Looking for advice in Pennsylvania

[Peggy]

The place where my husband and I have worked for the last 20 years has closed its doors and we are looking for more affordable housing. We are selling our stick home and looking into buying a mobile home. We will be paying for it outright instead of getting a loan.

Is there anywhere on the Internet where we can check out the mobile home parks in our area and what their individual rules and regulations are? What things should we be looking out for when buying? Are there any pitfalls that we should be concerned with?

Any general advice anyone can give? We are finding very little real information on the Internet so far. Thanks in advance for any help!

[David Oxhandler]

The Manufactured Housing Global Network web site can offer 2 possibilities.
Search for your perfect community by City, State, or Company Name in the Manufactured Housing Yellow Pages - Communities Section.
Search the Yellow Pages for your State Manufactured Housing Association. They will be best equipped to help you locate the majority of communities in your home state.

webmaster

[Peggy]

Thanks for the links. We had actually already looked at them and they really have zero info for our area of PA. Nothing at all about what lot fees are or what is covered in those fees. Nothing about if pets are allowed or not. They only seem to tell us how many playgrounds and swimming pools they have. I just thought by now that there would be so much more information about MH communities on the Net. The Florida MH ads seem to have so much information and here in PA we're lucky to see one blurry picture. PA really needs to get its act together! Ha ha!

Thanks anyway! I was hoping there might be others from PA here that might have first hand knowledge since there is so little info and neither of us have the means to travel to every single community (17 in our county) to find out all of the particulars. Oh well, we'll figure something out.

[Moki]

Hi Peggy,

I know exactly how you feel. My husband and I made the same decision last year. I know just what you mean about finding information. I would be more than glad to share the journey with you. I have a lot of names, phone numbers, etc that would be of help to you.

Please send me your email and I'll be more than happy to help you. We have been in our manufactured home since April and I have to say, I'll never go back to a stick built.

Just send me your email and I'll send all the links I have on file.

Marianne

[Eugene]

Peggy,
In PA manufactured housing communities are NOT regulated. So they can pretty much do what the want.
My best advise to you is if you buy a MH, and want to pay cash, hold at least several thousand back until you get the home, completly finished, walked through, and any service and adjustments complete. If you don't, you will have a very, very hard time getting things fixed.