The manufactured home may not even be part of the collateral

Rural note, seller wants $19k, UPB $58,300, no payments since late 2024. Property is 3.1 acres with a 1998 double-wide on it. Tax record shows land and improvement together, assessed $62,000 combined.

Where it gets interesting. The loan file has a deed of trust describing the real property and there's language about improvements, but I cannot find anything showing the home was ever de-titled and converted to real property. No affidavit of affixture in the recorded documents the seller sent, and no surrendered certificate of title in the collateral file. Whether the home travels with the land as real property or stays personal property with its own title depends on the state's affixture statute and on what was actually filed, which my title company is checking now and which is not the sort of question I'm going to answer myself.

If it's real property, I'm at $19k against maybe $75k of value in a market where things sell in six to nine months. If it's personal property with a separate lien I don't hold, I'm at $19k against 3.1 acres of raw rural land, which around there is $6k to $9k an acre for the good parcels and this one has road frontage but no county water. Call it $22k to $28k, and then I've bought a lawsuit for the privilege of breaking even.

The seller says "it's all one loan, it's always been one loan." He also has no answer on the title.

So the deal hinges entirely on a document that may not exist, and the seller's price assumes it does. I'm going to wait for the title work before I do anything, which probably loses me the note. What I'd like to know is whether anyone has cured a missing affixture after the fact on a defaulted loan, because if that's a routine fix I'd bid with a holdback instead of walking.