Buying a Mobile home

[Chillimau]

Anybody got any tip, tricks, suggestions, advice on what to look for and at on new and used ones.

We've been looking at the used ones for about a month and it is unbelievable the shape or lack of, that some of these things are in. Main things we have been looking at are the ceiling, floor, cabinets for water leaks and rotten materials. Amazingly, the bathrooms are usually the room with the fewest leaks. The heat and air units are next on our list. The air handler seems kinda mickey mouse compared to a convential home. Several have just a closet with the air handler in there and the closet is the plenum. Works ok I guess, and the A-coil would be easy to clean (not that anybody has EVER cleaned any we have looked at). Next we walk the outside looking for waves in the siding and more rotten stuff. Look underneath a little. Who knows what you will find under there.

This a short term living space for us, so it doesn't need to be pretty, just clean and livable. Am I asking for too much?

Thanks

Gary

 

[8NTX]

You can find them in pretty decent shape if you try hard enough. I wouldn't buy a new one myself because of the tremendous depreciation after just a few years. There are a number of lenders that take used ones back on a regular basis, and put them up for bid. Find out from your local dealer who they finance through and contact the lender to be put on their bidder's list. They usually can be bought for less than half of the original selling price if they are more than 7 or 8 years old. If you plan to live in a MH park, contact park managers in the area to get a line on repo'd or soon to be repo'd units.

I lucked into a pretty nice used MH last year that I bought from a friend. It was a 1985 model, 14'x70' that I bought for $3,000. It cost me $1,400 to move it, and another $3,400 for new siding and a roof coat. The interior was in pretty good shape. We painted or repapered most of the interior and it is now a nice comfortable weekend/lake home for us. We plan to use it for at least another 5 or 6 years until we build.

The most common damage we found while looking at used units is floor damage, since the particle board subfloor won't hold up after it stays wet for a while. It is really not that to repair though. Damaged ceilings are probably the biggest headache to fix because of the way most of them were built. If the exterior is bad and wavy, chances are it is Masonite. The Masonite Co. was sued a few years ago, and has agreed to repair and/or replace siding that was found to be defective. Also, look for the gray plastic plumbing pipes that will eventually leak (forgot the name). I think there was a lawsuit on that stuff too and you may have some recourse there. Good luck in your search.

 

[snowman]

8NTX is right regarding the depreciation of the new ones; it's kind of like a car.

I lived in two new mobile homes after renting apartments for awhile. In the end, the rent I would have paid basically equalled what I lost on the mobile home and lot rent when I sold it, which was fine with me, because the mobile home was much larger and more private than an apartment anyway.

Things you should look for in a used one are leaking roofs (look closely at the interior ceiling for stains that may have been bleached out); I'm mainly thinking of ice dams in the winter.

Check all of the plumbing and HVAC systems, mainly connections; they don't always use the best materials.

Also, in one of mine, the access to the hot water heater was on the outside. Didn't realize that until the middle of winter and it froze up. If you're in a cold climate, should have heat tape on the piping.

All in all, the two mobile homes that I had were quite good.

 

[Kelvin]

I have two general concerns about mobile home purchases:
(1) High Depreciation Rates
(2) High Resale Efforts (relative to conventional homes)

<font color=blue>This a short term living space for us</font color=blue>

I agree with the other posts regarding the depreciation factor on mobile homes, especially new ones, which is compounded by your anticipated "short term" usage.

I assume that after the short term usage that you are going to attempt to sell the mobile home. As you look around, take note how long mobile homes are up for sale, then ask yourself how hard it is going to be to sell yours after the short term. The "good" side of this particular discussion is that I usually see tons of used mobile homes for sale, with a lot of them advertised as "assume payments".

If you plan to keep the mobile home as a second home somewhere then obviously the resale concerns would be negligible.

Because of the depreciation and possible resale problems, I would also consider the purchase of a conventional house in the same price range. Granted, it will probably be smaller, but if you keep it at least a year or two you should be able to sell it with enough appreciation to pay the realtor fees and thus break even. And it should sell easier than the mobile home.

 

[Frosty]

I echo the other posts. Rent a real house (short term right?). Around here there are a lot of properties with manufactured houses, some even on foundations. The mortgage companies generally frown on 'em.

 

[bgott]

I've sold them new and I have a few I rent out. I'm also looking for a wholesale fixer upper to put on the property I'm in the process of buying to live in myself. First off, check at least three or four places under the carpet for particle board floors. The reason to check so many places is the last one I bought I checked and found plywood. I missed the particle board. They had refloored half of it and the other half started falling out after I'd moved tenants in. It's not fun to have to refloor a trailer vacant, its a real treat to refloor it when it's occupied. If you are handy and have the time to deal with it you can get a steal of a deal on a trailer that needs floors. The next thing to watch out for is Polybutylene pipe. That's the gray stuff. They say it just leaks at the crimps, that's BS. I have the stuff start spraying water from pinhole leaks in the middle of a run all the time. I have trailers I'll eventually replumb once I catch up with the rest of the problems. Older trailers with the black tubing spring leaks also. I don't know what the black stuff is made of but it sucks, too. I do have trailers with PB that have never gave me problems. I have heard that clorine in the water is what causes PB to fail. The trailers I have that don't give me problems were set up for propane so they might have been on well water, you might not have a problem if the trailer you buy came out of the country. A lot, if not most, of the trailers built in the eighties used a funky electrical receptical box that was held in the walls with ears, like an old work box. The outlets don't like to let go of plugs when people pull them so if the house has the thin drywall they liked to use it'll pull right out of the wall. It can be a PITA to fix 'em. The HVAC units used were either Intertherm or Coleman. I don't have any problem getting Intertherm parts but Coleman sucks. That might be a regional thing. The biggest problem I have with a split system is rusted out heat exchangers. MHs are mostly downdraft so you are limited in the units you can install. I have found an electric unit that cost me around $450 with a new coil. The hot setup around here is to install a package unit when the central unit quits. The unit is around $800, less if you can find a scratch and dent. You can put a heat coil in them. The ductwork in a trailer is junk, I metal tape all the registers and on one house I finally got tired of patching and just replaced it with round ducting. I had to have the registers made at a duct company, about $15 a pop. The biggest roof problems I've had have been busted vent pipe caps. I had part of a tree go through one and I have one they Kool Sealed while wet, that one rusted all sorts of holes through it. You can fix those holes easily with flashing, sheetmetal screws and putty tape. Ripples down the side don't necessarily mean anything, MHs are flexible and all it means is it needs releveled. If it sits that way for a while it might take a set, I've got one that was twisted all to he11 and all we did was releveled it and after a year the twist settled out. That is , if they're not big ripples! I've seen some that the frame collapsed behind the axle, it's not a pretty sight! That's one bad thing about used houses, sometimes they don't survive a move and there is no guarantee on a used house move. It's easy to tell if it has Masonite siding, the walls will be ate off from the bottom. If you don't mind doing a siding job you can get a good house for cheap because of that. If I think of anything else Ill add it later, if you have any questions, ask!