location? location? location?



edited to add I'm a licensed Realtor in two states

Contact a realtor and ask for what the comparable prices are for the purchase. Ask what the trends are in re-sales of comparable manufactured homes on rented lots. Find out what the rules are for renting the manufactured home out to someone else should you have to leave and what the comparable rents are. Most manufactured homes do not increase in value so DO NOT consider it an "investment" unless the trends indicate it is.

Is the manufactured home listed with a Realtor? If so the Realtor's fee is paid for by the seller, along with your Realtor's fee so don't be shy about engaging a "buyer's agent" to represent you. Interview at least three before making a choice. Get someone who has lots of experience in this area of real estate. It is definitely a specialty .

Then pencil it out against the apartment option. (don't forget to include maintenance and utilities).


I'll be back tonight if you have any other questions

but I hate apartments. With an apartment, you can have neighbors who have loud, late parties. There's no privacy, no yard, no nature.
The mobile home will give you much more space and peace and quiet. No contest for me--take the mobile.

versus the meh apt, especially if the meh apt is sandwiched in, top, bottom and sides. Madison isn't known for mild winters.

holds in as little as a year from now, don't buy the mobile home. Just don't. You do not want to be stuck with something that you can't get rid of next year. Suck it up and rent an apartment until you see which way the wind is blowing.

We were unexpectedly hit with a plant closing at the height of the bad economy and ended up stuck for another year before someone bought it. Needless to say after our Realtor fees, we received less than we owed and that was after living there for 4 yrs.

I applied for the apartment. It really pained me to write the e-mail tot he owners of the manufactured home. If I had more certainty about my job situation I would have taken that in a heart beat. It was really really nice.

owned a single-wide in Maine, and I would have made the same decision under the circumstances.

I would recommend it over an apartment. It is not a double wide, but it is enough living space for me and my dog. I bought it for cash in 1997. I own it and only pay about $399 a month rent which includes water and garbage pickup.

Same advice if it were owning a house or renting an apartment. If you are in a position that you can up and leave on short notice to follow your employment, then it is more cost effective to rent the apartment than have wait out the time it takes to sell a house up and get a fair value from the sale.
Though 1500 sq. ft is quite a nice size if you have a family, and a mobile home that large usually doesn't take very long to sell, especially if you've maintained it.

The other consideration is the price; if the mobile home is in the middle to upper end range of prices in your area, then don't buy if you think you will need to resell any time soon.
But I will take a contrary position than a poster has about depreciation; having bought one built in the 1970's that I expect to retire in, I can tell you mobile homes don't have to depreciate - the condition, location or park it's located in actually determines whether there's depreciation, not the home itself. The 1560 sq. ft. double wide we bought "estate repo/as is" over the winter has already gone up in value by 9% if we want to sell; and we've already gotten offers from people who are looking at double-wides in the area even though we haven't quite finished renovations.
(The "sold" sign hasn't been taken off the front "yard" area yet by our selling agent, and he has asked permission to let people come through while we're there doing renovations to give potential buyers a chance to see what can be done to update and modernize and still be within the structural specs for a double-wide)
We were offered almost three times what we paid for it just last week - $72K, and we haven't finished painting and putting our hardwood floors in, and still need to install and tile the master bath shower.

The potential buyer was willing to finish what we started... Of course, our park is a desirable park with good management, decent views, reasonably sized lots and low lot rental.
If housing prices are going up, mobile home prices in reasonably priced, safe mobile home parks will follow as the average home buyer finds prices are going above their reach.

FWIW, the ultimate in mobile homes: there's a large triple-wide mobile home in a Malibu mobile home park that originally bought for around $90K in the early 1990's - and the owners added to and updated it to the point that it sold five years ago for over $2million.
The buyers were willing to pay that sort of price because 1) there's no CA property tax to worry about, just the annual plate tax on the original triple wide. That's around $1K a year. Oh, and 2) they only have to worry about the monthly rent-controlled lot rental for the 6400 sq ft bluff lot with beach access it sprawls across.

Haele

is the maintenance. If the air conditioner or any appliances had issues, they fixed it right away and at no cost I me. If your job may require to move on short notice, buying a home in your current location might be a bad idea.