The Manufactured Housing Forums

Ok, So the books rate Clayton homes as a 5. Clayton claims they won the 2007 Manufactured home of the year by the industry. What gives?????

Every year industry leaders vote for the individuals and companies that are considered the best in their class. Winners have shown great leadership and commitment to the industry over the last year. The award winners are chosen by their peers to be honored with the prestigious manufactured housing industry awards. Clayton builds, sells, finances, leases, and insures a full spectrum of affordable housing and are the nation's number one retailer of modular and manufactured homes.

But David, if they only rate a 5 out of 10, that means their product is pretty poorly made. How can they be so successful? Should I consider their homes?

Clayton is the largest manufacturer. Clayton builds under many different brand names and plants all with different specs and history..Many are among the best in the industry. most are for the average buyer and some are the most basic built....Clayton is the biggest because they are owned by Warren Buffet's (2nd richest man in US) Bershire Hathaway company..They are by far the best funded builder in the US..

The manufacturer of the year award is given based on financial and time contributions to the MHI. IT HAS NOTHING AT ALL TO DO WITH THE HOUSES THEY BUILD.

I would rather deal with a dealer and manufacturer whose mission is sales through quality workmanship and customer satisfaction than a company with goals of being the biggest through acquisition.

Customer satisfaction and being the biggest through acquisition are not necessarily mutually exclusive.

The Clayton family of companies has made MH financing a lot more reasonable because they can guarantee the performance of their loans to investors, This has made the repurchase of MH loans a great investment and the financing of MH across the country a lot easier for you and for me than it would have been otherwise.

Even if the lender is not a Clayton company they have put confidence back into the investor market. This is one of the reasons that the sub-prime mortgage crisis has not hurt the MH business as much as it has stick builders

As soon as I sell my present home on 43 acres here in VT I am hoping someone will sell me a decent MH. The dealers here are poor at best. i would be a cash buyer. No loan. My land that i will also purchase when my present "great vacation home" sells. It is very rustic but in a very peaceful location with a pond and brook and lots of wood for the woodstove.
I feel that if i get a buyer, I will then have no place to live since i cannot find someone to sell me a mH.

While I can't speak to Clayton's contributions to the industry, and am sure you are right as to what they have done to make loans more available, I can give an example from my experience.

Early on in my quest to acquire a new home I had established a relationship with a Palm Harbor dealer 40 miles from my home in Alabama. They were most helpful and not pushy. I was interested in a lot model they wanted to move and they priced it to me at $80,000. I wasn't ready to pull the trigger yet so I visited the lot about a month later to move the process forward only to find out the dealer had been purchased by Clayton with all new employees. The home was still on the lot so I asked about the price and was told rather rudely $120,000. So naturally, even though I'm sure this isn't the norm for Clayton dealers, I have a bad taste in my mouth.

The bright side of the story is that the disappointment brought me to research and find this sight and Grissom's books resulting in a excellent buying experience.

So...what did you buy?