New to MH, moving to acreage

[suze]

We are considering an MH to place on my husband's farm (100 acres). The land is on an unimproved road, water needs to be run to it and electricity is available, but not currently on the land. The value on this land has gone up considerably since my husband bought it, and there are signs of developers planning to do something with the area. There is already a luxury home development within 1 mile of the farm.

We are considering purchasing a MH to live in prior to building a home. The reason for this is my reluctance to live in the country. I'm not sure if I will like it and we have a 3 year old son that I really would like to have a neighborhood for him to be a part of. So, although we will be investing money in the MH, we should still be able to build the other home once the farm is established.

The purchase for the MH will probably be cash. Are there any pitfalls to purchasing a MH with cash? Because the area is becoming more affluent, should we purchase a more expensive MH to blend with the neighborhood? There currently is only one small ranch style house on our street, but the local trend seems to be over 3,000 sf houses.

The farm is located south of Dallas, Texas and there are dealers for Palm Harbor, Karsten, Patriot, Solitaire, Champion, Oak Creek and Clayton locally. We've seen the Discovery homes, Masterpiece collection Palm Harbor and a Karsten home. I've read some of the posts and have heard good things about the ones I've gone to see. I haven't read anything on this board about Oak Creek.

My first inclination is to purchase exactly what I'd want if we don't build the other house. (This could be a possibilty) But, would that be a smart decision if we do build the custom home? Should we go smaller than we originally would, or get the larger home that we'd rather have? We're looking at the 2000-2400sqft homes.

If you have any ideas on the homes mentioned or recommendations on how to handle a cash purchase, I'd appreciate hearing them.