How to Sell Your Mobile Home Fast

When you are ready to move into a new mobile home, you obviously need to do something with the old home. Most people don’t want two homes, so the most common thought most folks have is “How do I sell my current home…fast…for lots of money?”

We are going to cover some tips of how to sell your home fast, but let’s cover some ground rules first.

1. Selling your home for a ton of cash will make you happier than selling it cheap. It does not matter if you sell the home directly to a new owner or go the trade-in route, if you prepare your home right, you will get more money.
2. Spend time to save money; spend money to save time. I first learned that saying from an old friend, and the saying proves true in so many ways. In our case, the faster you are going to want your house sold, the less money you are going to end up with in your pocket. Also, if you are willing to spend some time preparing your home on your own, you will have more money in your pocket than if you hire someone to do the work for you.
3. Over 90% of the population has a terrible time “seeing the possibilities.” The closer to “just like new” or “move-in ready” your home is, the more people will be interested in your home, which should mean a faster sale.
4. The new buyers of your old home aren’t going to love your house the way you do. You need to think about what the average buyer is looking for in your house, not what you love about the house. Those marks on the wall showing little Johnny and Susie’s heights every year might be precious to you, but it will likely look like a wall that needs new paint to a potential buyer.
5. You are an honest person. As an honest person, you are not going to hide known significant defects of the house that will lower its value. You are also not going to sell a house with structural damage unless you properly disclose and tell the buyer about the damage first.

Can we agree on those ground rules? I am glad we can!

Now, here are the priorities for preparing your house for a quick sale.

Get Rid of Stuff

At this point, you want to get as much stuff off your property as possible. Even if you have to pay for a storage unit, getting as much stuff off of your property as possible does two big things for you. Your property looks a lot cleaner with less stuff, plus your yard and your home will feel bigger when there is less stuff outside and inside your home.

A bigger feel of your home will help people feel how spacious your home is, but if there is clutter, people will feel like your house is smaller. You want your house to look lived in, but uncluttered. Yes, keep the couch, but find a new home for clothes that are out of season, decorations that clutter up your spaces, and tools you use only once a year.

• Get rid of what you don’t need. Sell it. Gift it. Donate it. Recycle it. Anything else you don’t need or strongly want goes in the trash. You don’t want to move stuff you never use anyway, so the sooner you get rid of it, the better.
• Stick your stuff in “free storage.” Anything that you won’t need for the next three to six months should be stored off your property. Ask family and friends to store as much of your stuff as possible for a short while.
• Rent a storage unit for the remaining stuff until your home is sold.

Take Care of Your Landscaping

You probably have heard of the term “curb appeal.” Does your home look great from the curb of the street? Well-tended landscaping makes the home looks better on the outside and helps people feel that you have carefully taken care of your home. A lot of home sales are lost in the 4 seconds it takes for a person to first glance at your home.

If “dumpy home” is the first thought in a potential buyer’s mind, you will have a hard time getting the person to think anything different than “dumpy home,” no matter how great the inside looks.

Are you thinking “But I live in a trailer park! Why do I need to add landscaping?” It doesn’t matter if the home is parked in a trailer park or if it is sitting off in the woods, if it looks dumpy, people are going to think “dumpy” and not want to buy. Even if the home is going to get hauled away, you want that curb appeal.

You can quickly spruce up the outside cheaply with well-placed plants, mulch or decorative stone, and a lawn that has recently been trimmed.

Wash the Exterior

A lot of folks think to clean the inside of their house, but they don’t think to clean the outside of the house. Not only is it easy, but clean siding and windows can make your house look like new from the outside. Hiring someone to clean the outside of your home or buying a pressure washer and doing it yourself is worth every penny when it comes to prepping your house for sale.

Decorate Carefully

With the interior decorations, like pictures, nick-knacks, and other design elements, ensure you have attractive elements but nothing “loud” that shouts for a ton of attention. Remember, our goal is to help the buyer see themselves living there and if they are thinking “Boy, is that UGLY,” your decoration will distract people from their thinking “I want to buy this place.”

