Mobile Home Values Rose, Study Shows

The average value of mobile homes in California’s urban mobile-home parks is increasing at a rate of between 9.4% and 15.8% a year, according to a study by the California Manufactured Housing Institute, Rancho Cucamonga, and the Berlin Research Corp., San Luis Obispo.

Units in the study are located in land-lease parks in Los Angeles, Orange, San Diego and Santa Clara counties and do not include manufactured homes on subdivision or infill lots. The units in Santa Clara County had the highest annual appreciation rate--15.8%--followed by Los Angeles County, 15.7%, Orange County, 12.9%, and San Diego, 9.4%.

“These findings certainly put to rest the pervasive myth that mobile homes and manufactured homes depreciate in value,” according to Jess Maxcy, the institute’s president. The myth probably stems from past taxing mobile homes as vehicles, assuming automatic annual depreciation. All manufactured homes sold since 1979 have been taxed under local property tax schedules, he said.