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The HomeBuyer's Account
How do you get a Manufactured Home to Hold its Value?
Increase the value to compensate for value loss.
With age, all buildings loose some value. The key to getting your home to hold or improve in value is to compensate for normal value loss by (1) preserving its value; (2) increasing its value using available options. If you own the land, and the land increases in value, then you can sell your home for more than you paid for it. If you lease the land, you can utilize the yard around your home to improve the appearance and desirability of your home. Landscaping and improving of outdoor living spaces greatly enhances a home and will do much to increase the value of your home.
Preserve the value.
• Protect the home from damage, wear and tear, and odor;
• Live in a manner that demonstrates that your home enables a desirable lifestyle;
• Keep the home clean and well maintained;
• Help make the community a great place to live so good buyers will be attracted;
• Start preparing the home for resale the day you move in.
Realtors teach the overwhelming importance of 'location' in a home's value. In a private community such as a MH community, the 'location' is only as good as the owners, residents, managers and staff. Thus, to solidify the home value, working to build the community will help create a 'location' that buyers will be attracted to.
• The owners set policies about who and what will be allowed to reside in the community and how the community will be operated. This is designed to protect the investment residents have made in their homes and the investment the owner makes in the community.
• The managers provide daily support for the activities of the community, providing onsite supervision and enforcement, as needed.
• The residents establish a lifestyle within the community that either adds to or detracts from the value of the community in the eyes of would-be homebuyers.
Location! Location! Location! The quality of people in any community, and the manner in which they maintain and develop their homes strongly influences the attraction of would-be homebuyers to the community. The quality and number of people that are attracted to the community's lifestyle, the more valuable the homes become on resale.
Thus, each homebuyer and homeowner's home and yard send an important message that can increase or decrease home values in the community. In Riatta Village, the owners have been working very hard to remove people who do not contribute to the value of homes and other people's lives in the community. We've been bringing in new homes that contribute to the quality of the community, and have been carefully screening new residents, as each resident is a piece in the puzzle of building home values.
The Quality of Homes on Resale has long been an issue with manufactured homes. Homes were often offered for sale in a dirty, deteriorated, unlovely state. To sell under those conditions, even site built homes have to drop their price considerably. The buyer will have to invest a lot of time and money into cleaning it up and they want to be compensated by a lower price. Thus, it comes as no surprise that MH's have had to drop their prices on resale.
The HomeBuyer's Account is a fund that is set aside that will enable us to restore the value of homes with each resale, if needed. If a resident fails to take care of, and improve, their home, the HomeBuyer's Account will fund the restoration to maintain home values in the neighborhood. But a resident who takes care of their home and offers it for sale in a state equal to, or better than, when they acquired it, will be rewarded with the equity that is otherwise lost when one attempts to sell it dirty.
This will allow us to keep homes and yards in good condition throughout the community, and motivate lessee's to work with us to reduce the costs of vacant homes by living in and making payments on the home until it is resold so they can cash in on the equity.
Maintaining and Improving Home Values is a Priority with us, the owners, and with the management of Riatta Village and the other communities we own. With the new HomeBuyer's Account, we are offering a large incentive to encourage homebuyers to make home improvement a priority. For this reason, we call our Smart HomeLease customers 'homebuyers' rather than 'lessees.'
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