Some folks call this process “de-personalizing” your home. You want your home to be like your local diner’s menu, which includes mostly items that cause most folks to say, “that looks good.” In other words, your home should not be so spartan that it looks like a monk’s cell, but not so special that only you can say, “I love it!”

Ensure Your Rooms are Bright

A bright room is a cheery room. Well-lit homes are more pleasing to be in than dim homes. Replace any old fluorescent or CFL light bulbs, which tend to get dimmer over time. In rooms that are dim, borrow or buy floor lamps to add some extra light.

Another great hack is to use a bigger LED light bulb. Most light fixtures are set to allow for 40 or 60-watt light bulbs but don’t have to use a “40-watt equivalent” LED in a 40-watt fixture. As long as the actual watt usage of the LED bulb does not exceed the light fixture rating and it fits in the fixture, you will be alright. Try a 75-watt equivalent or 100-watt equivalent LED light bulb to more than double your light without changing out your fixtures.

The last tips for bright rooms include turning on ALL the lights when someone walks through your house. Open the shades during the day to let the sunlight in. Close your shades at night so at least some of the light bounces back into the room.

Check Your Walls

Patch any holes and if necessary, add a fresh coat of paint on your walls. Newly painted walls make the interior feel like new, and it usually does not cost a lot to buy all the paint you need.

If you have VOG walls, just make sure you use the right primer. You can also choose to remove the batten strips to fill in the area the batten strips sit in for a smoother wall, but we would not recommend doing that if the home will be moved after the sale because the moving process will likely create hairline cracks in the filler. You don’t want an angry phone call from the new owner over cracks in the walls.

Let’s add that you should also look at the ceiling. Make sure there are no dust webs hanging from the ceiling nor any spots from kids throwing their water around.

Check Your Floors

Carpet is relatively inexpensive, and vinyl plank flooring is easy enough to install that the average do-it-yourselfer will be able to complete the job without much trouble. Think about replacing any worn flooring to brighten up your rooms.

Kitchen or Bathroom Redo?

Most people fall in love with the kitchen of the home first and bathrooms are often the second most impactful rooms on people looking for a home. No wonder kitchen and bathroom remodels are often on lists for “must redo” on house flipping shows. The problem with a full kitchen or bathroom remodel is…they are so expensive, and they usually take a ton of time!

If your kitchen and/or bathroom looks dated, here is what you are going to do. First, clean everything really well. If you clean it well, you might find the rooms are better than you thought.

What if cleaning won’t cut it? What if your kitchen and bathrooms still look bad? Your next options to think about upgrading are replacing the counters, sinks, and fixtures. Yes, it can still be expensive, but if you are a medium-level DIYer, you can replace those all of those items for about 1/3 or less of the price of a full remodel. It is often the cabinets, tub, and shower that cost the most.

If replacing the counter is still too expensive and you are pretty handy, you can try a countertop refinishing kit which will cost you only about 10-20% the cost of replacing laminate countertops.

If it still looks like your kitchen needs a little more work, try repainting the cabinets. Now be careful, because you don’t want to just slap some wall paint on your cabinets. Wall paint is sure to come off after a short while. You will want to sand, prime, paint, and put a finish coat on the cabinets. of time to recoat your cabinets, but it is way less expensive than buying new cabinets.

If you have to make a choice between kitchen or bathroom remodel, you are more likely to entice a buyer with a redone kitchen since the kitchen tends to be the “center” of a lot of homes.

Bonus Tip: Make Your House Smell Good

If your house looks great, but smells bad, people will have a hard time loving your house. Be careful of chemical air fresheners because while some people love them, some people hate the smell, and for others the chemical air fresheners aggravate allergies.

Avoid strong cooking smells when you expect a visit, smells such as garlic, onion, fish, fried foods, and other smells that some people may love, but others may hate. If you are worried your house might not sell the best, you can try the old myth of baking sugar cookies or bread just before someone touring your house arrives. It might not work, but at least you will have a yummy treat as a reward for your hard work later!