I just did a Bing search and came across this site. Hope it helps.

MH costs

Wow good find, thanks! I just found it interesting how they automatically have me that high number without even asking me where or how close/far I was interested in moving it. Not sure of your familiar with Orange County, CA but it's definitely not out in the country, meaning there is a MHP on almost every block around here. I suppose I would need to find out where the factory is that they use? And then calculate from there to the MHP I chose?

Delivery and installing a mobile home takes 2-4 trucks, a crane, several tradesmen, and several riggers.

Distance is a small amount of the delivery.

20 years ago, a co worker spent $20k.

Wait until you try to sell your mobile, a local park would not allow the seller to transfer the rented space to the buyer.

Jim Mat why is that? Is that common?

The park wanted to upgrade, would not allow older mobile homes to stay in the park.

Story in the newspaper, 80 year old lady, lived in her mobile for 20 years, husband died, she wanted to sell her mobile and move. The park told her she could sell her mobile but the buyer would have to remove the mobile.

She ended up donating her mobile home to a group that provides seasonal housing for farm workers.

The,park defended this practice by claiming they were upgrading.

I don't know how common this practice is, but next time you visit a mobile home park, notice how many flat roof older homes there are compared to newer peaked roof mobile homes.

In the olden days, mobile homes had a trailer hitch, now they are loaded onto flatbed trucks.

good to know, thanks!

I would imagine those who have older homes may have this problem when selling but if I were to buy a new home and sell it after 10 years I can't imagine the manager not allowing me to sell it under the condition it gets moved out

May not be that different from the People's Republic of California. Here the government will find a way to cheat anyone naive enough to actually work for a living.

OK, getting back to the OP's question.

Mamabear, I hate to say it, but Jim Mat is right about the cost of set up/installation. It's not a simple matter of unhitching a camper from a pickup and parking it there. The permits all have to be in place in order to transport the home, or both halves if it's a DW, down the road, whether it be one mile or 1,000. They may need permits for every county they drive through because it's wide loads (often requiring an escort car to drive with them displaying wide load signs), and the weight of the load does inevitable damage to the roads.

When they arrive at your site, the real work begins. They've got to set your home correctly on its foundation, whether it be piers, a slab, or whatever. These days, that involves a crane. It's super critical that the house is level when all is said and done, so your house doesn't develop problems later from being out of level. If your house is a double wide (DW), there is the not small matter of "marrying," or putting together, the two halves so your roof doesn't leak. Then they've got to correctly hook you up to electricity, well or city water, septic or sewer.

All of these jobs require skilled workers who know how to do this stuff. Expensive equipment + skilled labor + three-four weeks + all the permits = $30,000 or so. It's actually not an unrealistic number. And yes, if you buy a new home in the park, you would be expected to carry that cost just as you would if you were buying somewhere else and moving it there.

And think about it this way: if you were having a new site-built home built for you, you would be incurring similar costs, i.e. pulling permits, transporting materials to the site, installing and hooking up electrical wiring, plumbing, etc. They just don't present it the same way. They wouldn't say, "We'll build your home for $100,000," then tell you, "It will cost an additional $25,000 to put plumbing and electricity in your house and hook it up to city services." They'll just say, "The house will cost $125,000." So if you think of it that way, it doesn't seem so outrageous.

Where I will respectfully beg to differ with Jim is on the commonness of not being able to transfer your title and keep the home on its site in the MHP. First, as you said, if you get a house under ten years old, you don't need to worry.

Second, the last thing MHP owners want is the hassle of trying to get someone to move a home off the lot, combined with the loss of rent until someone comes along and puts a newer home there.

Take my MHP, for example. We are a small park, just 38 homes, way out in the country. The homes range from really old (1970's) single wides to a few DWs less than ten years old. Most of the residents are elderly folks who have lived here for decades.

It would be an impossible nightmare to get people to haul out these old homes. People simply wouldn't do it because it would cost them more to move it than they could sell the house for. They'd simply abandon the house and let the MHP owner incur the cost of hauling it off.

My house is 37 years old and a definite fixer-upper. I bought it without any problem and it's still right here in the same space. The owner never missed a rent payment.

I have lived in more than one MHP, and I have known people over the years who live in MHPs. While I'm sure that the story Jim read about is true, that is the rare exception, not the norm.

Third, do the math. Fewer than 15% of MHs are ever moved, once they've been set up on their original sites.

