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Anybody bought a new mobile home for your land?

Projectjunkie

Whatever
Joined
May 19, 2020
Member Number
306
Messages
3,006
Loc
Tucson Az
I bought a nice lot in the mountains with a 1973 double wide on it. Fixing what's there doesn't pencil out, for a variety of reasons.

I'm considering buying a new 3/2 1300sf double wide.

Talking to some people, what's there is good enough that someone would haul it away for free, leaving me with a minimal mess, I'm on with that.

What are the unforseen costs of buying a mobile for land?

The local dealer said I could use the paid for land as collateral, get a construction loan, then have to refinance as a conventional loan in the end.

The town it's in is pretty minimal for "foundation " and seems to be good with some compacted gravel and some anchors, doesn't need a concrete slab.

I'm looking for a weekend getaway on a budget, not a flip
 
I had to deal with permitting an existing single wide trailer on one of our commercial lots at work. It was 10+ years ago so don’t recall all of the specifics, but I remember it being a pain in the ass.

It doesn’t matter which town, the state has their own requirements for “factory built buildings” IIRC.

See here: AZ FBB
 
As long as the well and septic are still good and the county will let you tie back in to them, should be a whole lot of hoops to jump through with a brand new building. The manufacturer should have all the paperwork on hand and know what needs to be done to keep them happy. They'll usually do the blocking and tie-downs as part of the delivery.


Been watching my neighbor a few houses down work on a used single wide that he brought in a month or so ago. It's taking a lot longer than I expected to get it done. One thing I noticed he did that I like is put down a heavy plastic vapor barrier underneath. I assume he's eventually going to skirt it.
 
I’ve owned “manufactured home” before.

Probably wouldn’t do it again.

Usually shit materials.. you’d have a hard time convincing me otherwise.

That said.. it’s cheaper than renting over time.

I’d probably build something more like a barndominium.
 
This is going to really depend on county and town zoning requirements and restrictions. Which seems like you’ve already figured it out

The other thing I’ve seen become trouble is just because someone tells you they are interested in hauling it away doesn’t mean they’re actually going to do so, are capable of doing so or are financially able to commit to you. If you have to have someone tear the old one down expect around $3500 for a decent insured and equipped guy to do so. I’m in an adjacent industry
 
Our house is a manufactured home that we put up about 20 years ago. Financing was tougher, but doable. We looked at a lot of homes, and quality levels are definitely all over the place. Ours is all 2x6 walls, higher pitched roof (which gave us another 700 or so square feet in the attic), all drywall, , and on a basement. Looking back, I wish we would have gone with a modular option. Basically everything was the same, but more expensive to meet local codes. Would have been treated just like a normal stick built house, but just couldn't swing the extra cost back then.
 
The town is pretty friendly, I called the permitting office when i bought the place discussing options. I have a feeling that "the guy" returned my call after fishing on his lunch break. Low taxes, cheap permits, accepting hand drawn plans, internet plans, no engineer stamp needed for anything under 3k sqft, tiny houses allowed, so Lot's of things are on the table. He offered that the new cabin up the road was from online plans, and that his detached garage was drawn by a friend of the owner.

The area is starting to boom, and it's a mountain town, so building would be expensive.

Barndo would be expensive and out of pocket.

Really the best option on deck for me is a new mobile, if the costs are transparent. I'm looking for the little things that popped up.

My house in town is cash out of pocket and sweat equity, as was the previous one. I'm OK with a small mortgage on a mostly turnkey getaway.


*and the manufactured homes I looked at were well built, 2x6 walls, good insulation. High snow load rated, drywall, taped and textured, rounded corners, same builder grade kitchen and baths I'd get from a cabin builder. I'll seek out a quote from a builder, but with the local economy, I doubt it would be competitive, and I'm 4hrs away so I can't babysit it for sub par workmanship
 
ain't it something like "if you leave it on blocks it isn't going on your property taxes" or something?

something to consider before going all in with a perimeter foundation like you did with your other one
 
Besides any build quality differences, if any, something built on site like a barndo, cabin, modular house, regular stick built will have better resale value. You can probably recoup the difference when you sell by spending more on the structure if you have a site built house. Many buyers are scared of buying a mobile home and loans can be different for them when attached to property.
 
