Does anyone here live in a mobile (manufactured) home and how do you like it?

[agiflow]

I recently purchased my first home which is a new manufactured home. Been in it 1 year now and I think it's great.

2 bedroom double wide with a closed off from the kitchen living room open to the dining room.

I don't like the warehouse look of open concept too much...makes me feel like I'm in a furniture store or something.

Very well built home and have a separate laundry room with a side door. I live in a 55 and over community so it's pretty nice here.

My kitchen is a wide Gally style setup that has a separate breakfast nook.

I didn't want the upkeep anymore with a yard and mowing the grass. I've been very blessed by the LORD and I'm thankful to have a place to sleep.

 

[iheartmaytag]

We lived in a 16X80 Shultz MH for 14 Years

The worst part about our Mobile Home Community. When we first moved in it was an Adults only. NOT like in X-rated or anything. Just no children allowed in the area we lived along the lake. Then about three years after we moved in it was purchased by new owners. They converted it to a anyone with a welfare check can stay place, so it became a "trailer Park"

We endured for 14 years, as 1. Didn't have the money to move it, and 2.Didn't have a place to move it to. We sold it 14 years ago now, and moved to our stick built house.

The advantage of the MH at the time was it was all new. Modern layout, modern appliances all up to code. The disadvantages don't start to show until it ages a little. Roof leaks if you don't put sealer on it every year. More difficult and expensive to heat and cool. and then your neighbor is sleeping about six feet away from you.

This is important when we heard a noise one night, looked out as the neighbors foot came through the side of his home. Drywall, siding, insulation everything. Come to find out he was a schizophrenic and had gone off his meds. He was in an episode and was loading a gun when the police arrived. That was a little scary.

We still had to mow and upkeep- each of our own yards, but the lot rent alone gradually became more and more where it was better to just own the land your home is sitting on. When I mentioned the lot rent. WE moved in in 1993 it was $135 a month for the lot rent. When we moved out in 2007, it was $265. Now it's $425 just for the privledge of a place to sit the home and utility hookups.

 

[ea56]

In the spring of ‘75 I received a larger income tax refund than I had expected so I thought it would be a good idea to buy a mobile home and use the refund as a down payment.  I bought a new 12”X60” 2 bedroom 1 bath mobile home for $5600.00.  It was in a “family park” with no age restrictions.  I believe the space rent at that time was $80.00 per mo. with the utilities separately metered.  The payment for 12 years was $102.00. When I received the huge manilla envelope with two thick payment coupon books and it hit the kitchen table with an ominous thud I was already disenchanted with living in that mobile home park.

 

I was only 24 and had this MH payment, a car payment, washer and dryer payment, a Bankamericard and Master Charge (this was pre VISA and Master Card) both maxed out and to top it off a Mervyn’s acct. too!  I felt like everything I earned was already spent before I even received it.  Plus I hated the park.  Rules, rules and more rules and neighbors that I had nothing in common with.  

 

The stress got to me and my blood pressure went sky high.  I was a Cosmetologist working on commission, and my income fluctuated. The doctor put me on disability.   While on DIB I met someone that I entered an ill fated relationship with and moved in with him.  

 

I went into Bank of America, they held the loan on the MH and I voluntarily surrendered the MH to them.  The only time in my life before or since that I ever walked out on a debt.  That voluntary repossession stayed on my credit record for 7 years and taught me a valuable lesson.  And the relationship ended almost as quickly as it began, also a lesson learned.  Within 3 weeks of moving in with him I knew it was a BIG mistake.  So I rented a Uhaul and moved out bag and baggage and went back to work and rented a little cottage.

 

I set about paying off ALL of my debt, beginning with the acct. with the lowest balance first, then the next lowest balance acct, and so on until finally in 2 years I was debt free. I even bought an older used ‘67 Buick Skylark after selling the ‘74 Chevrolet Nova getting rid of the remaining 18 mo of $139.00 payments.  Because of the repo I had to get a 12 mo. loan from Household Finance for the Skylark with $40.00 a mo. payments and I had it paid for in 6 mo., paying extra on it each month.  I never made that mistake again.  

 

We paid off our mortgage 11 years ago and have been totally debt free since then.  We use our credit cards, but payoff the balance in full every month, paying no interest.  It sure is nice to go to bed every night and know that we don’t owe a cent to anyone.

