Modular Homes (Sanford, Boone, Smithfield: sales, lenders, cheap house)

[bud1563]

Originally Posted by Trudeyrose

I am thinking of moving to the Southport NC area. After looking at some of the home prices, I think buying land and building would be cheaper. Is anyone familiar with "Homes by Vanderbuilt"? Like their reputation, etc.
Any info would be helpful.. Thanks

Trudey:
We are currently building a modular home by Vanderbuilt and think we may have made a mistake. Their dealership is in Sanford NC and the home we are building is a CBS home out of Charlotte.

It's too early to start bashing them, but I will update as the process goes forward.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed!!!

[centre]

Does anyone know anything about Hailey's Better Valued Homes ? They are in Farmville, Va ( I think) . Their prices are quite reasonable, but is there a catch?

[RuralCoastalGuy]

Originally Posted by haydensmom

Has anyone heard of Palm Harbor Homes? They also have modular homes.

We looked at Palm Harbor when we first moved to NC but all they sold then were single and double wide manufactured homes and they were one of the first to get into modulars. Their double wides appeared then to be a cut above all the others but this industry changes so quickly it is best to get the most current information at hand.

Here is a link to one dealership in NC but there are many others. You can google search Palm Harbor Homes in NC and look for the town or city where you wish to build.

http://www.palmharbor.com/model-center/linwood/

[surv1234]

I would caution that land prices in Southport are pretty steep. Several large developments have driven prices up substantially. Southport has just implemented new zoning regs and I do not know the effect they will have on building. There appears to be alot of vacant lots for sale now and prices may start to moderate soon if sales don't pick up.

[justNancy]

Rather than read every post here, since I have experience, I will just add my 2 cents. If I could go back 20 years in a time machine, the last thing I would ever do is finance a manufactured home. If someone has the cash and can find a small, inexpensive home on acreage, that's different. Then you are mainly buying the land while you wait for it to appreciate or build a house. After all, if you pay $8,000 renting an apartment, in 5 years you would have spent $40,000 anyway and the current bank CD rates are under 5%. I know it was during a housing slump, but I tried to sell my home for over 2 years after my company shut my office and gave up. This might sound stupid, but I just thought of when I sold flooring and a woman walked into the store who really liked a deep red ceramic tile for her great room. I asked her if she planned to stay in that house for a long time, since buyers might not want to go through the major hassle of removing ceramic tile. I'm really not a "beige" person, but when thinking about a possible resale, people need to look through the eyes of potential buyers.

[John S.]

about 10 years ago bought 1 1/2 acre lot @ $32,500 Now any size lot would go for $100,000 in this area. I built a modular bi level, 3 bedroom, 2 full baths. Best thing I ever done, and would do it again........Get a lot & build a modular. modulars are about $70 sq. foot. Stick built probably over $100 sq foot. there is no difference in pricing for modular vs. stick built when selling (in my opinion) For heaven sakes, if you build install 2 full baths. I see home for $400,000 that have ONE bath or 1 1/2 baths. Don't make sense having less then 2 baths with so much money invested.......my 2 cents

[BlueLily7]

My husband and I are in the process of buying and having a modular home put up on land we own in Brunswick County. There really was NO other choice for us, as my husband's family gave him 2 acres of land as a gift. We actually looked at just buying a home that's already built but it's so expensive around here, we'd have to expect to pay a good bit over $200,000 for a 1200-1300 square foot house with a tiny, tiny yard...and we have 2 kids and need *more* space than we had in the 1500 square foot home we just left. It totally depends on what style home you are looking at (and any upgrades you want) but especially if you want maximum square footage for the best valued price, it seems you can't beat modular- but we noticed right away you really have to be careful to choose a dealer wisely. We haven't finalized our choice yet but will be ordering within a week or two- we found a reputable dealer but were continuing to look at other options to see if we could find a better price, and we even had some house plans priced with a stick builder that my husband knows personally who would go really good work and give us a GREAT deal...since we want a house up quicker, and since we do want maximum square footage for the best price, the modular is winning out. We could get a pretty nifty stick built house if we wanted something smaller, but in particular there is one modular house plan where everything is on the ground floor and the entire upstairs is unfinished and almost as much square feet as the main floor-- that particular modular home cannot be beat in price by a stick built house, it's a darn good house for the money.

I will post our experiences once we get everything up and settled....one thing, we wouldn't buy a basic modular, we do make sure that they'll be using 2x6's instead of 2x4's as some do and some other things..and we're upgrading on the insulation and things like that. We are treating the modular as if it's a stick built home in that we also choose dormer windows and 9 foot ceilings and a quality foundation, and a nicely built front porch and little things like that to make the house look as good as comparable stick built homes.

We recently visited relatives who have a Ritz Craft modular home, and you would not know that home is modular if you didn't know..it's solid. It's nicer than a lot of stick builts we've seen, definitely in that price range. I know picky people who build stick built homes and do carpentry work who have purchased modular homes themselves to live in, when they could easily stick build- they say the modulars are often just as solid if not moreso than stick built when you pick your stuff carefully. I personally think it's just a matter of what house plan you want, how much time you have to get it up, what kinds of extras you want, etc. Stick builders can certainly do some really nice things if you have the money..but the modular homes I've seen, I don't see how anyone could complain, as they are nice. Yeah, I've also seen a few that were poorly done, you can see cracks in the walls etc. Anyone who's purchasing modular would want to avoid that for sure.

