Please understand that there is a significant difference between Mobile Home, Manufactured Home and Modular Home. They are completely different "animals" and people continually lump them together as one. According to the Manufactured Housing Institute,
www.manufacturedhousing.org located in Artlington, VA, following are the differences: A Mobile Home has not been built since 1976 when they were registered by the DMV - aka a "trailer." Mobile Homes will can incinerate in (3) minutes if caught on fire and are almost impossible to find financing for.
A Manufactured Home is built to the HUD (Housing and Urban Development) codes, and is registered through the Department of Housing & Community Development. Manufactured and Mobile Homes are typically found in Mobile Home and Manufactured Home Communities (Parks) where you generally don't own the land and pay a monthly space rent. Park living is fine for some, but I don't like have "no control" over the home I own which is placed on leased land. Manufactured Homes are growing increasingly difficult to finance and will appraise with like kind (i.e., you have to use another manufactured home to use as a comp), and you have to be practically "gold plated" to qualify not only for the loan, but for the park.
Modular Homes are conventional stick-built (on-site) homes which are built the UBC standards - the same standards on-site stick-built home builders follow. Modular Homes can be single stories or multiples stories (including attics and basements - just like conventional housing). Modular homes will qualify for all conventional lending and will appraise as a conventional home. 60% of the homes East of the Mississippi are Modular Homes due to a number of reasons (i.e., weather constraints, set up of home is quicker, etc.). Modular homes are generally placed on a concrete foundation (just like a conventional home) and will generally tolerate the same kind of weather conditions (i.e., tornadoes, hurricanes, etc.) about as well as any other conventional home. In fact, many of the mansions on the East Coast are Modular Homes - although you'd never know they weren't on-site built. One of the benefits of owning a Modular Home, however, is the fact that kiln-dried wood is generally used and not exposed to the elements, and most of the factories use lasers in the building process. What this means for the consumer is that you get very "true" walls, doors, etc.
The first home I purchased was a conventional stick-built home. I watched through the winter as my new home was left open to the rain, wind and rodents. It took approximately 4 months for the builder to complete my new home and another month for the builder to fix all the defects; walls weren't straight, doors wouldn't close properly, etc. Give me a modular home any day.
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My hubby and I are trying to find a nice quite place to call home since he is retired and I will be soon. We moved here from Pa thinking Orlando was the place . NOT. It is not what we wanted, We need help. Norm said in a year we would move but I'm starting to look now. anyone have a town I can look at or a place they have been would really help. thanks 
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