Hi there, Royce!

I'm very glad you found this forum. The very first thing I would suggest is that you take the time to read the posts on this forum. Yep, all of them. I did just that last October when I agreed to buy a fixer-upper MH (manufactured home) from a friend of mine. It was like taking a course in Manufactured Homes 101. I've now read very extensively on most aspects of MHs, but that's because I'm a researcher by profession and a book nerd, haha! But even today, I consider this forum to be the best education I got on MHs, because the information comes from the best source--actual, real people who have bought and live in MHs. Just take whatever spare time you have and start reading. Most, if not all, of your questions have been discussed extensively on various threads.

Second, let me congratulate you! It is really nice to see a young person planning for his future and being mature enough to save up some money. You are doing things the right way, and it will come back to reward you down the road!

I'll attempt to answer your questions, and hopefully some of the other long-timers on this forum will jump in too. But don't let that dissuade you from reading the other threads on the forum! I'm sure things will come up that I haven't answered, and that you haven't even thought to ask.

What are some of the best brands to deal with?
(I really liked the look of the Patriot from Clayton, also the Malibu from Palm Harbor.) The best advice given on this forum is that it isn't the manufacturer, i.e. the company, rather it's the dealer, meaning the person who sells you the home. (I will say, however, that Clayton is a perennial thumbs down--folks on this forum, for the most part, don't have good things to say about them. I'd steer clear if I were you.) The dealer is so important because she or he is the person you are trusting to get your home set up correctly and to take care of any problems you may encounter during the warranty period. The dealer will make your life either easy or unbearable. You want someone with a good track record and a reputation for being honest and fair. Check with your local BBB, look on social media, etc., and ideally try to find someone to talk with who has purchased a home from him or her. And listen to your gut. If you hear any alarm bells going off, your gut is probably right!

How affordable are these homes? A manufactured home can start with a base price of $25,999 and go up over $300,000. This is before you buy land. Price depends upon the size of the home and on what kind of upgrades you want, amongst other factors.

Another option to consider is buying a used MH, or even a repo. There are some awesome deals to be had out there! You can sometimes find a home that isn't more than a few years old and is in very good condition being sold for pennies on the dollar. If you go that route, educate yourself so you know what to look for. See my thread on this forum, "I found a great resource!"

Is it recommended to find your own lot or have them provide you with one? I'm not sure whom you mean by "them," but nobody is going to "provide you" with a lot. When considering the purchase of a manufactured home, there are several options for land to put it on.

First, there is the mobile home park. While there are still plenty of the old "trailer parks" around that give a bad name to MHs, today's MHP (manufactured home park) is completely different. Many parks have lovely amenities like a clubhouse, swimming pool, sports courts, community gardens, and so forth. The clubhouse may sponsor various clubs and other community activities. Senior (55+) parks are very popular now, although I realize that wouldn't be for you. Naturally, the more amenities, the higher the lot rent. The park location may also help determine the rental price. In most parks, the owners of the MH pay lot rent that may include some utilities such as WSG (water, sewer, garbage). I pay $300 a month for lot rent, but our park has no amenities and is way out in the country. Some people pay $700 per month and more. A good park will have restrictions as to what kind of MH you may have, i.e. must not be more than 10 years old, must be a certain size and type (i.e. no 5th wheels, park models, etc.), and will be strict about renters keeping their yard nice and not having junk on the property.

Increasingly, there are MHPs where the homeowners purchase their lot. My parents bought an MH in a park where everyone owned their own lots way back in 1973, when I was 13. Owning your own lot back then was unheard of, but more and more parks are going that way, at least here out west. I don't know anything about the situation in Florida.

So you can find an MHP that you like and either rent the space or buy it. Or you can buy an MH that's already in a park you want to live in. That's often a good bet. If I were you, I would not find the cheapest thing available. Cheap rarely = a good deal. You want to be in a good neighborhood with nicely kept homes and yards.

If you don't want to live in an MHP, you can find and buy your own piece of property, buy it, and set your MH on it. Make sure the land you are buying is zoned for MHs. You may have the added cost of bringing in sewer and water lines (or septic and well), but you have the advantage of owning land that may appreciate in years to come. You could possibly rent a piece of property for your MH, but I haven't heard much about that. Here in Washington, if an acre has three or more MHs on it, it is considered an MHP by state law.

For a young person such as yourself, I think owning the land, whether in an MHP or somewhere else, is the way to go. That is just my personal opinion. The reason is appreciation. Both your home itself and the land will hopefully appreciate in value. It used to be the rule of thumb that MHs always go down in value, like driving a new car off the lot, but that isn't always the case anymore. christopher_h has written a lot about this topic on this forum. However, owning the land your MH is on is still much more likely to see good appreciation, even equal to site-built homes in your area. Remember that MH my parents bought in 1973? They sold it in 2007 for over $200,000. (Original purchase price in 73 was $69,000 for the home and the lot.) Of course, we can no longer say that real estate always appreciates no matter what, but if I were 25 instead of 56, I'd be looking for land.

I've read the appliances they provide aren't really good quality appliances does anyone have any information on this? It depends. It depends upon the manufacturer, the dealer, what options/upgrades you want, and what you consider to be "good" or "not good" appliances. The house my parents bought way back in the day had Sears appliances. The only appliance they replaced was the dryer, and that was after 20+ years. They held up to two parents, four teenage kids, and the various refugees my parents took in on a regular basis. In many cases, you get what you get in the basic, standard package, but have the option to upgrade. Many people on this forum recommend not getting any appliances at all and then putting in what you really want once the home is set up. cathyyg, can you weigh in on this? Of course, if you buy used, you get what is already there. And how long any appliance lasts depends a lot upon how it is (or isn't) taken care of.

