Manufactured home opinions.

[bbbass]

Well, I don't have tornadoes where I live, but it seems that even stick built homes have basements and tornado shelters.

Don't curse me, but I owned a Home Inspection biz for 15yrs. Everything from new construction to "vintage" homes. IMO, there are advantages and disadvantages to both choices.

1. While manufacturers are held to industry standards, which are greatly increased today, the final product is only as good as the crew/company/inspection was on that day. But there is generally less time to move-in day. Can customize. Less dealing with Building Inspectors, the City/County, and contractors.

2. In my experience, a cookie cutter home is not much different than a manufactured home (you really should see how fast a crew slaps a "production" home together), except for the roofline and the possibility of a 2nd story/basement.

3. Change orders on a stick built home will cause delays and cost you plenty.

4. Contractors can be awful... I've been an investor since 1975 and if I told all the contractor stories, I'd have a lot of people here mad at me. Personally, I wouldn't do it again.

5. Building inspectors/officials can be anything from perfectionists to incompetent. You wouldn't believe the things I routinely found at a new construction site after the Building Inspector already signed off. There are no guarantees of quality there, not much that it was done right, or even done at all. Do ya'll "gift" the city/county officials with a bottle of Jack like they do on the east coast???

I currently own a Palm Harbor... it is OK. But keep in mind that it was made 20+ years ago. I don't know what today's best brands are.

Wow, no appreciation? None??? My manufactured home is worth double what I paid for it in 2006. The land appreciates faster than the building for both types of housing generally (everything but the bones are considered to be a consumable item with a finite life, even with stick built, so the stick built house itself will also depreciate). I'm used to hot markets, Huntington Beach, San Diego, Bend, Oregon coast, they all doubled and tripled out of sight. But I no longer build high end custom homes for speculation (years ago I bought a 2yr old home in Bend OR that gained $50k in 2 months), what I got is good enough for a retired guy. https://www.urban.org/urban-wire/ne...ctured-homes-appreciate-well-site-built-homes

 

[deemus]

SamF, let me throw out something else to give some thought to on this decision. That area where your land is located, and I assume where the home would be, is well known for tornado's.

A manufactured home might not be the best option in the matter of safety for you and your family. Might be a point to bring up with your wife.

When I got married we lived in a MH for about 4 months. We rode out two really bad storms in that thing, and it sucked. I had never lived in one before and could not get out of that thing fast enough.

I have lots of relatives that live in them, and the point about them decreasing in value really fast is true. Maintenance is hard in some cases, and they are just different than a slab home. They both have their problems, but after 35 years in a house I own, I can tell you the problems are easier to deal with.

 

[bbbass]

"Mobile homes" are a whole diff story. Not worth warm spit. But I don't know that any are made today. All "manufactured" homes have some kind of foundation, depending on the city/county code or buyers choice (beware, housing needs good shoes... and installation is only as good as the foundation. Some areas need better/more foundation), whereas a Mobile has axles and skirting... with a few tires, one can literally hook up and drive away. Walls were 2" thick, 3" on the exterior, metal clad, with 4-6" of attic insulation. Our old MH even had a layer of foam roofing that was sprayed on... man, the hail tore that up!!

I can't think of any Manufactured Home built today that doesn't have 2x6" exterior walls, just like stick built homes. A good one will have 2x4 interior studwalls. The underfloor and ceiling insulation packages are more than adequate. They use PEX plumbing, just like stick built. And all plumbing except the main lines are already insulated up in the metal framed floor space. One place you do see a diff is the subfloor... don't let them put a cheapo subfloor on. Siding is whatever you want it to be. Roofing is too.

Modular construction really opens the choices, but it's basically the same construction as both stick built and manufactured, only brought in a package to the site. Premade walls and such. Concrete modular might be an option...

 

[Tex929rr]

We built a steel building with a workshop and apartment in it a few years back. We needed the space and wanted a guest house. The county taxes it exactly the same as a plain steel building (same square footage) on our property. They have no way to know how the inside is finished out. Except for the drop ceiling you would not know you are not inside a stick built home.