 

So, in conclusion, the MH would have probably been a good decision had I not already had so much other debt and if I had moved the MH into a park that was nicer and also had I been more mature and better able to adjust to the many rules.  Ya live and ya learn.  The MH itself was nice enough, the setting not so much.

 

Eddie

[this post was last edited: 6/10/2021-18:34]

 

[maytag85]

I’ve never lived or owned a mobile home but I stayed in a mobile home for about 2 weeks on my east coast trip back in 2019 since I was visiting some friends and family on the east coast and the mobile home I stayed in was decent for what it was but was a little small for me but otherwise was good for what it was. I’ve looked up videos of brand new mobile homes and the mobile homes of today are completely different from what they were in the 70’s and 80’s and most look like a normal house.

 

[agiflow]

Thanks for the responses folks ! My place is 24×54 2 bed/bath with 1 walk in closet. I've been blessed to get this. Bought it outright through an inheritance. The home is a bungalow style with front porch.

The great thing about this place is I have a utility room that fits a full sized washer and dryer. The Amana set came with my house.

Not a bad way to live. Lot fees here are $600+ and that's pretty cheap for Jersey. I'm down in the south part of the state by seaside heights so it can get expensive the closer you are to the shore. There's a lot more country down here which I like also. As the south Jerseyans say BENNYS GO HOME!...LOL. I never heard that though...lol

 

[agiflow]

A few pics.Don't know why some pics randomly turn upside down.

 

[rp2813]

There's a HUGE difference between a mobile home and a manufactured (AKA pre-fab) home.  The former I'd never consider, except for the time when we thought we could find one cheap for weekend beach getaways, but that didn't pan out.  Pre-fab homes fall somewhere between mobile homes and tract homes, and are far more similar to the latter than the former.

 

Dave's parents bought a new pre-fab home near Lake Oroville around 1990 and it looked pretty much like a regular house, and the only indication inside the place that it bore a distant relation to a mobile home was in the bathrooms, which had the typical trailer type paneled-and-papered walls with vertical strips covering the seams.  They didn't stay in it very long, so I have no idea how it has held up.

 

Fast forward to 2020 when friends of ours bought a pre-fab home that was probably at least 30 years old.  It hadn't aged well, particularly in the bathrooms.  Hardly the miracle godsend described in the OP.  I don't think I'd consider one based on that, but I'm guessing that by now, pre-fab homes are better built.

 

[jmm63]

My first place was a mobile home and I have very fond memories of it. It was a 1981 Schulte 14x70. 2 bedroom, 1 bath, BIG front kitchen a living room. My own washer and dryer ( 86 whirlpool design 2000) and a cute yard that I enjoyed taking care of. I had lots of friends that lived in the park as well. I owned it for about 8 years and moved on to other things.
It really was affordable for a 22 year old's first place, I think my mortgage was $150 and the lot rent was about $300 at the end.
I think they are a great idea and one certainly isn't out of the questions in the retirement years ahead.

 

[DADoES]

 
Phone pics can be rotated properly by offloading them from the phone to a computer and using photo editing software to rotate to proper orientation.  Many/most phones have some photo editing functions but the resultant rotation changes for some reason may not follow through when the images are placed into AW posts.

 

[fan-of-fans]

Lots of those 55+ mobile home parks here in Florida.

My grandmother lived in a retirement community - half concrete block duplexes (which is where she lived), the other section was mobile homes. Some of the mobile homes were older 1970s era units and gradually over time most were replaced with new ones.

The mobile home section was all on rented lots, like most such places here. This to me is what negates the low "advertised" cost of buying the mobile home. Even though you own the unit, the lot rent is almost the cost of a mortgage payment.

All of the lots mobile home or duplex were all mowed as well as water and sewer and cable provided for a monthly fee. Also a clubhouse with pool, monthly activities, gym, etc was included. It was a nice neighborhood for a retired person.

There are a few subdivisions here with mobile homes on owned land where one doesn't have to be 55 or older. But, most of these properties, while cheap, attract less than desirable neighbors so I wouldn't buy in one.

Best way to be able to have a mobile home here on owned land is to buy on some acreage, as there are usually no restrictions there on having a mobile home.

