The Mobile Home Depreciation Myth

Ien Araneta
May 4, 2022
5 min read

Conventional wisdom says mobile homes only lose value. This Selling Greenville episode challenges that knee-jerk take, showing how manufactured housing actually behaves in the Upstate once it’s set on a permanent foundation, titled, and treated as part of the dirt it sits on. The short version: the “always depreciates” line leaves out the land, where most of the value action really happens.

Greenville Mobile Home Depreciation Myth

That long-tail phrase—Greenville mobile home depreciation myth—captures the crux of the episode: people conflate motor-vehicle logic with real-estate reality. Yes, a manufactured home begins life with wheels and a DMV title. But once it’s permanently attached to land and detitled, the market stops treating it like a car and starts treating it like a real property improvement.

Why the “it’s a car, so it depreciates” argument falls apart

Manufactured homes are delivered like vehicles, but they don’t rack up miles or suffer transmission/engine wear.
After being set up on a permanent foundation and detitled, the home is part of the parcel in county records—no longer just a movable object.
From that point on, land dynamics dominate: utility, livability, and demand for a ready-to-occupy dwelling drive value more than any “vehicle depreciation curve.”

Throughout the episode, the host keeps the focus on one use case: a single mobile home used as a primary residence (not a mobile home park). That’s where buyers get tripped up by the Greenville mobile home depreciation myth, because what matters most is the land + livable structure package.

What detitling actually does (and why it matters)

Mobile homes begin as titled motor vehicles. Here’s the important shift the episode walks through:

Set-up: The home is taken off its wheels and installed on a permanent foundation.
Requirements & engineering: To meet typical financing standards, an engineer and a specific set of steps are involved.
Detitling: The DMV title is removed; the home becomes part of the real property.
Tax records: County records adjust from “vacant land” to a classification indicating a mobile home on land (wording varies by county).

After that, lenders and buyers view the property through a real estate lens, not a vehicle lens.

Land is the lead actor

The episode draws a sharp line between three different value behaviors:

A stand-alone mobile home (no land) priced like a manufactured item, it can lose value over time. This is where the “depreciates” claim has teeth.
Vacant land typically appreciates, but often more slowly than a homesite with a dwelling.
Land and a livable structure (including a detitled mobile home) appreciate faster than vacant land because utility jumps, like water/sewer, are in place, and someone can live there now. In the Upstate, that combined package reliably outperforms bare dirt.

That’s the heart of the Greenville mobile home depreciation myth: people isolate the unit and ignore the parcel-level value.

“Stick-built” vs. manufactured: not the same, but the logic is

No one is claiming a manufactured home is built to the same standards as a new, on-site, stick-built house. The episode makes that plain. It also makes two other things plain:

A detitled, permanently affixed manufactured home is real estate in practice.
Its value path is tied to local housing demand and land utility, not odometer readings.

So while a stick-built home on acreage typically appreciates more and faster, a detitled manufactured home on land doesn’t behave like a depreciating car. It behaves like a more affordable way to access—and ride—the appreciation of the dirt.

Financing reality check (single homes vs. parks)

The episode separates single, owner-occupied manufactured homes from mobile home parks:

Single-manufactured homes on land: Plenty of lenders will finance (not all). Sometimes buyers switch lenders mid-process because the first lender doesn’t do manufactured homes.
Mobile home parks: “A whole other animal.” Financing is tougher and often focuses on land value, not the units—one reason appreciation on parks is a different conversation altogether.

This post is strictly about the single-home, owner-occupied scenario where the Greenville mobile home depreciation myth shows up most.

A real Upstate example that says it all

One address from the episode tells the story cleanly—412 Bushy Creek Rd, Woodruff, SC—a mobile home on roughly an acre that appears to have changed hands without major remodels:

2014: $68,000
2020 (Mar 23): $106,000
2022: $190,000

From 2014 to 2020, it climbed nearly $40K. Then, in the post-March-2020 surge, it jumped again to $190K—still cheaper than a comparable stick-built option on similar land, but dramatically higher than earlier sales. The point isn’t that every manufactured home performs exactly like this; it’s that land + livable structure is what appreciates here, which is precisely what the Greenville mobile home depreciation myth overlooks.

Practical takeaways for Upstate buyers and owners

Detitle and set it right. The permanent foundation and detailing step is the line between “vehicle logic” and “real-estate logic.”
Expect parcel-level appreciation, not gadget-level depreciation. Think in terms of site utility: a place with water/sewer and a livable dwelling tends to beat vacant dirt over time.
Pricing reality check: In Greenville’s market, a manufactured home on land is typically less expensive than a stick-built peer on similar acreage. That affordability can be the on-ramp to long-run land appreciation.
Don’t conflate parks with single homes. Mobile home parks face different lending and valuation dynamics. The episode’s argument—and this guide—is about one home on one parcel.
Yes, quality still matters. Construction standards differ. So will long-term maintenance. But the value engine here is the parcel, not a hypothetical vehicle-style depreciation curve.

A word on timing and expectations

The episode doesn’t promise permanent double-digit gains. Markets cool and heat. The claim is narrower and more reliable: when a manufactured home is detitled, permanently affixed, and treated as part of the parcel, it participates in real estate market forces, not in the lifecycle of a car. In the Upstate, those forces have supported steady appreciation for land with a livable structure, which is exactly why this narrative keeps proving out in actual sales histories.

FAQs (based on listener confusion)

“If I move the home later, doesn’t that hurt the value?”If you detach and treat it as a stand-alone unit, you’re back in manufactured-goods territory. The appreciation story belongs to the parcel that had a livable dwelling.

“Is a tiny lot the same as acreage?”Lot size matters for both stick-built and manufactured homes. An acre in Woodruff isn’t the same as a tiny city lot. The episode’s point: any livable structure on any functional lot tends to beat vacant land on that same street over time.

“Will every lender finance it?”No. Some do; some don’t. Buyers sometimes switch lenders once they realize the first pre-approval doesn’t cover manufactured homes.

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Bottom Line

The easy line—“mobile homes depreciate”—misses how manufactured housing actually works once it becomes real estate. The episode’s Greenville-focused evidence shows that a detitled, permanently affixed mobile home participates in the land’s trajectory. That means the combined package—parcel + livable dwelling—typically appreciates faster than vacant land and behaves nothing like a car. If the goal is to get on the property ladder and ride the dirt’s value in the Upstate, a well-set manufactured home can be a smart, realistic way to do it—despite the Greenville mobile home depreciation myth that says otherwise.

Ien Araneta

Journal & Podcast Editor | Selling Greenville