Anyone here libe in a double wide/triple wide? Pros vs cons.

[tonyguitarguy]

What are y’all thoughts on living in a traditional home vs manufactured/modular? Sure investment might be lost but looking to see what others think?

[hully1029]

We've been out of one for about a year. We loved our double wide. Lots of open space. Manufactured homes are well built these days, and the price tag reflects it. A new, nice manufactured home will run 125k+, some alot more.

But, maintenance sucked. Seemed like there way always a draft. Doors stuck, underpinning sucks. Our electric bill was way higher, and still couldnt keep house cool in the summer. In high winds, that thing shook like an earthquake.. kind of freaked my wife out the first time a good storm rolled thru.

Oh, and they lose value like crazy.

But, overall, we enjoyed it and didnt feel "underhomed" in the slightest.

This was my old place. We sold it in August of last year.

https://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/83-Terri-Dr_Collinsville_TX_76233_M71849-58551

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[TxDispatcher]

Best thing we did on our house at the farm, was invest in a metal pole barn over it. Cuts down drastically on electric bill, and it’s nice to sit out on the porch and listen to the rain hitting the metal roof versus the trailer roof. Maintenance can be an issue, you will definitely want to make sure you have quality skirting on it, to keep animals from getting underneath and destroying the underpinning. We are contemplating moving back out there and getting the heck away from the hustle and bustle of the city life. I wish we had never moved away in the first place but my wife thought she wanted to be back around humanity. She was wrong

[BURTONboy]

We went the way of a double wide so we could get a bit more land. Dont regret it one bit and have been in it for 2.5 yrs. We did not spend $125k+, we were actually about $50k under that mark. Its not the biggest or fanciest, but its doing its job for now and hopefully for about 15 more years. Electric bills are really not too bad. I think we average about $125/month. Obviously less in the winter. And it is full electric. I would say if youre on a budget, or would rather get a bit more land than spending your money on a house right now, to go for it. You just have to decide whats more important and look at this as a long term investment on saving money. Because you will lose money on it if you try to sell in the near future. They dont hold value well from what I gather.


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[60 Deluxe]

I can't think of a single situation where something that expensive is a good option. You are better off renting until you can afford a home that will appreciate in value. Crunch the numbers for a twenty year time span. Your mobile home will end up with a value near zero at the end of the twenty years where the conventional home should have doubled in value.

[Shake N' Bake]

My family and I live in a 20 year old double wide on 1 acre that we bought about 4 years ago. Over all we are very happy with our house.
As mentioned already it is hard to keep it cool in the summer when it gets in the high 90's or more. But we are hoping to put on a metal roof soon and I hope that will help.
We also had a storm shelter installed for obvious reasons.

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[Tony Pic]

I can't think of a single situation where something that expensive is a good option. You are better off renting until you can afford a home that will appreciate in value. Crunch the numbers for a twenty year time span. Your mobile home will end up with a value near zero at the end of the twenty years where the conventional home should have doubled in value.

What if you are retired, want something new, and do not want to spend 250-300K plus property on a stick-built home at that point in your life?
That is what I am doing. Besides. It will be great for as long as I need it.
After I am dead who cares about value? It is not about leaving assets behind. There will be plenty for my boys to fight over. To me, it is about enjoying what you have saved and worked for. Not long term investments in your late 50's. I am spending my long term investments.
I am currently looking at a 2280sqft 4bd 2bth 76x32 in the 135K range with many upgrades. I am not building an empire. That ship has sailed. I am riding off into the sunset on my tiny slice of the Hill Country in my new fairly inexpensive double wide.

Otherwise, if it was first home or 2nd home upgrade. Yes I would totally agree with you about stick-built VS modular/mobile giving better returns in the long run.

[quackadikt]

I can't think of a single situation where something that expensive is a good option. You are better off renting until you can afford a home that will appreciate in value. Crunch the numbers for a twenty year time span. Your mobile home will end up with a value near zero at the end of the twenty years where the conventional home should have doubled in value.

You must not have priced 20yr old mobile homes on small acreage in the Hill Country...


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[Saltyag15]

Best thing we did on our house at the farm, was invest in a metal pole barn over it. Cuts down drastically on electric bill, and it’s nice to sit out on the porch and listen to the rain hitting the metal roof versus the trailer roof.

Couldn't agree with this more! We have an old single wide trailer that was converted to a double wide down at the ranch. A metal pole barn was built over it years ago, and the difference is huge! Great place to hang out, be out of the sun, and listen to rain.

[rjtkdplus]

You must not have priced 20yr old mobile homes on small acreage in the Hill Country...


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True. My home( without any land) increased in value over $20000 last year according to Caldwell County. I protested and lost.

I’ve had the opposite experience or some of the earlier posts with keeping it cool. We have a Solitaire that is a 4 bed 3 bath 2600 sq ft. My wife likes to keep the thermostat set at 68 and my average bill in the summer is under $200.

We chose this mobile home because the cost was less than half what a site built home would be. We used that savings to pay cash for our land.

Been in it for almost 8 years, no maintenance issues. Had to re level once $600. Had to replace the microwave that came with it and remove a family of coons that moved in underneath. That can happen with any house though. A friend in Austin had to remove a family of coons from his attic recently. Another friend in Buda had to have his house re leveled $20000.