Recently I've looked into park model mobile homes. These are much smaller units and the new ones look very nice and more like a site built home (as do many newer mobile homes.) But again, these are mostly only in 55+ parks on rented land.

 

[circlew]

While I've never owned nor lived in a mobile home, my sister has had three. The first was a double-wide she and her first husband bought used shortly before their marriage. It was in a small park, and they lived there a couple years. Then they rented it out for a couple of weeks before it was hit by a tornado, which pretty well destroyed it. The remains were sold to someone who wanted the frame to make a portable stage. The second MH was a single wide on property in the country. I helped them renovate it, and they lived in it for several years. It became too small when her two kids got a little older ( 2 and 6) and needed more space to play. The third one was actually a "modular" home, which was purchased new in 1987. It was very attractive, but had some quality issues. The garden tub in the master bath had a crack in it, so didn't hold water too well. It was replaced under warranty. After a couple years, laminate started coming loose on the countertops, and a couple cabinets had drawers that wouldn't open and close properly. There was also an electrical problem that developed, where certain lights and receptacles stopped working. That was finally traced to a bad connection underneath, where the line from the front half connected to the back, where the panelboard was located. By this time she had remarried, so she and her present husband moved into his parent's old house, and renovated and expanded it. They reside there at present.

 

[cfz2882]

1981-

friends bought a new Bonavilla mobile home:I was impressed it came with everything except TV and kitchen utensels Beds and the bedding were provided!

 

[wayupnorth]

My aunt bought a nice Beaumont in the early 70's and had it placed in the dealers park right by noisy I-95. She could only buy her heating oil from one dealer due to park restrictions. You were responsible for lawn and snow removal from your lot. Being colder this way, she had a hard time heating that tin box because all the ducts were in the middle and the outside walls actually had frost when below zero and the water froze up quite a bit too. Parks around here now are at least $400 monthly lot rent now. Not worth it.

 

[ea56]

My aunt and uncle bought a new double wide 24’X60’ MH in Marin County in ‘72.  I was with my aunt when she bought it and she paid $11,800.00.  It was in a lovely MH park in Ignacio, near Novato, Calif.  You drove up a winding hill drive then down into the park.  All the lots were terraced with lots of space to plant your own plants.  My uncle was a Chief Engineer of Standard Oil tankers and was away from home for long period of time at sea. My aunt had severe kidney disease and required hemodialysis 3X’s a week, so  the MH was low maintenance for her.  She passed away in late ‘95 after two kidney transplants and my uncle lived to 94, passing away in late 2019.  My cousin was the executor, he sold that double wide in that desirableMH park for $420,000!!!!  Talk about a profit!  They had upgraded lots over 47 years they lived there, but it was only a two bedroom home.  Granted the master suite was huge, and the living room and dining room and kitchen were very large, but $420,000 for a double wide, holy mackerel.

 

BTW, it was this aunt and uncle that encouraged me to be my mistake of a MH.

 

Eddie

 

[rp2813]

Phone pics can be rotated . . .

I have transferred i-phone pictures onto my laptop and rotated them, but when I post them here they still go sideways.  Then I rotate them in a way that I think will make them display straight up and down and they still go sideways in another direction.  Never do they display properly.  I've resigned myself to leaving them sideways and no longer bother to try and outsmart the highly flawed algorithm.

 

I read here when this first started to be an issue that browsers were to blame, and that the algorithm presumes that the brightest part of the picture is the sky even if it's not an outdoor shot.  Picture #1 of the subject manufactured home above disproves that theory.  This is highly aggravating, but like so much of modern technology, we are forced to accept it, warts and all.  Nothing like this would ever have been allowed at places like Bell Laboratories back in the day, but the target demographic only knows sloppiness and falls in line.

 

[DADoES]

 
Another trick is that AW's software automatically shrinks too-large images (which phones and cameras nowadays always produce) to 900px on the longest side, which can deteriorate the quality.  Better results can typically be had by manually resizing images to a bit less than 900px with photo editing software, which usually does a better job.

I use an old version of Paint Shop Pro which perhaps doesn't retain the internal image file coding that defines the original orientation.

