Hello,
I made the mistake of buying a new manufactured home in 2001. We purchased a regular house in 2003 with the plan of renting our mobile. The mobile is in a park which of course raises the lot rent about every year or so. Here is our problem we have gotten to the point that we cannot get anyone to rent it for what we are paying in loan and lot. We cannot sell due to the saturated market, the park has a waitlist to put it up for sale. We cannot afford to keep taking a loss on this property and have no idea what to do. I have tried calling the bank and they only advised to move it to a relatives property. We do not have that option realistically. I am tired and frustrated from dealing with this property and I am ready to walk away but fear the consequences. Does anyone have any advice?:confused:

Never heard of a waitlist to put it up for sale. Please explain why you can't just put an ad in the newspaper and sell it yourself. If you own this home the park should have absolutely nothing to do with the sale of your home. In practically all states there is just about uniform mobile home park rules and I never remember reading anything about having to put your home on a waitlist before you could sell it.

Sorry I should clarify. We do currently have it listed in classifieds etc. We have had no takers. Unfortunately through the park we would have advantage of an on site representative that can also handle financing for the buyers if need be. Of course they are also more interested in selling the brand new homes that they own. This park is only about 10 years old and only has homes in it that are no older than 10 yrs.

There are lenders out there for mobile homes. It isn't hard to find them. What you do have to do is be realistic about the selling price. You didn't say what area you're in, etc. so it's hard for me to help. Right now the new MH are not selling as well as they should due to the downturn market. I work at a new MH dealer and the only models that are selling are the inexpensive double wides and single wides.

Have you had a real estate person go through your home and give you an appraisal of it's worth? Do you have the tax assesser's tax value of the home?

Let's start from there, OK? Maybe I can point you in the right direction.

Or you can also hold the loan yourself.

I have not had an appraisal but the county assessment is 37,000. We owe 47,000 and are trying to sell for 45,000. Obviously we would like to sell for as close to what we owe as possible. We are located in Colorado.

This sounds like a double wide from the price. You'll just have to keep advertising the home yourself in hopes that someone can buy it. What you could do is do something very similar to a land contract on the home where you sell the home to them for X dollars a month, have them pay you directly, you keep the insurance on the home current (and you pay it) and you in turn pay the mortgage payment on the home. I had some sort of arrangement like this in Florida when I had no credit and wanted to purchase a double wide. I had a real estate attorney friend of mine draw up the contract though to protect me and to protect the sellers (who were in a completely different state). I put down a downpayment when I entered into the agreement and after about 3 years I negotiated directly with the mortgage company and formally took over the mortgage myself and paid it off. You might want to consider some scenerio like this. Sometimes people can't get a chattel home loan due to bad/no credit. This way you don't lose since someone else is making the mortgage payment for you and can eventually own the home once it's paid off. At least you're not going to have to declare bankruptcy. The housing market is horribly down right now and even the MH industry is hurting. There is some new activity though with people still buying MHs by the way. You need to appeal to the recently retired folks as they are the ones who have the steady incomes now. You also need to make sure the home is in showroom condition inside and out with no repairs needed. People want to own versus rent. And the rent to own scenerio can work to your advantage in your situation if done correctly.

Can you tell me what companies will refi on a rental MH? I tried applying through MH Loans but they will not refi rentals. I really need to get our loan payment down to even get anyone interested in what you are purposing. You can rent-to own a regular house of comparable size for the same cost as we would need on our MH. The inquiries I have had to assume our mortgage never respond when they find out what the lot rent and loan payment are. Also, will banks go for short sale on chattel loans?

I quickly googled refinance chattel loans Colorado and came up with a few lenders who could possibly help you do a refi on your home so that you could either rent to own at a lower price or have a new buyer potentially take over the loan from you. Banks don't go for short sales on chattel loans as a rule - too much risk for them.

There are a few online MH loan companies that only do refinancing and some are licensed in Colorado. Try filling out an application and see how far you can get.