If you figure in the property taxes and insurance every year on a house that costs twice as much and increasing in value every year, the net appreciation is less than most people think it is.

That said, it’s your money, buy what works best for how you see it.

[Shake N' Bake]

I can't think of a single situation where something that expensive is a good option. You are better off renting until you can afford a home that will appreciate in value. Crunch the numbers for a twenty year time span. Your mobile home will end up with a value near zero at the end of the twenty years where the conventional home should have doubled in value.

We paid a little over 100k for our 20 yr old double wide on 1 acre. Our house payment is around $750. In our area you cant find anything to rent for a family of 5 for less than $1200, including trailer houses.
Even with trailers houses being a poor investment, I'm still coming out better than renting.

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[BowSlayer]

I can't think of a single situation where something that expensive is a good option. You are better off renting until you can afford a home that will appreciate in value. Crunch the numbers for a twenty year time span. Your mobile home will end up with a value near zero at the end of the twenty years where the conventional home should have doubled in value.

I bought mine 15 years ago and 1 acre. Maybe if I sold it to be moved it wouldn't be worth much but as it sits I could double what I've spent on it today if I wanted to. We planned to eventually build but I like my house so we may just sit tight. To get anything remotely close to what I have in a stick-built I would have spent double the money up front. I don't regret what we did.

[RifleBowPistol]

All my life I swore I would never own a mobile home, well things did not go my way on that one. We were looking for a house out in the country, with some land. We looked at a lot of places. I really liked the idea of the barndominums, some of those look really nice, when done correctly. No worry about termites, rotting roofs, no particle board falling apart, when it gets wet, they now call OSB. No rotten siding, a steel frame house on a concrete slab, I really like the sound of that. But the wife and her realtor buddy would not take any of them seriously, they would not consider any of them I found. Then the realtor and a guy from the mortgage company, did their best to steer us towards one mobile home with some property. I was completely against it for multiple reasons. Well turns out what I think, want, don't want don't matter for crap. We got that mobile home, that I did not want. I really like the area, just really did not want a mobile home. The property I really like, the area has lots of trees, hickory, post oaks, blackjack oaks, dewberries, mustang grapes, two things I grew up with. But the hickory and the two types of oaks are something completely new to me, I like them.

I don't care, what they have to say about how well they are made, ECT. I am not very impressed by the way this place is made, but then a lot of new houses probably aren't made any better. I would rather have a house built in the 80s or older, personally. Every time I seen new construction, even expensive custom homes, I see them using particle board/OSB. I would refuse to let that stuff on the property, if I saw them trying building my new house with that crap. But it's the standard now days.

We did the deal, the mortgage company said they would finance it at 4.72%, RBFCU said they would do 4.7%. I said, I trust RBFCU more than the mortgage company and they are slightly cheaper on the interest rate. Wife said no, we have already started the process with this mortgage company and they are buddies of her realtor buddy. Well we got run the through all types of hoops, finally got to the closing, while signing the mountain of paper work, saw they had changed the interest rate to 5.5% on us. We had signed three contracts on the house, they had to change the contract because of mistakes, then the price came down, because of the appraisal. All three of those contracts were 4.72%, last one of those was a week before the closing. Then they come up with the 5.5% at closing, I wanted to walk out. But was told to stay and sign, that we would refinance as soon as possible. So just take your screwing now, get unscrewed later. Yay!

So back in February I talked to RBFCU about taking out a loan to build a shop on the property, they gave me many options, a couple of which were home mortgage loans. I said, yes I want to know what we can do there, really want to get the house refinanced. Well since we have only been in the place 1 1/2 years, we have very little equity in the house. Ok, yep understood. Well RBFCU said they would only refinance 75% of the value of the house, since it's a manufactured house. Again. YAY! YAY! YAY! This is only a 2 1/2 year old house and we were not going to be able to refinance anytime soon, then you know the value of the house is going to fall off a good bit by the time it is 10 years old. So again. YAY! Man, am I loving this BS.

The thing that saved us, or me from hunting down the guy from the mortgage company that pushed us towards this place, then screwed us on the financing. Was the interest rates just recently dropped very low. We got our house refinanced for 3.125%. I can live with that, but had it not been for this very much out of the ordinary situation that resulted in interest rates dropping to all time lows, we would most likely be paying that 5.5% interest rate on this place, till we sell it.

I can tell you there are all types of things they don't tell you before you buy one, that you will find out after you have bought it. I did not like the idea of buying a mobile home before and less now. When you find out that everything related to mobile homes is special. Special financing, special parts, that can be hard to find. Special means, more of a PITA and you don't get the same deals as a house with a concrete slab under it.

Would I ever recommend a mobile home? Most likely no, about the only time I would, is if someone wanted a house on a piece of property that was a long ways away from a town with a cement plant, so cement would be hard to get.

[gfulton]

I can't get a good nights sleep unless I have an axle running thru my bedroom. LOL

[TheHammer]

Technically a 50K mobile home will have a higher ROI than a 350K house over 30 years. I don’t live in one, but I would 100% before I ever rented.

I’ll wait on the dog pile to tell me I’m wrong to explain the numbers.