The Manufactured Housing Forums

Hi all

I have been reading the posts over the past several months and I have the 2 Manufactured housing books recommended. I have learned a whole lot from both of these and I am so grateful!

We are in Central Arkansas and we think we have finally decided on a home and I wanted to share. We are doing a land/home package with an acre that was given to us by family. We will hold the land title in a few weeks when all the paperwork is completed. At that time we will start our home deal. We found a dealer we really like and feel like we can depend on her and trust her to treat us right. She was the only one who was honest with us about the pros and cons of doing a home-only and trying to put the land improvements in. Every other dealer told us that home-only with land improvements wasnt a problem and we could do that. Come to find out that is really fraud to borrow more than what the house is worth and if the lender found out we could lose the home down the line! She discussed other options with us and we decided to put an acre in a land/home package to get the best rate, have a higher value of our home, and to get all the land improvements in (driveway, septic, water, electric, runners,decks and possible storm shelter) In this deal we dont even have to pay a down payment or closing costs if we dont want to.

The home we have picked is the Cavalier Englewood Model SS-06-E5225. It is an upgraded Powerhouse 28x80 (2026sq.ft.) 4br- 2bath, with 2 living room areas for 57,800. It has 2/6 ext walls, thermopane windows, Upgraded insulation (3?/3?/2? Something like that), Upgraded appliances, OSB flooring, 16" centers, 4 ton Lennox Central air installed, Garden tub, fireplace, Other nice things I cant think of right now. It even has the entertainer package with 42" tv with DVD/VCR and surround sound. (That didnt affect our decision but we left it in as a sweet option) This house seems to have everything we are looking for and for a great price. The only thing I would like to have would be tape and texture instead of the usual walls but it isnt a huge concern. I might price this if it is offered in this plan.

If anyone has any experience with this model or similar, or can think of any questions I should ask please let me know. I have asked all that I can think of so far, but I know there are probably little details I have overlooked.

It almost seems too good to be true we found a house we really liked everything about so easily. We have been looking for a year now, and just recently have been looking more seriously. I am not rushed as we have to wait a few weeks for the land to be free first, so if needed we can still shop around or add options.

Thanks!

Natasha

That sounds about like what me and my husband are looking for...except a Skyline. What kind of payments and interest rates are you looking at? I am just curious, because we haven't gotten that far yet. We also have an acre of land my mom is going to deed to us, but we have to pay off what she owes which isn't much. Thanks!

I also live in Central Arkansas and have been searching for the past year. Could you tell me what dealership and who you saw. I would greatly appreciate it.

We are working with Vivian Sanford at Quality Homes in Searcy Arkansas. So far I really have a good feeling about her and her integrity. We are just in the beginning stages and will get to the nitty gritty probably next month, so I can report in my experience as things progress. We havent officially had Mortgages shopped for us yet as we dont have the land quite yet, but from what I understand the typical Land/home deal like this is usually a fixed 6.6% She said she would take the time to shop around for the best deal for us.

Roughly Estimated with home, financing expenses, and land improvements our loan should be around $80,000. (we havent gotten solid estimates on the work yet so this could vary) So we are looking at the ballpark $600-700 month payment with taxes/insurance, maybe lower. That is what we are shooting for in our minds. We decided all this early on so that we would know about what price house we were shopping for and not to look at higher ones. We wanted to stay under $60,000 so we would have lots of room for the rest of the stuff we have to have done to the land.

We have been all over this past year from Russelville to LittleRock to Batesville, but the dealer we ended up liking best was here at home in Searcy. We had really avoided Searcy because we had heard from others that Manufactured homes were more expensive than in, say Little Rock. But that isnt neccesarily so, you just have to shop around. One thing I will say is I wouldnt recommend going to Affordable Homes. We thought some of the homes were a little pricy for the quality in Searcy, and the BBB has them listed as unsatisfactory for not resolving complaints. We went to a branch in N Little Rock and the guy couldnt even give us the specs on the house. He said they were locked in the file cabinet and the person with the key wasnt there that weekend. But he proceeded to tell us all this stuff he would throw in if we wanted to buy it. I could tell it wasnt built good just by looking. No thanks. That was enough to scratch that whole dealership off our list ;0)

We even took the time to look at some Repos. My uncle got a really good deal on one about a year ago, but he was able to pay mostly cash and it was in near perfect condition. Everything we looked at didnt have the contstruction specs on it and they told us that if the owners manual thing was in the home then they could tell us what was in it, otherwise they didnt know. We decided we'd rather spend a little more and get our warranties and things. A repo has a 30day warranty and after that tough luck. The differece in prices of the sizes we looked at was only about $10-$15 grand from brand new anyway. Not enough for us to take the chance. We eliminated this option for us pretty quick.

Natasha

This is for both you and the other poster here....One has to be careful when land is gifted...most lenders will accept gifted land in lieu of downpayment...BUT..the deed must be worded very carefully...

Commonly a gifted deed will read something like "for $1 and love and affection" I give my wonderful kid this property....Some lenders would NOT consider this a gift and the equity could not be used in lieu of down...It is seen as a purchase for $1...The equity then cannot be used for up to 12 months...

We tell our gifted customers not to do any deed work until the new loan is done and the closing attorney can take care to word the deed the exact way that is required..This will allow you to qualify for conventional loans with little or no down...

Good Luck

Natasha,
From what you have said, it appears the land improvement cost is about $22,000.00. Is this correct? Can you give us a detailed breakdown on the estimated cost for example septic, water/well, etc. Please keep us posted and thank you very much for shairing with us.
Kevin C