When we have our house complete in late March or April, I'll post, I'm very sure we're going with modular. Maybe it will help someone else decide. Just in what I've seen, whatever problems came up with modulars were things that could be fixed by someone who's willing to fix it themselves, such as drywall issues- more of a problem seems to come in when you try to get the modular companies to fix it for you. And luckily we haven't known anyone around here to have any major problems with their modulars, it's been small cosmetic issues, easily fixable. We know someone who has had to have their dormers fixed for leaks several times over and the side of their house is starting to rot, and they live in a really expensive and beautiful stick built home. Things can go wrong either way......I'll post our experiences when we do have our house us and if it's not against TOS, I'll let people know which company we used. We are pretty sure we've found an honest and reputable dealer for Brunswick County, we checked out several..wont name names but one of them we were told to avoid by quite a few people- we know people who work in lending, stick builders and contractors who know just from word on the street, etc. The same company kept coming up as people having problems with him, and the one we think we're going to use, has a good reputation for being straight up.

With all this said I'm still nervous about getting our house up with no problems because of all the horror stories you hear with both stick and modular construction, I'll be glad when it is over. And will definitely relay our experiences.

[kateyk12]

there is a palm harbor home place in wilmington. they built a house around the corner from me, here in southport. it went up in about 3 days. it is a beautiful addition to the neighborhood.

[BlueLily7]

We went back in the model of the modular home we are going to purchase today to finalize our decision on some changes we are making..and come to decisions on our fixtures etc. I have to say, I'm pretty glad so far we're going with this modular instead of stick building because the entire upstairs is completely unfinished and we are buying it unfinished (not having the company finish it) and will finish it along as we want to..when it's fully finished it will almost double our square footage because it almost has as manu sf as the downstairs. There is NO way we could stick build a house and keep the price as low as it's going to be, and the price isn't exactly that low but one of the previous posters is right, it's coming to about $70-something per square foot. We're doing some upgrades and things that are adding up a little and it's still a low price per square foot.

And assuming everything goes well, we've been able to make all of the changes to get the house the way we prefer it, including changing the shower in the master bath to a 60 inch one and moving the bathroom wall out one foot to accomodate. They are also letting us move the kitchen sink and dishwasher out of the center island so we can have an entire island to use for food serving and prep..and they're doubling our cabinet space without it changing the overall plan of the kitchen, etc. We're saving money as well by doing some of the other things we want ourselves after we move in, such as putting hardwood flooring down ourselves etc. I'm pretty happy with the options we've had for windows as well as the fact that a lot of things are included in the package price- faux wood blinds throughout the entire house, recessed lighting, 9 foot ceilings both upstairs and downstairs..dormer windows...stainless steel appliances in the kitchen. These are usually upgrades but the company we are going with takes a "what you see is what you get included" approach with their model homes, so instead of viewing a base model and tacking on your extras it's almost like you start with a pretty good upgraded package and an then take things down to the base level or upgrade some more. They also put it on a good foundation to begin with, the better foundation is NOT an upgrade. They really seem to try to make everything right to begin with so you won't have trouble, and from what we've heard, their customer base is happy, so I have my fingers crossed and am hoping we'll be moving in in May...

[lovesMountains]

Originally Posted by BlueLily7

We went back in the model of the modular home we are going to purchase today to finalize our decision on some changes we are making..and come to decisions on our fixtures etc. I have to say, I'm pretty glad so far we're going with this modular instead of stick building because the entire upstairs is completely unfinished and we are buying it unfinished (not having the company finish it) and will finish it along as we want to..when it's fully finished it will almost double our square footage because it almost has as manu sf as the downstairs. There is NO way we could stick build a house and keep the price as low as it's going to be, and the price isn't exactly that low but one of the previous posters is right, it's coming to about $70-something per square foot. We're doing some upgrades and things that are adding up a little and it's still a low price per square foot.

And assuming everything goes well, we've been able to make all of the changes to get the house the way we prefer it, including changing the shower in the master bath to a 60 inch one and moving the bathroom wall out one foot to accomodate. They are also letting us move the kitchen sink and dishwasher out of the center island so we can have an entire island to use for food serving and prep..and they're doubling our cabinet space without it changing the overall plan of the kitchen, etc. We're saving money as well by doing some of the other things we want ourselves after we move in, such as putting hardwood flooring down ourselves etc. I'm pretty happy with the options we've had for windows as well as the fact that a lot of things are included in the package price- faux wood blinds throughout the entire house, recessed lighting, 9 foot ceilings both upstairs and downstairs..dormer windows...stainless steel appliances in the kitchen. These are usually upgrades but the company we are going with takes a "what you see is what you get included" approach with their model homes, so instead of viewing a base model and tacking on your extras it's almost like you start with a pretty good upgraded package and an then take things down to the base level or upgrade some more. They also put it on a good foundation to begin with, the better foundation is NOT an upgrade. They really seem to try to make everything right to begin with so you won't have trouble, and from what we've heard, their customer base is happy, so I have my fingers crossed and am hoping we'll be moving in in May...

Ritz Craft seems to do a pretty nice looking home from what I have seen. Please come back periodically and update us about your experience with them and your home as they complete it, I would love to hear about it