At first we were going to try to sell the house ourselves.

Mobile homes don’t earn equity at the same rate normal homes do. In fact they usually loose equity. So the odds of us making a profit was pretty small – even with all the improvements we had made. Also our mobile home was older, and in a park with high space rent. So we would by lucky to break even. By listing our home ourselves, we wouldn’t need to worry about a commission – so we could list the home for lower, possibly sell it faster, and maybe make a little bit of our money back once the house finally sold.

Plus, I had just finished taking classes to become a real estate agent – and I would be taking my real estate license test soon (I had paid for it and scheduled it before we decided to move, and there was no way to cancel or get a refund). So we had that working in our favor.

However, we didn’t know of an escrow or title company that would work with FSBO situations. We tried doing a search for some, but Google wasn’t a whole lot of help.

And we knew that having a realtor would get our home more exposure. While Zillow and some of the other online real estate websites had options available for people who were selling their own homes, Realtors had access to the MLS and other publications. They had the resources to send out postcards among other things.

So, after mulling it over, we decided that going with an agent was the best route. Yes, it would cost us more, but hopefully we could sell the house faster.

At first we called a friend from high school, but she had never worked with mobile homes before. She referred us to a coworker, but he was a bit condescending. Also, his flat rate (some agents will ask for a flat rate instead of a percentage for their commission on mobile homes) was a bit up there.

Now in our park there was an agent who handled most of the park owned home listings. He worked for a very popular mobile home broker. However, we knew that he could be difficult to work with based on experiences friends had with him. Plus it seemed like it took him forever to sell homes – one home in particular had been on the market for over two years. So, he definitely was not an option.

And unfortunately the agent who had sold us the home was no longer in business.

Our neighbors next door had worked with an agent before they changed their minds and decided not to sell. And that same agent had sold two other homes in the park fairly recently. We decided to give her a call.

Not only was she friendly, but her flat rate for selling mobile homes was fairly reasonable, and she was sure that we would find a buyer quickly. Despite all of the disadvantages working against us, there were quite a few things working in our favor. So we signed a listing agreement, and she got it up and on the market the next day.

Unfortunately, it would take much longer than any of us expected for the home to sell.