Houses, duplexes, apartments and condos are among the many ideas that come to mind when someone is considering buying or renting their next home. As interest rates and property taxes rise, along with other cost-of-living increases, many are looking for ways to save on their housing costs without sacrificing quality of life. Realtors trying to assist their clients, along with those shopping for a home, are often caught between budgetary realities and the hopes for finding a nicer home for a lower price. If you or a client of yours is in this situation, take heart! There is an often overlooked solution which we will briefly explore below. Todays Manufactured Homes offers appealing features and quality that dont fit the stereotypes and images of older mobile homes. Think for a moment. Site-builders today actually buy most items pre-built in a factory and then assemble them on site. This saves time and money, and makes sense. It is also logical to build the whole home in a factory, and move it to its location for permanent installation. This can save 1/3 or more off the price of site building, (actually, site-assembling) so building a manufactured home saves money and makes sense too. One thing that stymies some prospective home buyers is the location for a manufactured home (MH). MHs are typically sited on either privately owned land, or leased property. Each option has pros and cons. If the land-lease community is properly managed and operated, there are many advantages good people may overlook. Because you dont have to buy the land, residents in land-lease community are not paying land taxes. The money saved by leasing land means a lower purchase price that can save a home buyer $30,000-50,000 or more on lot cost. When this is added to the money saved by factory building a home vs. site-building, it can mean a 50% savings or more vs. purchasing a new site-assembled house. Or to look at this a different way, one could buy a brand new Manufactured Home for the same or lower investment than many older houses (fixer uppers) that are on the market today. In an apples to apples comparison, when you look at what buying a new house would cost (with land) and a new MH (on leased land) because of the dramatic savings in price, in many states you are now saving potentially thousands of dollars a year on property taxes alone. That savings in property tax can often more than pay the site fees of a leased homesite, so you are essentially getting the site free its paid for out of savings. So leasing a site can yield a true savings on your total new MH housing investment. Many own site-built homes with equities large enough to pay cash for a comparable sized and quality manufactured home. For those who own a site-built house outright, the money they could save by selling their current residence and purchasing a new manufactured home could provide tens of thousands of dollars for investments, travel, or a host of appealing options that will enhance their lifestyles. These are among the reasons why in Wisconsin, 49% of all MH owners - almost half first owned a site-built house. For those who see for themselves the kind of quality and appeal that factories in Wisconsin and neighboring states are building, most walk away impressed. Others don't walk away at all...they find the place that they call their next home. Many of the myths or fears once true about older mobile homes about safety or value vanish in the face of the new realities documented by government reports, insurance statistics or university studies. Seeing is believing, so for those in the home buying market, come and see and you may find that this option will work well for you. There are old stigmas with living in a mobile home park (what we refer to as a manufactured home community or a land-lease community) that some people have. Perhaps one reason why retirees often accept this lifestyle option is because it is both practical, appealing and they no longer hung up about what other people think! While it is true that some older MH parks do lack appeal, there are community operators who work hard to provide a nice, safe and appealing place for people to live. Again, seeing is believing. Even older MHs may represent a potential win for home shoppers, because these homes can often be purchased very inexpensively, reconditioned and made to look and live like new for a fraction of the price. As prices in housing continue to rise, one thing is sure. More and more people will be buying homes built in whole or part in a factory. Perhaps this is why billionaires like Warren Buffett have jumped into the MH industry to the tune of well over 10 figures. For the open minded, this is a housing option whose time is now. |
