If you are looking to provide concrete valuations for the cost and quality of manufactured housing, Marshall & Swift’s time-honored Residential Cost Handbook, Residential Cost Explorer and the desktop complement Residential Estimator 7 are perfectly suited to this class of adjustments. Added to Residential Estimator 7 in late 2002, the manufactured housing cost feature has been well received and is being followed by its upcoming inclusion in the on-line cost calculator SwiftEstimator™.

Government sponsored Fannie Mae recently announced a new addendum has been added to the necessary requirements for assessing the value of the manufactured housing type. In an effort to enhance the quality of manufactured home appraisals, Fannie Mae is now requiring that a detailed and supported cost approach be added to all manufactured housing appraisals. Now when completing the Manufactured Home Appraisal Report Addendum (Form 1004C), appraisers must qualify their opinions surrounding the quality and condition of the manufactured home in question, meanwhile providing lenders with additional information, and improving the financial institution’s ability to underwrite.

A source of information for evaluating manufactured housing, Fannie Mae references the Marshall & Swift product line. With the Residential Cost Handbook, users are able to arrive at an estimated cost for the manufactured housing when new, basing determinations on the construction quality along with several other variables.

The Residential Cost Handbook provides an explanation of all related terms and quality levels, allowing appraisers to justify their observations and fulfill another stipulation of the addendum. These descriptions within the Residential Handbook, Residential Cost Explorer and Residential Estimator 7 enable appraisers to easily take a qualitative approach to valuing manufactured housing properties. Analysis such as this is essential because the condition and quality level predicates the worth of manufactured housing.

The following procedures are involved in properly developing a detailed cost approach and should improve the appraiser’s ability to:

• Recognize differences in the quality of manufactured housing constructions
• Understand differences between comparable sales and the subject property
• Extract the market appropriate adjustments for the sales comparison analysis
• Identify sales of manufactured homes that are similar enough to the subject property and can be used as valid market comps.

Whatever format is chosen to report the cost approach, the information must be sufficient to enable lenders to reproduce the cost figures and calculations. Form 1004C includes the minimum level of detail for the cost approach that the appraiser should provide on each appraisal report.

Should you require more information before making your decision, feel free to contact the Marshall & Swift Sales and Service team at 800.544.2678. We’ll be happy to help determine the product most suited to your needs.

Happy Cost Reporting!

Click here to view the complete PDF document from Fannie Mae.