Why Fixing Your Sarasota Mobile Home AC System Is A Bad Idea! We, here at The Mobile Home Dealer, constantly get asked by Sellers of mobile homes in the greater Sarasota Florida area if it is financially worth it to spend money in order to upgrade their mobile home.
The answer is, a resounding, it depends!
Let us explain.
Before we get involved in whether it is worth it or not worth it to spend money to upgrade your mobile home, we feel the best starting point is to have proper expectations of what you are looking to upgrade and what you hope to accomplish.
For example; if you are looking to paint the home a fun beachy color, change the over-flooring, add custom shelving or change out the bathroom fixtures these certainly can liven up the home. However these upgrades, although nice in nature, are based on the owner’s personal preference and do not upgrade the structural integrity of the mobile home itself.
Sure, these will make the home look newer or “beachy” but it does not mean that the upgrades you put in here will bring you any more money when you look to sell the home.
The reason why is that there is no tangible value that can be passed on to the next owner.
If, on the other hand, you are looking to upgrade the AC unit, update the subflooring of the entire home, add a new roof, add brand new appliances, upgrade the plumbing or update the electrical then, yes, these items will certainly see a real-time return on your investment.
Should You Fix Your Mobile Home Air Conditioner?
With the summer coming right around the corner and temperatures increasing each day, we, down here in Florida, are turning our attention to having a good working air conditioning system for the coming wet season.
If your air conditioning system is not working properly and you were looking to get it replaced, do you know if the costs that you spend on a new system will come back to you when you go to sell your mobile home?
This is a question we get asked all the time!
If the seller is looking to sell their home and the air conditioning system is not working properly, should they get it fixed in order to sell their property fast?
Another question we get asked is if the Seller of the mobile home is looking to sell their property can they reasonably expect to get the same or close to the same amount of money that they spent on their new air system returned to them when they go and sell their mobile home?
Both are great questions.
So let’s go ahead and tackle each one individually to help give you a better understanding of the way you may want to go when you are making the decision on if you should go ahead and upgrade your AC system or not or just go ahead and sell your home as is.
Just last week, we were set to close on a property here in Sarasota Florida when the Seller had a blown central AC system. The whole thing was totally shot and was not working at all. The Seller wanted to sell their home fast and was contacted by a local air conditioning company who said that the replacement unit would cost the Seller between about $5,000 and $6,000 to replace the unit, remove the old unit, and lay a new concrete pad.
That was a chunk of change as they were not expecting to pay that!
We agreed, during our listing appointment, that they would go ahead and list the home competitively to start off with but then go ahead and take off that chunk of money from the top of their home because the AC was not working.
By going this route, we immediately priced the home far under any other home that was for sale in that area and it brought the Seller tons of attention doing so. When we put the home up for sale we did our marketing to reflect, that, yes, the new owner was getting a heck of a deal, but the Buyer had to know that the AC unit needed to be replaced.
The home sold in less than a week to a happy Buyer who was going to put in window units and did not care about replacing the AC unit itself.
Everyone was thrilled!
The next question is if you were to put in a new AC unit before selling your home, will it appraise?
I will, without a doubt, say, yes, it will.
So long as the unit has a transferable warranty on it to the new owner and the unit that you put in is less than a year old it should appraise. Where we see issues come up with appraisals is if someone replaces the AC system years ago and the unit has no transferable warranty and the Seller expects them to get the same amount of money that they paid for it a decade ago.
In this case, no, it will not appraise.
As here we just have a used AC system and not something that will bring any more value to the sale of their home.
Although in some cases, fixing the AC system thinking that this could attract more buyers could be true, this always works depending on the situation and the type of buyer and their preference. People buy mobile homes because it is affordable and sometimes, extra costs for appliances that do not plan to use would be unnecessary and could turn them down.
I hope this helps you, the mobile home Seller, give you a better idea of how air conditioning systems appraise when you look to sell your mobile home.
This is Mark Kaiser with The Mobile Home Dealer and we help mobile home Buyers and Sellers get to a better place in life.
See Also:
- What To Look For When Renting Your Sarasota Mobile Home
- Watch THIS Before Renting A Sarasota Florida Mobile Home!
- 2 Common Mobile Home Problems And How You Can Prevent Them!
- 3 Common Lies Told About Mobile Homes!
- What Documents Are Needed To Close On A Sarasota Mobile Home?