The Manufactured Housing Forums

greetings, we are one of the few few people that is looking to place an mfh on private property in the city of los angeles. we are looking at palm harbor very seriously, but this weekend we fell in love with a CAVCO floorplan and the price was ok as well. anything we should know that would help us decide between the two builders. also, we've been talking with a dealer at Horizon Home Center in Hemet California (Palm Harbor) anybody know anything about this company?

Thanks
Yaya

O>K., My husband and I have been shopping and comparing for the four years that we have lived on our land. We too fell in love with Palm Harbors. We live in Gavilin HillsLake Matthews and wanted a house that would resell high. Horizon/Palm Harbor owns their own construction company and their goal is to keep all the business in their pockets. We found a dealer in Menifee that sells Cavco's out of their home office and they are very patient and not pushy at all. We opted to go with them, today actually, as they have walked us through every step. Lynch, the local well driller referred them to us after we told them about Palm Harbor Horizon selling practices. Our same house woud have come up to over $200,000 after we used Horizon for the same package we are doing ourselves for about 155,000 (this includes the balance on our land). We have total control over all the contractors involved in our project, yet they all know each other from the business, but aren't profiting from each other.

The one concept that stood our for us, is that an investor told us with all of their sales of land/home packages, no one ever asked what "brand" the manufactured home was. I hope this helps, feel free to contact us, we are pretty knowledgable at this point.

We, too, are looking at Palm Harbor Homes and noticed your message mentioning "palm harbor selling practices". We are new to the manufactured home arena. Can you fill us in on what selling practices palm harbor has that other companies might not?

Hello,

Wow! Someone else actually putting up a manufactured home in the city of Los Angeles? (You did mean the "city" right, not "county" like palmdale/lancaster, where mfd housing is plentiful, right?) Well, I am doing the EXACT same thing in Lincoln Heights (City of Los Angeles) ) and if you want good resale value I will tell you after 6 months of SOLID researching, I decided on Cavco, and I will tell you why. Cavco, for a modest additional fee, will upgrade any of their plan models to be built to the Uniform Building Code (UBC), rather than the HUD code (which is what most mfd homes are built to, which is the federal building code tht supercedes local jurisdiction). Locally however, the LA County Building Code follows the UBC. Therefore, the advantage that gives you is that, although it may be a little bit more of a hassle to get building permits (which really isn't a problem if you've hired someone competent to do your site work), THEY APPRAISE IDENTICAL TO SITE BUILT HOUSING AROUND YOU. (I can even give you the name of a guy who gets these building permits for manufactured homes through the Building Dept as his specialty for a modest fee). To me, as an investor, but also as a homeowner, that is hugely important--in Los Angeles County that could means tens of thousands of dollars additional equity when you are done building (especially right now)!! The house actually will classify as a "modular-built" home, rather than a "mobile" or "manufactured home" and on resale, that means top dollar due to the market stigma (unfounded) on "mobile", "mfd homes". Palm Harbor doesn't currently build to the UBC (and when I asked a sales rep about this (not at Horizon) a couple months ago, he was QUITE rude about it.) Now, Palm Harbor, is gearing up to do UBC-built homes in Los Angeles with a brand new line of absolutely stunning homes in one of their new division called "Discovery Custom Homes" but I talked with their sales manager in Arizona and he still said it could be another couple months before they get approval from the County. Cavco, has already leaped that hurdle. However, Palm Harbor may be worth the wait, because if you check out their website of these homes they are a knock-out.

I have been off line for a while, but in response to your question of "Palm Harbor Selling Practices", I was referring actually to Palm Harbor Homes in Hemet. They own their own construction company and the attitude that they have is "one-stop shopping". Convenient, however, most know that the convenience comes with a price. It is not cheaper to use their construction company, nor its it cheaper to use their finance company, but it is convenient and allows for impulse purchasing. If everything is on-site, why would an unknowing client go any further? I chose to go a little further and do my research and saved about $50K plus, just on the package, I don't know how much I saved in interest and extra fees, I didn't even ask.