Of course, as Christopher_H, cathyyg, and I have all cautioned, read your lease and know what you are agreeing to before you sign it. In my park, the rule is that if I sell my home, the new owner must pass a credit check, a criminal background check, and have enough income to pay the rent. They also have to come up with a deposit, etc., just as if they were renting anything else.

Each park has its own rules, and each state has its own laws that govern those rules. This is why I keep harping on about know the laws in your state that apply to people who own their MH but rent the land it sits on. My state, Washington, has an entire set of laws for this situation, which differ from the regular tenant-landlord act in significant ways.

The same goes for the park rules wherever you decide to live. cathyyg has told us of a MHP where all residents are required to have a garage, and another MHP not far away, with the same owner (!), where residents are forbidden to have a garage! It's like HOAs for site built homes; they each differ.

And, no offense taken on you wanting a newer, turn-key home. :-) Most people do. I'm the rare bird that buys a junker to fully rehab it. Most people don't want to spend years living in a construction zone while remodeling.

But...you said 10-20 years old. If you want turn-key, that number should be under ten years, unless you happen upon some miracle and find someone who's replaced everything in the entire house and wants to sell it for a loss, haha!

I agree with your strategy of researching and visiting places and gathering as much info as possible in advance. A knowledgeable buyer is a smart buyer.

:-) Keep us posted!

When we contracted to have our modular built, we didn't get a low ball price to entice us. We paid X dollars and that price included transport from Pennsylvania to Vermont. I didn't care a whit about any breakdown in the price, I just wanted to know how much the final product would cost. The dealer did all the work getting prices for everything involved, from lot clearing to getting the well, septic, power etc to the house, everything. She got a 10% premium for acting as the General Contractor.

I especially liked that all the subs required were LOCALS. People within 10 miles of here. The plumber who installed the boiler, the zone controls, and all the piping for the faucets lives a half mile away.

I knew what the final price was before I signed any contracts.

What Christopher_H said. Delivery and setup were included in the stated price of my home. It was built not too far away, less than a 3 hour drive from here. It included pulling all the permits and making the electrical, plumbing, and natural gas hookups, as well as the setting of the home and final finishing work, like the marriage wall and crown and baseboard trim inside and the roof shingling, skirting, and siding outside. We, too, knew the final price before we signed anything.

Gregbradley,

Our taxes are pretty much controlled by us, the voters. We have "Town Meeting" every March and we vote on everything. If the school board wants too much money we simply vote "NO!" Same goes for the town budget, the road budget, even the cemetery budget.

Thanks everyone! The info I've received on this forum so far has been in invaluable! It sounds like a very long detailed process and it makes sense now that it would cost that much for all the labor and time that needs to go into it. I found a nice brand new double wide that I fell in love with. Dealer said it was $77,000 (seems to be the average market value for dw around here), I thought "great just in my price range) then he said PLUS another 25-35k for delivery and install. I clarified by saying "you mean 2500-3500" and he said no 35 thousand haha you can imagine the look on my face after that. He did say that if I were to go with a single wide it would be in my price range of 75k with everything (includes delivery and install) so now I've been trying to research single wides and I've come to like some of the new ones I've researched. Im also looking at the cavco Durango coastal series offers by a dealer in my area. DW start at around 50k (I would be upgrading the insulation and construction some so I'll need to configure that it into the cost) This brings me to my last question for this post: is delivery and install LESS for SW and does anyone know of space rent is lower for SW?

Delivery and setup seem to me that they MUST be less for a single wide. All the interior work is already done, it is just the placement and utility hookups to do. Lot rent is cheaper for single wides in my area, but only $10 a month less.

Thank you cathyyg, that makes sense. Plus I think as far as transporting the home they would only need one truck vs two for a DW. I still feel like the dealers around here try to nickel and dime even down to the delivery and install fees. So frustrating. I'm going to call around and get some quotes, thanks again

Interesting discussion! I just had my 1959 Pacemaker two-story (10 x 50) hauled out of the MHP where it sat for 40+ years in NE 275 miles to my friend's facility in KS and the haul cost me $1,000, not counting $600 for six new tires. "Sweet Sixteen"'s purchase price: a basement bargain $1,000. Even after restoration, which will be about $8,000 or so, she's a tremendous bargain, and I've already found a MHP that accepts the vintage trailers for $200/month plus utilities. The vintage MHs really have a great deal of character and charm you just can't find in the newer ones.

We just had a 70's model single wide moved from a MHP to some land a few miles away for $800. That is with my hubby doing all of the before prep work and doing all of the after leveling and skirting work. Moving only. I can't imagine paying that much for delivery, ouch. :(