See how choosing a home and its finishes works, learn what to check on land, title and financing, and tell us what you are looking for.
A manufactured home is bought differently from a site-built house. These four things shape the purchase more than anything else, and each one has a full guide.
A manufactured home can sit on land you own or on a rented lot in a community. On a rented lot, the community screens you as a resident, the way a landlord screens a tenant, and it can say no.
Expect an application that can cover credit, income, pets and vehicles. Ask what lot rent will be for a new resident, because in many communities it is higher.
A manufactured home is either personal property with a title, much like a vehicle, or it has been legally attached to the land and is conveyed by deed. Paperwork decides which, not the foundation.
Ask which one the home is before you make an offer. It decides how you can pay and how the sale closes.
A home converted to real property on land its owner holds can be bought with a mortgage. A titled home, which includes most homes on rented lots, is usually bought with cash, a chattel loan secured by the home but not the land, or owner financing.
Chattel loans generally carry higher interest rates than mortgages. Lenders also look at the home's age, foundation and condition, and homes built before June 15, 1976, when the federal HUD Code took effect, are frequently turned down.
Most manufactured homes are moved exactly once, from the factory to the lot. Moving one again runs into hard limits on age, wind zone and condition, and a long list of costs.
Check the data plate and confirm in writing that the destination will accept a home of that year and wind zone before anything else.
New manufactured homes come in a range of color packages and finishes. Pick an example home below and change its exterior color, and on the 4-bed its kitchen countertops and cabinets, to see how choosing finishes works.
1. Pick an example home
2. Choose finishes
Manufacturer renderings of this floor plan in six of its published color packages. Shown as an example of how choosing finishes works, not as a home for sale here.
Six of the color packages published for this plan.
Your design
4 bed, 2 bath, 1,475 sq ft, 28' x 56'
Exterior
Interior
This takes you to the form at the top of the page, with your choices attached.
Longer reads on what to check before you commit. Written to hold true wherever you are.
The Sale Process
8 min read
Paperwork
8 min read
Title and Ownership
8 min read
BuyMyHome.Now is on Facebook.
Follow the page on Facebook (opens in a new tab)