As far as financing I know it depends on my overall financial
situation but what are some of the best options available? Are these
considered Mortgages or just standard high value loans? I hate to say this again, but...it depends. As far as financing, it is quite difficult, if not impossible, to get a standard bank mortgage loan if you do not own the land your MH will be on. This is because, in most states, an MH is not, in and of itself, considered to be "real estate," rather it is considered to be a "vehicle." My MH has a license plate on it and has a VIN number, haha! Yet, they seem to have no problem collecting property tax from me! Any loan they offered you would be a personal loan, like a really big car loan. But if you own the land your MH is on and meet certain other requirements (such as, it must be set on a foundation as opposed to on piers, etc.) then you can convert the title from a vehicle title to a real estate title. In that case, you can get a mortgage, assuming of course, that you meet the financial requirements such as credit score, income to debt ratio, and so forth.

Although you didn't ask, I'd like to add that you will need homeowners insurance. The most popular company on this forum, from what I've read, is Foremost, because they are MH-friendly.

And I'll end by saying that you get a lot more house for your money with an MH than for a site-built home. You can get more sq ft and nicer features for sometimes substantially less money. Again, I congratulate you for your wisdom in saving up to buy your first home. I actually bought my first (site built) home when I was 25, before you were born, haha! You are smart to be looking into MHs and finding a good deal. In this post-2008 economy there are no guarantees and the folks who saddle themselves with a huge mortgage they can barely pay might very well be sunk when the next real estate bubble bursts.

Feel free to ask more questions! We are very happy to answer them and to give our two cent's worth. :-) And don't forget to read the forum!

Have a wonderful day!

Sincerely,

Debbie

That is a lot of information. I was thinking the same thing. However, I lost my house during the upside down time. I did everything I could but BoA really screwed me. Now I live in a nice apartment, but don't have an area to garden if I want. So my thinking was bying off an owner. Rent to own. Any information on that subject? I would probably have to move out of Massachusetts. Almost all the Manufactured homes are way out of my range and the mobile homes are 55+ and I am 53. I am in a situation that there is nothing I would like better than to start a new life.

Sincerely,

Alyce

Hi Alyce!

I'm really sorry to hear of your situation. It's tragic (and wrong) that so many people ended up in the same boat.

I have to say that I know very, very little about rent to own situations, except that they are considered by some people to be pretty bad deals. I think you'd have to look at the individual offer and figure out how much you'd end up paying for the home compared to how much the cash price would be and to how much you'd pay on a mortgage and then decide what would be right for you.

If you want to live in a 55+ park, can you afford to wait until you're 55 to make the change? I totally understand about wanting to start a new life, but make sure the new life is a good one, even if that means being patient for a while longer.

I'm sorry I can't be more helpful. Maybe someone else who knows more than I do will jump in.

Sincerely,

Debbie

Thanks for your response Debbie (I am still in the process of reading your full response) but like you I am also a reader and just into gathering information. Especially for the purchase of a home I don't want to be up ships creek with such a large investment in my hands.

Very grateful to have found this forum you gave me a lot of things to think about I am going to continue to run through this forum and learn all that I can.

I'm happy I could help! Please don't hesitate to ask questions any time; that's what this forum is for. :-)

I really don't want to live in a 55+ community, I like to have all ages around me. Then there is the issue of climate, I am not in good health so I can take mountain cold but not ocean cold, Heat, well I would just consider that the opposite of cold. Here in New England, a lot of people hibernate in the winter, I would do that in the summer in really hot climate states. :-). The hardest thing is finding a place that has low crime. I don't want to blindly move to an area where, I am alone first and the crime rate is high second. Who knows what would happen.

The city I am originally from has high crime now, but I know what streets to avoid. That is the BIG issue.

Royce, Debbie has given you some excellent advice!

But as a first time homebuyer, you really don't even know yet what to look for. So here's what a realtor told my wife and me to do before we started house hunting. Take a blank sheet of paper and draw a line down the muddle. On the left side list everything you would like in your first home. I mean everything. 5 Bedrooms, 3 baths, 3 car garage, fire pit out back, a complete wish list!

Now on the right side, list the absolute minimums you want. You cannot accept any home without these things! That's your starting point.

Placement is a major consideration too. To purchase a manufactured home without land is really like a car loan because like a car it will depreciate over the length of the loan, so a "normal" mortgage is not in the picture unless you have it permanently on a foundation on your own piece of land. Then it becomes just like a home and you can get a 30 year mortgage. Here's what is available in manufactured homes in your area as far as resales.

MHs in Pensacola

Get to actually look inside of the homes and look at the walls, the kitchens, the outsides, etc. Become familiar with as much as you can as far as single wide and double wides, etc.

The best buyer is an informed buyer, so now your journey begins.

My first home was a manufactured home we had put on a lot. We lived there 12 years and here what I learned. (Some of which may vary on your location)

1. Banks do not like to loan for them because of foreclosures. Typically the rates will be higher than stick built.

2. Insurance may also be higher. Some companies lump them with mobile homes even when on a foundation.

3. They will depreciate in value. This makes it difficult to make money on a resell, but can keep taxes lower.

4. They are the best "bang for your buck". In my opinion they are built better since they can go down the road at highway speeds.

5. We had GE appliances which all except the microwave are still going strong 14 years now. (I know the new owner)

6. We got a good deal because we had bought a " floor model" that prospect customers walked through. It was good except for little things (like missing oven knobs). Make sure that anything that will need fixed is in writing...company tried to forget us after the sale and that's the only way I got them to come back out.

I would talk to your bank and insurance before going to the manufactured house lots. Compare rates between manufactured and stick built. Also find out what construction features will cost more (like metal vs wood frames, foundation attachment, etc.). Good luck!