patrick.net

I have looked at some very very nice manufactured homes with lots of sq ft, modern appliances , etc - the main reason I dont buy one is at the end of the day you are a renter. I would look at buying one only if the land underneath was rent-free.

The choices of places to live in a manufactured home seem pretty limited, around here at least. On the Bay side of 101 (right on it in some cases) on the Peninsula, or near busy commercial areas. Not to say that they might not make economic sense but there are definite quality of life tradeoffs just from the constraints on siting them, aside from the quality of the house itself.

That said they can be a decent business - Clayton was acquired by Warren Buffet a few years back and I've followed their business peripherally as a BRK shareholder. Also at least in Clayton's case, they were essentially unaffected by the shenanigans in the regular mortgage market since they managed the loans inhouse.

It sounds like you're talking about the 'trailer park' type manufactured homes that get towed in by a truck and you slap some siding around the wheels. There are definitely other types that are MUCH nicer, but, of course, require more work. The materials are all precut, semi-assembled to check for fit, then deassembled, packed up, and shipped to you. Then you (or a handyman/builder) assemble the whole house on a full foundation.

I'm not sure they're much cheaper than a regular stick built house, but they do produce quite a bit less waste.

sfbubblebuyer: I looked into those modular homes as the idea appealed to me. A house that was built on a pre-conceived design on an absolutely flat floor with perfectly measured cuts, joints, etc. It sounded great. I never did find a builder that was cheaper than your basic tract home though. The closest I could find were homes that were going for about 25% higher than a comparable house. They touted the whole green angle because thet is the only way they could compete with a standard tract home. There might be some who are ready to pay and extra 100K on a house because there is a plaque on the wall proclaiming the "greeness" of the house. I wasn't one of them though.

PW: Around here, lot rent costs about half of what a mortgage on a SFH costs. I just didn't see the point in buying the home yet still having to rent the space, plus dealing with the hassle of the rules and regulations (Which make most HOA's look tame".

Don't be tempted ... quality of flooring, cabinetry and roofing are very low, meaning they deteriorate rapidly. Only thing they have going is that they have 6" exterior walls that are insulated to the 'nines'. Many develop leaks where the sections are mated together. Electrical and plumbing codes are different for modulars than stick-built homes. Poor investment in that (like you said) they depreciate. Did I mention a potential buyer down the road may not be able to obtain a loan on a 10 yr old unit? Quick and easy, yes ... but only on your own land.

Out here in the sticks you can buy a manufactured home on your own lot - but they do lose value even if they're high quality.

There's a (what considers itself to be) upscale community in St. George Utah - this woman bought a lot and wanted to put a triple-wide home on it. The community fought it - there's a hoa but it couldn't afford to fight (no dues, just an association). The neighbors around the house couldn't afford to pay for it so they dropped it - but treated the woman like shit. She built on a garage and a large porch, stucco'd the place and it would have looked nice except she painted it pink.

I'll take a photo next time I'm out that way. They have rules that you can only do earth colors and she flaunted it. Ironically, many of the neighbors who bitched & moaned lost their houses to foreclosure, she's still there.

Just a story.

I read the pitches about factory build and assembled on a foundation. I looked for lots where I could own the land and then have the home built on a foundation. The issue is that I was still looking at something near 450K. I found a lot for 175 in Belle Haven. Then with all the costs of building the thing, I was getting really close to 450, which is more than I would pay for an existing home in that neighborhood. That deal looks even worse since prices have been tanking. I came to similar conclusions as folks are suggesting. That the only real way to do it would be if I owned the land. I also felt that there was an enormous scam factor in the dealers, transportation and installation that was just irksome/offensive. The ambiguity of resale was a bit dicey. The big short term advantage would be the nice factor for the first few years. .

They do look awfully pretty when they are new. If I had bought one with 1500 sq ft, a 3/2 that was two years old, I might be able to buy it for 120K. If I you think about that, it isn't a huge amount of money. People have lost that in the market in the last 3 years on similar houses in the bay area. They are upside down and stuck. On a mobile home, I could walk away with far fewer bruises. You are right I have to pay space rent, but that is about a third of the rent I would have to pay on a similar home. I could be in the Mountain View schools which seems like a fine place to be. We would have enough space to breathe in our home.

Ultimately, I have stayed away from it. I am just tempted by the nice tub and the big closets sometimes. I think Fireball makes an excellent point that the management is a bit of an unpredictable potential problem.

