As an owner of a modern manufactured... I have a few thoughts.
So... can we differentiate between pre-1980s trailer homes and post-1980s? There's a huge difference as the HUD standards changed, and the stuff most people think of as a "trailer" is absolutely ancient. Newer manufactured homes are just as well built, if not slightly better built, than a sitebuilt home, and a lot of the cost benefits are because the construction process is more efficient. They build the roof at waist height on a jig, then lift it up, paint it, and set it down on top of the house with walls. Cabinets? Build them as one unit, because the crane can put them in before the roof goes on. The house is built, in pieces, in a factory, then assembled on site (if it's larger than a single wide).
A 1970s single wide is probably a piece of trash to dispose of, yes. But for a lot of the newer stuff, the only way you can tell that it's a manufactured is that the layout has a strong split down the marriage line, and usually you'll notice that all the water is on one half of the house (easier than having lines cross over). Though some triple wides are just properly nice homes, and I doubt one person in 50 going through them would realize they were manufactured.
New trailer homes seem to be very high-priced these days ($140K for a double-wide? OH MY!), but as they make horrible investments, that must mean that old ones are cheap.
Shop a different company. Just because one company makes high end homes doesn't mean they all do. When we were shopping homes, we found 1200 sq ft double wides for $50k (with panelboard - that was built to a price and it showed), bought a 2000 sq ft double wide for about $140k with most of the upgrades (really, metal roof, quartz counters, and upgraded carpet were most of the upgrades - I had them do a ton of other stuff that was cheap during construction, but that was $200 and $300 type upgrades for the whole house), and could have spent a lot more on fancy triple wides.
At least in Idaho, $100k buys you a nice double wide.
Plus foundation, well, septic, etc. Our foundation was something like $15k, septic was another $10k. It's odd to think of those things separately from the house, but they are.
I have no issue with the concept, and my family lived in one briefly when I was a teenager. They don't make them small enough for my preferences, however - I'm not terribly interested in living in anything larger than 400-500 square feet.
You can find ~500 sq ft single wides.
Kit West out of Caldwell, Idaho has a nice ~540 sq ft unit:
http://www.kitwest.com/plan/422/cottage/1001 Put the porch on front, and it's a properly nice little small home. I've not seen much below 400, but at that point, you're talking about a travel trailer moreso than an actual house. I expect if you looked around, you could find some 400-450 sq ft ones. The cottage I linked is around $30k, depending on options, so it's not particularly expensive either.
Absolutely not. I'd rather find a cheap condo somewhere before living in a trailer. Most trailers are pretty horrible in terms of insulation and general reliability (which is why they depreciate), plus paying lot rent on top of that? It's why the poor stays poor.
You're thinking of pre-1980s units in trailer parks. My "trailer" is 2x6 exterior walls, well insulated, Energy Star rated (for a pure electric house), and even with some unseasonably cold winters, isn't that expensive to heat. I'm pure electric with a heat pump and a 200' water level in the well (a non-trivial chunk of our energy cost is the well pump), and the worst power bill I've had is $200. I run about $2k/yr in power, though to be fair, our power is pretty cheap.
At least in a small condo, even with zero appreciation, I'm not throwing tens of thousands of dollars away, and can probably sell (even at a loss) much easier than a trailer.
If your concern is depreciation, buy a used one. I've known people who did this and were able to save enough in a few years to basically buy a site-built house, cash. Not a popular thing on this forum, certainly, but if you buy a used one, and are handy enough to fix up the issues it has, you can save a boatload of money. I think they paid $15k plus $200-$300/mo for land rent, which IIRC included some utilities. Not a bad deal.
On the other hand, you can also put a perfectly nice manufactured on a lot, and have a house. Ours is still registered as a trailer, simply because we don't plan to go anywhere (family property), and it saves us a bit on taxes. I could have done the paperwork to turn it into "real property" that made it legally the same as a sitebuilt. The only difference is that I pay two property tax bills.
Our house is drywall on the inside as well. Certainly not a falling over wreck. Most people who visit us don't realize it's a manufactured, simply because, to most people, "Manufactured home" means a 1970s trailer, half falling apart. They don't realize that they reason they can't think of any modern ones is because the standards changed and they're built as well as a site built house.
Speaking of that, go look at the build quality of a $700k+ site-built in a boom area (say, Seattle). They're slapped together as fast as possible, by people who don't give two shits about build quality. And it shows. I did a factory tour before buying ours, and I came away
properly impressed. They don't hide anything on the tours - we literally saw everything from a bare trailer rolling in to the sections rolling out the far end, and I've done enough construction over the years to know what's decent and what's not. You can get a very well built manufactured. Not all of them are, and I doubt the 50k house would have held up past 15-20 years without a lot of work, but... that's still damned cheap per year, even if you do have to replace it. I expect ours to last the rest of our lives, so hopefully 60 years or so. Nothing I've seen says it won't make it.
Where I currently live, coastal So Cal, most of the mobile home parks in my town are owned by someone and you pay rent. There are, however, two that are owned by the people who own the homes, like a condo association. These are, as expected, more expensive. Insulation is not much of an issue.
Yeah, "Brutally cold" winters of 68, "very nice" springs and falls at 70, and "unbearably hot" summers at 72 will work fine with something like that. ;)
Where I grew up, in rural PA, it is pretty common to live in a manufactured home, and several of my relatives do. One of them actually worked for the company that made them until he was 50.
You buy land, build a basement, put the double wide on top. My sister has been living in hers for ... 25 years I think? Almost 30? They've replaced the interior walls with dry wall, and made other upgrades, but otherwise it's the same. Kitchen hasn't changed. No issues with insulation or anything like that. In my home town it's MUCH cheaper to put a mobile home on land than to build, or find an available, stick built home.
Also, much quicker. Quite a few of my wife's relatives out here in Idaho live in the same thing - a double wide of some variety or another, on a concrete foundation. I'd go so far as to say that's the "standard house" out here. It's quick to build, quick to install, and lasts a long while.
We signed the paperwork for our house in November, and it was ready for us to move in sometime around May. There were 1-2 months of delay there, though, because the foundation guy was booked and didn't like to pour foundations in the winter (I can't say I blame him). So, realistically, 3-4 months from "sign paperwork" to "move in" is possible with a manufactured. Try getting a site-built done in that time.
As someone who grew up in a trailer home...
I don't think living in something that is inefficient and basically disposable (as far as a house goes) is badass. They don't appreciate because they aren't expected to last. Buying a small home and maintaining it or updating it is far more badass, IMO.
What year was your home? If it was pre-mid-80s, it's a totally different thing from current generation homes. Also, my home has been appreciating. I was sort of hoping it wouldn't, but the property assessment keeps coming back higher every year...
You can buy a slapped together trailer that won't last 20 years, or you can spend a bit more and get one from a company that builds quality units that will last. I've seen the bones of the trailers going through the factory I bought from, and if anything, they're
better built than a site-built, because they're build under a roof, and designed to survive transport. My drywall is not only screwed in, it's glued in. My cabinets were built in one piece instead of many. My floor is glued down, so shouldn't ever squeak.
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So, I guess, to the topic question, my answer is, "Absolutely." We love it.