Selling a Mobile Home in North Carolina When You Don't Own the Land

Why this situation is different

When you own the land and the home together, you are usually selling real estate. When you own only the home, you are usually selling a titled asset that happens to be sitting on someone else's property. Those are two different transactions with two different sets of paperwork, and confusing them is the single biggest source of stalled mobile-home sales in the state.

In North Carolina, a manufactured home that has not been converted to real property is generally still tracked as a vehicle-type title through NCDMV. If that is your situation, the title in your hand — or the title you cannot find — is the center of the sale, not the deed.

The three questions that decide everything

That third question drives the price more than anything else. A home that can stay put is worth considerably more than an identical home that has to be transported, because moving a manufactured home means transport permits, a setup crew, a new site, and real risk to an older structure.

• Is there a separate title for the home, and is your name on it? If the home was never converted to real property, there should be.
• What is your arrangement for the land — a lot lease in a community, a handshake with a relative, or a written lease with a private landowner?
• Can the home stay where it is after the sale, or does it have to move?

If the land belongs to a family member

This is extremely common in rural North Carolina. A home was placed on a parent's or grandparent's land years ago with no written agreement. It works fine until someone tries to sell.

Before you market the home, get clarity from whoever owns the land: will they allow a new owner to keep the home there, will they lease the space, or do they want the home gone? A buyer cannot price the home without that answer, and neither can we.

If the land belongs to a community

Most manufactured-home communities in North Carolina require the community to approve any new occupant, and some require homes over a certain age to be removed when they change hands. Both rules are legitimate and both change what your home is worth.

Ask your community office two things in writing: whether a buyer can be approved to keep the home on the lot, and whether there is an age or condition limit. Those two answers turn a guess into a real offer.

What we look at

We buy homes on leased land and family land as well as homes on owned land. For a home without the land, we are weighing the age and build of the home, the condition of the frame, roof, and floor, whether it can stay in place, and what the land arrangement will look like for whoever owns it next.

If the numbers only work when the home moves, we will tell you that directly rather than making an offer we cannot stand behind.