I am curious if anyone knows much about how the parks are run? Is there a sick deal between the sales agents, the manufacturers and the park owners? It sure looks shady to me. Thanks for your replies.

zlxr: sounds like you're talking about a older mobile home. Ones built in the 70's and early to mid 80's are made like that and they don't age well at all. They are often litterally falling apart after 20 years and usually aren't worth the trouble to try and renovate.

pw: you're talking about manufactured homes or flat pack homes (Ikea makes one believe it or not). They can be better built than regular stick construction but often aren't, depends on who is putting it together on site even if the factory did a good job. Cost wise there usually is no advantage to them though in theory they should be cheaper. Also they usually aren't something that an inexperienced person or laborer could put together. You want someone who knows what they're doing.

OP: Newer mobile homes (ie. late 90's onwards) are built much much better. Almost on par with a regular stick construction home and better in a few ways (2x6's exterior wall+good insulation). As others have noted the places they skimp on is the cabinetry, plumbing, "foundation", and floor construction. They will skimp if you let them or if you're trying to save money. If you're willing to pay a little more and can find someone who will do a proper installation job all of those issues can be avoided.

Problem is brand new they often cost as much as a condo or even a low end home so it usually isn't worth it to buy brand new. Also as others have noted you can't usually own the land.

They make a lot of sense to own and can be a real bargain if a)they were installed properly, b)you can own the land, and c)they're fairly new but not brand new since they depreciate rapidly which saves you 10's of thousands. Very few mobile homes will fit that criteria though, or at least almost none in southern CA. IIRC they're more common in the south. I saw some fairly nice ones on their own land, not in a park, when I went through Virginia once. You wouldn't have thought they were mobile homes at all.

I've seen pictures of the ones made out of storage containers in Mexico and S. America. They're surprisingly comfy looking if tiny, problem is they cost something laughable like $50K USD, dunno how much in pesos. Screw that.

I haven't seen homes built like what you're describing earlier in the last 15 years so I dunno what to say other that house you're talking about kinda sucked. All the ones I've seen since the early 90's have gotten increasingly better. Wiki has some nice pics of the building process on a single wide. Other than the studs being spaced a lil' wider than I'd like basic framing was pretty good interior and exterior. Sprayed on ceiling? God, haven't seen that crap for a loong time. Even most of the ones from the 70's had a fiber board ceiling of some sort. Newer ones use textured drywall.

Redoing the floor in chipboard or plywood instead of the particle board or masonite definitely helps and is ideal. Main thing is just to keep moisture away from the stock flooring from underneath. Usually they use Tyvek/tar paper or a combo of both, but not against the flooring, just as an outside moisture barrier exposed to the weather. If you pull up the flooring and put a layer or 2 of tar paper down and then lay the stock flooring back down it'll hold up just fine though too. You have to do that before damage occurs. Once that particle board or masonite gets wet it holds water like a sponge and looses strength, which means you have to replace it. If it sits for a long time wet you get mold issues which can be a bitch to get rid of. Depends on how much time and money you're willing to put into it to do that.

Yea the roof pitch isn't ideal for heavy snow either. Usually up far north people seemed to get theirs re-roofed with a steeper pitch after 10 years or so. In CA stock pitch is fine.

elliemae says

Out here in the sticks you can buy a manufactured home on your own lot - but they do lose value even if they’re high quality.
There’s a (what considers itself to be) upscale community in St. George Utah - this woman bought a lot and wanted to put a triple-wide home on it. The community fought it - there’s a hoa but it couldn’t afford to fight (no dues, just an association). The neighbors around the house couldn’t afford to pay for it so they dropped it - but treated the woman like shit. She built on a garage and a large porch, stucco’d the place and it would have looked nice except she painted it pink.
I’ll take a photo next time I’m out that way. They have rules that you can only do earth colors and she flaunted it. Ironically, many of the neighbors who bitched & moaned lost their houses to foreclosure, she’s still there.
Just a story.

Would love to see a photo if you get it. I can imagine that painting it pink and giving your neighbors the finger might not have helped her quality of social life. Maybe she enjoyed it if she gets into that sort of thing!

I'll get around to it soon. I drive by every few days, on the freeway behind the house. They're building onto it and it looks like the lot will soon be all house. Ugly house, that is.

here's my favorite neighbor dispute - I actually saw it. It was funny as hell, and absolutely true:

http://www.snopes.com/photos/risque/ventcover.asp

Awesome! needed a good laugh. Feel sorry for neighbors who had to look at that.

Seems like it might be preferable to buy an airstream and put it on your own land... but hard to get financed for land without a house in the current market, ne c'est pas?