Completely Surprised

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starwatcher
Posts: 4
Joined: Tue Jul 23, 2013 8:55 am

Completely Surprised

Post by starwatcher » Tue Jul 23, 2013 10:11 am

We're in the process of closing a deal on a property in SW Georgia. It's 7.24 acres that has a 2,400 sqft (4br, 3ba) Cavalier Brigadier manufactured home. The home was built in 2005. I think that was before Cavalier bought the Brigadier line. When we first visited the property I was ignorant of the difference between mobile, manufactured, and modular. So when we looked at it I was thinking I was looking at a "pre-fab" home. When I went to find financing I was bowled over to find out one, it was actually a wheels under manufactured home (mistakenly called a mobile by some) and two, VA won't touch this type of home anymore. Actually the county has it listed as a mobile which according to my research anything built this way since 1976 is now considered a manufactured home. I'm not sure if this really means anything but it sounds better than "mobile home." Do you think I'll be turned a deaf ear if I try to get the county to list it as manufactured rather than mobile?

Two years ago they replaced the original roof with a steel roof to take care of some hail damage. I like this as I have heard that for the most part steel roofs outlast the homes under them.

We're keeping our fingers crossed that it was properly anchored, etc. so it meets the standards required by our loan provider.

I guess my biggest question would be is there a significant difference in doing upgrade work on this type of house. An example would be installing a sliding glass door in the exterior wall of the "den" area. Currently the only rear door is through a utility room to a small deck. I'd like to eventually extend the deck across the back and put a sliding glass door into the den and maybe even into the breakast nook adjacent the kitchen between the den and utility room. Is this kind of work signfifcantly more expensive to do/have done over what it would cost for a site built house?

rmurray
Posts: 1086
Joined: Thu May 25, 2006 6:49 pm

Re: Completely Surprised

Post by rmurray » Wed Jul 24, 2013 6:10 am

Remember if you ask the government to change its terminology, you the outsider(maybe even YANKEE) will be asking an old school southerner who calls a certain tortoise a gofer and probably calls your home a trailer (not yet accepting the much more modern mobile home term). Maybe 30 oR 40 more years from now the much more legally correct term of manufactured home will slip into the jargon. The fact that the federal government codified the name 45 years ago means little to an old time conservative Southerner. They feel that the federal government has NO business telling a local how to talk. You will be happy to know this same person will be HIGHLY appreciative of your service as a Marine.

Cavalier built that home in what had been at one time a plant that had belonged to Brigadier in Millen, GA . Brigadier went out of business decades earlier when all of its management died in a plane crash. It operated under many owners in the following decades till Cavalier took it over in about 2004 and closed it in 2009. Since the only business in Millen was this plant it is now not much more than a ghost town.

You have a very well built nice home. Home improvements are similar to stick built improvements. If I remember right you have 2x6 exterior walls wrapped in OSB siding under the vinyl.

Enjoy your home...

loansbyerik
Posts: 7
Joined: Thu Jul 25, 2013 11:16 pm

Re: Completely Surprised

Post by loansbyerik » Thu Jul 25, 2013 11:27 pm

I did a reverse mortgage about a year ago for a gentleman who lived in Kentucky. He lived in a Manufactured home on land on a permanent foundation. Come to find out, when he bought the home, the title from DMV was never recorded with the county in order to convert the home to REAL property. We had to basically help him get the entire process done and took a couple months to do it. The fire inspector as well as a foundation inspection had to be done and turned into the county. Even though he had been taxed for the last 10 years as real property, it wasn't listed in county records as real property.

Bottom line is, there is a good chance your county will make it correct so you can get the proper financing. If you need help, give me a jingle.

HOWEVER.. my company and most other will not finance the home if you do any improvements to the home. So if you want to do an addon, you may not be able to refinance it later. They are built just as well and standard as stick built, so the modifications won't be too much different from that of a stick built home. Just heed the financing issue later on.

starwatcher
Posts: 4
Joined: Tue Jul 23, 2013 8:55 am

Re: Completely Surprised

Post by starwatcher » Tue Jul 30, 2013 7:15 am

Well Mr. rmurray I guess you can call me Joe Carpetbagger even though We've lived in Georgia for seven years now. I'd lay money we have more of a Georgia state of mind or sutheren attitude than most our neighbors. Thanks for the info, I'll make note of the useful stuff.

At this time I have no idea what impact changing the home designation would be. There has been no indication that there would be any recurring gubment charges outside real estate tax. I was just asking a simple question thinking if we were in need of selling in the future it might look better if it were referred to as a manufactured home as opposed to the deprecated mobile term. Actually, we're looking at this as our last stop. The payments will be low enough for us to handle with our retirement funds when I can choose to stop working in the next few years.

loansbyerik . . . thanks for the offer. I think everything is moving along. We just have to wait for the loan folks to do their stuff. What in the world would cause a loan company to reject improvements if they were done to code and with all the proper permits? I see manufactured home builders offer sliding glass door upgrades. If the structure of the home is essentially the same as a stick built I don't see that a proper installation should affect the manufactured home in any way different. Also, what about the metal roof that replaced the OEM roof? Would your company reject that also?

Thanks for the replies guys . . .

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