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Old 10-29-2007, 06:51 PM
 
41 posts, read 237,141 times
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Has anyone heard of this? If so, what were the reasons for this and what is the resell potential for a manufactured home?
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Old 10-29-2007, 07:48 PM
 
Location: FINALLY living in AZ and LOVING it!!!
461 posts, read 1,809,939 times
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Pre-owned mobile homes will sell, however at a great loss to the seller. Mobile home lose value. There is no appreciation for them. That is why more and more lenders won't finance them. Unless you plan to live in the mobile home for the rest of your life, you are only throwing your money away.
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Old 10-29-2007, 07:50 PM
 
Location: FINALLY living in AZ and LOVING it!!!
461 posts, read 1,809,939 times
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After re-reading your post, it occurred to me that you might not be talking about "mobile homes" (trailers). If by "manufactured homes" you mean like a modular home, I know nothing about them.
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Old 10-29-2007, 08:06 PM
 
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Default Modular or trailer home

IF you call modular home what you find in the 55+, that is what I am talking about...
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Old 10-29-2007, 09:02 PM
 
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Loans for manufactured homes are still there, just a higher rate it will cost to finance.
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Old 10-29-2007, 09:46 PM
 
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Manufactured homes in mobile home park communities depreciate in value like a car. Manufactured homes attached to the land don't loose the value as much since the land does appreciate and makes up the difference. Some loan companies have requirements that stipulate that it has to be a doublewide (no singles) and no older than a certain year. The interest is higher than a traditional home but not by much. You can even get a loan for a single wide at even a higher rate. If you're going to buy a manufactured home you're better off if it sits on it's own land ( 1 acre or more) and it's at least a doublewide. I know plenty of people who made money on their deals. Just recently a couple from California sold their property for 118,000. They originally bought it for under 40,000 11 years ago. They took good care of it and remodeled it. That's a lot of money for a single wide around 1000 sq ft. I know many more people who didn't loose out on their investments. I also see many others who have allowed their properties to fall apart. You will get back what you put in it and then some. Market goes up and down and there is still plenty of people all over this country who relocate here and can afford to pay cash for manufactured homes. No worries.
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Old 10-29-2007, 09:46 PM
 
Location: SE Arizona - FINALLY! :D
20,460 posts, read 26,328,298 times
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There is a LOT of confusion regarding what exactly is the difference between a manufactured home and a modular home (which is a subset of manufactured home). So, in order clarify things a bit, here's some information I posted back in August regarding manufactured and modular homes:

Manufactured Home vs Modular Home -

Manufactured Homes are built to Federal HUD specifications and are built and attached to a steel frame with wheels. They can be placed above ground with skirting and look like a typical "trailer house", or they can be countersunk and backfilled, then landscaped to look just like a site-built home - this is particularly true if your home has "tags" (ie extentions) that break up the boxy look and 4-12 or greater pitched roof (that is more typical of a site-built home). Current standards for such homes are pretty high - though not necessarily as high the local standards (depending on where you live).

Modular Homes are built to conform to LOCAL (where they will be) building specs and arrive on a flatbed truck and are then lifted into position on a perminant foundation and even come in multistory versions. Because they conform to the local building standards they end up being treated as any other site-built home would (generally even in regards to appreciation, loans etc) and when well-designed are indistinquishable from a site-built home.

In general, building standards for these homes (both mobile and modular) have inproved dramatically, and if you select a quality builder, chances are your home will be BETTER constructed than many of the locally site-built homes because many manufacturers surpass the HUD standards by quite a bit - particularly at the high end of the scale. They are also HIGHLY customizable with an almost endless variety of possible designs and reconfigurations possible and need not look anything like the typical "box" that most people think of.

Think that manufactured homes are "trailer trash"? Think again. Look at the photos and specs of the homes built by companies like Cavco (check out their top of the line Durango Biltmore), Karsten (check out their massive RC-31), or the Mercedes-Benz of manufactured homes Silvercrest (get a load of their ME-20 Manor series - their website has amazing photos). Any of these homes are FAR nicer (and better built) than the site-built home I own now.

The first thing you should do is get yourself a copy of the "Grissim Rating Guide to Manufactured Homes" and the "Grissim Buyers Guide to Manufactured Homes and Land". These are GREAT books and can be found on Amazon.com or the mdfhousing.com website (or do a web search on "Grissim Guide". These books are TERRIFIC. The former willl list all the manufacturers, give a brief history of each company and explain how they do business - then rate the construction quality of each of them on a 1-10 scale. While some outfits do rate only so-so (Fleetwood for example), others (those mentioned above and several others) rate very highly indeed.

The second book explains the construction ratings in detail, describing all the aspects of how the ratings are derived and step you though the entire searching, selection and buying process, telling you what to watch out for and what to look for. Two weeks ago I showed a copy of one of the books mentioned above to a friend of mine who once owned a construction business and he was very pleasantly surprised at the standards that many of these manufacturers have for their homes (especially those rated 8 and above in the book) and told me that those standards were far higher than those of most of the homes he had built.

The biggest drawback (it seems to me) in buying a manufactured or modular home is the fact that the dealerships are built on the car dealership model - meaning that you have to go through much of the same "wheeling and dealing" crap that you do with the purchase of a new car. This means there is lots of room for high-pressure "business shinanagins" just like with the purchase of a new car so it really pays to understand how the dealerships work, what are worthwhile options and what are not. The good news is that the manufactured home crash around 2000 wiped out many of the more shady businesses and those that remain sound like they are generally more trustworthy and honest. Still, it pays to tread carefully in those waters.

From what I have learned, manufactures homes can be a terrric deal - much less expensive (and even of higher quality) than many site-built homes. Just be sure and DO YOUR HOMEWORK.

For more info, check out specialized MH website discusssion boards such as:

Manufactured Homes Forum - GardenWeb

Manufactured Housing Global Forums

Manufactured Home Forum - Powered by vBulletin (http://www.manufacturedhomeforum.com/vb/ - broken link)

Hope this all helps. Any other questions, feel free to ask. If I've learned the answer I'll let you know.

Ken
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Old 10-29-2007, 11:23 PM
 
Location: Its a Surprise!
284 posts, read 1,020,617 times
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My sister just sold her mobile home (typical trailer park home) for 3 times what she paid for it about 8 years ago,it was brand new when she bought it. And it was in CA not AZ

It sold for 210k which is crazy,plus the new owner will be paying 550+ for a rental fee on the land.
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Old 10-30-2007, 09:42 AM
 
343 posts, read 552,495 times
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And to think that some people believe the AZ housing bust will last for years to come.
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Old 10-30-2007, 08:56 PM
 
1,087 posts, read 3,517,484 times
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I live in the south and mobile homes on their own land have appreciated, especially double-wides. Land has appreciated so much here to make up for any depreciation of the home.

I like my doublewide better than I liked the 4 bedroom brick house I had before, except during tornado season. The layout of this house is much more efficient. I have more usable space in these 3 bedrooms than I had in the 4.

Loans are very hard to get on single wides here. You pretty much have to pay cash for those. But you can get a loan for a doublewide or triplewide. I looked at some new triplewides recently and man are they nice!

I got an FHA loan from a regular mortgage company at the same interest rate as a site built house. The only thing required was to remove the skirting and put block under it instead. Doesn't make much sense, since the "foundation" on a mobile home is not what holds the house up, but that's how to get it approved by FHA, so that's what the seller and I arranged prior to closing. My homeowner's insurance company also considers my mobile home to be the same as a site built home, because of the block foundation. I'm hoping to find the same kind of arrangement in AZ, if I go with another mobile home.
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