When I was looking at having a mobile home brought up to mountain property here, the biggest issue was the trees. For the guy to get the thing in there and set safely, they were going to need to cut down a lot of trees.

I ended up going a different route and bought an investment property in town, so I never did have a conclusion.
 
We are getting ready to pull the trigger on a modular so I have done a fair amount of research. New manufactured should be pretty simple as long as the jurisdiction isn't terrible.

Typical gotchas are stuff like porches, gutters, moving utilities, and sidewalks.

Some things that may matter are:
How they tax manufactured versus stick built. Here a manufactured is taxed as personal property if the axles are still there and it isn't attached to a permanent foundation. That means it's depreciates out over time and isn't considered in your property taxes.

The above may be cheaper but it also leads to more expensive insurance so it's worth considering how you set it up.
 
I did a few years ago and made a thread on it here.

wasn't too bad, like already mentioned the person who wanted to haul away my old unit did not pan out so I had it knocked down with a mini-ex and placed in 2 dumpsters. I carried all the metal away myself just to not fill up the dumpsters.

Feel free to ask me questions or search for my old thread where I laid everythign out pretty much.
 
Watching, I’ve got something in mind like this myself, but I think I’ll be better off building a small cabin instead of buying a new trailer
 
My father in law bought one 5ish years ago, the wiring is a cluster fuck and we've replaced most of the switches and receptacles within the first year :homer:.
 
Here anyway the electric service is only for the mobile home. Your shop garage and well will need its own load center before the mobile home, which isn't really a big deal since you'll need a meter panel anyway.
 
Mobile homes attract too many tornados where I’m from. I don’t know if that is a risk for you. Do it once and do it right would be my suggestion and I would look at the Barndominium on a slab option, if you plan to keep it. My getaway place is pier and beam with a rattlesnake den below and it creeps me out a bit.
 
Weekend getaway on a budget = park model RV trailer to me. It's what people stick on their postage stamp lakefront properties. They live in the grey area between RV and Mobile Home so it's kind of a tax dodge. Not sure they would hold up to a big snow load so you might need to build a roof over it though.
 
Projectjunkie said:
The town is pretty friendly, I called the permitting office when i bought the place discussing options. I have a feeling that "the guy" returned my call after fishing on his lunch break. Low taxes, cheap permits, accepting hand drawn plans, internet plans, no engineer stamp needed for anything under 3k sqft, tiny houses allowed, so Lot's of things are on the table. He offered that the new cabin up the road was from online plans, and that his detached garage was drawn by a friend of the owner.

The area is starting to boom, and it's a mountain town, so building would be expensive.

Barndo would be expensive and out of pocket.

Really the best option on deck for me is a new mobile, if the costs are transparent. I'm looking for the little things that popped up.

My house in town is cash out of pocket and sweat equity, as was the previous one. I'm OK with a small mortgage on a mostly turnkey getaway.


*and the manufactured homes I looked at were well built, 2x6 walls, good insulation. High snow load rated, drywall, taped and textured, rounded corners, same builder grade kitchen and baths I'd get from a cabin builder. I'll seek out a quote from a builder, but with the local economy, I doubt it would be competitive, and I'm 4hrs away so I can't babysit it for sub par workmanship
Click to expand...
What is the cost estimate for total including delivery and setup?

Around here that’s 180k min.
 
Around here, having a mobile home on a property actually devalues it. The reason is that most banks won't finance the land so the market is reduced. I've bought about 4 acerages with mobile homes on them, went through the trouble of removing them and sold them as raw land with a well, septic or a water meter available. Suddenly you can finance them and the price of the land goes up about 20%.
 
Check your city / county rules and regulations on mobile homes in your area or where you’re doing this at. In my county, they outlawed mobile home parks or on private land around 20 years ago. Today, only way you can get a new one is to replace an old wore out mobile home and you have like 7 days to do it in. One regulation that’s been in place for 40 years now is there must be a full concrete pad poured for your mobile home to set on. Used to be just two concrete strips like sidewalks decades ago.
 
Curious, what's a new doublewide go for anyway?
 
Keep in mind that while local ordinances may allow a basic foundation, your lender (specifically the underwriters) may require the manufactured home to be on a concrete foundation in order to finance it.
 
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