“People should really consider it because it is affordable. These homes – brand new homes are built to withstand 110 miles per hour winds. This is definitely a great time to buy,” Fazlic said, adding that most of the buyers are from the Midwest and Northeast. “A lot of our buyers work their whole lives and feel bad about enjoying it. Spend it now – live your best life and get out of the cold – enjoy what you worked your whole life to have.”
The interest rates are slowly coming down and individuals can get financing on manufactured homes, flood insurance and insurance.
Williamson said some put $100,000 into rebuilding after the hurricane and then they want to sell the manufactured home.
“Manufactured homes typically don’t go up in value very much,” she said. “They want to put it on the market for $200,000.”
Buyers, Williamson said, do not want to spend $100,000 more on something because it was renovated.
“The value of the home is quite different than the list price,” she said.
Williamson said with manufactured home communities, prices are askew no matter what.
“Buyer’s today are more concerned about asking if it is a flood zone. They are very deterred if it is. They will buy something that is not as nice, but is not in the flood zone,” she said.
Fazlic said as far as damage from hurricanes, it really depends on the community and how diligent they are on getting on top of their residents to get things fixed.
“Most communities have been able to get things back to normal,” she said. “There are a few communities and homes still struggling, whether homeowners don’t have the money to do repairs, or are still waiting on workers.”
The communities on Fort Myers Beach, Fazlic said, have mostly rebuilt.
“I know many communities have rebuilt – bringing in brand new homes,” she said.
Some of those communities are Bayside Estates and Siesta Bay – both receiving new homes and are looking great, Fazlic said.
Williamson said some communities still have damage from hurricanes – some of which have listings and are selling and others she can’t give away the property.
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