 

[askolover]

That's a nice looking cottage.  There are a few factories around here that build MFG homes.  A dealer in town has some I'd really like to look at....they are houses with steeper roof lines and flat ceilings instead of vaulted.  Some of them even have attics with pull-down ladders!  My only real problem with them is the fact that we live in TORNADO ALLEY!  I've seen what happens to them when a storm hits...it ain't pretty.  Statistics show that Tennessee has more night time tornadoes which is why we have more deaths.  My ex and I went to one of the higher end companies' factory in Russelville, Alabama to see them built.  I was very impressed by their quality at the time (1996 or so).  I picked up a packet with floor plans in it.  I took one of those plans and modified it.  Now, if I ever get to build a new house I'm going to use that floor plan.  It will be awesome and roomy, a ranch that's easy to maneuver through for a disabled husband.

 

[iheartmaytag]

All in all a good experience

Like I mentioned before there were some downsides, as there is in any place. What I loved the most was my kitchen. I loved my island kitchen. I miss it terribly.

We bought our MH from some good friends, I worked with the wife, the husband had purchased the MH as a bachelor and sold it when they married. It came along at the perfect time and served us well for what we needed.

 

[twintubdexter]

The glitz is gone

<span style="font-size: 14pt; color: #008000;"> When I bought my home here in the desert about 20 years ago I did look at a few mobile homes. I had the cash to purchase a regular new home but I thought wouldn't it be nice to spend a lot less and have all that extra money in the bank. I'm glad I didn't do that because with my poor spending habits all that money would be gone today.</span>

 

<span style="font-size: 14pt; color: #008000;">Near me here in Rancho Mirage is a sort of unusual mobile home park. It was built in 1973 at a time when the desert had very few full-time residents. At that time it catered to the semi-wealthy who could afford second homes in a warmer climate but actually lived where it got very cold in the winter. Apparently you had to prove that you had a certain amount of net worth before you were able to purchase a mobile home in this park. You bought the home but simply rented the lot that it stood on. To give you an idea of the clientele they were attempting to attract they actually had two white Rolls Royce automobiles, the stately kind that you saw in the old "Burkes Law" television program. These were used to shuffle residents back and forth to the Palm Springs airport. One car was for people and the other one was for luggage. There are photos of these cars in their archive which is located in their clubhouse...and what a clubhouse it is! It is huge with a gigantic theater and performing stage along with a mezzanine. Very few people use the clubhouse anymore along with the gigantic round swimming pool and built in spas. It all just sits there. The cost of air conditioning that building must be very high and of course the residents pay for it.</span>

 

<span style="font-size: 14pt; color: #008000;">Over the years the park has declined in appearance. Most of the homes no longer look like mobile homes. Many of them have been stuccoed-over and garage doors have been added to the carports. The management of the park is still pretty strict about what you can and cannot do however mobile homes don't age well in the desert heat. I have several friends that live there. Most of the space rents are well over $1000 a month. Like traditional homes, they all have meters for electricity gas and water. However, residents are billed by the park's management, not the utility companies. My friends pay more than twice as much as me for gas and electricity yet their homes are less than half the size of mine. I'm sure the park's management is padding the bills. I wouldn't like that at all. Rancho Mirage is a very pricey area and the mobile park's homeowners are always afraid that their property is going to be sold out from under them. It's happened before.</span>

 

<span style="font-size: 14pt; color: #008000;">I'm sure that originally the park was very nice when several Hollywood "B" celebrities like Dagmar (think the front of a 1957 Cadillac) had a "get-away-from-Hollywood" place there. Now it is just a collection of aging mobile homes "personalized" in some bizarre ways. This is the way it is advertised today:</span>

 

<span style="font-size: 14pt; color: #0000ff;"><span style="font-family: 'comic sans ms', sans-serif; font-size: 18.6667px; font-weight: 400;">"Originally built as a weekend getaway resort for movie stars, The Colony offers first-class amenities and stunning mountain views. Live the life of luxury in southern California – all at a price you can afford. The Colony features an array of paramount accommodations and conveniences to suit your lifestyle. The resort-style swimming pool and multi-million-dollar clubhouse are notable resident favorites."</span></span>

 

<span style="font-size: 14pt; color: #008000;">Miss Dagmar certainly was a healthy looking girl...</span>