The Top 10 Mobile Home/ Manufactured Home Builders

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David Oxhandler
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Joined: Tue Oct 02, 2007 8:37 am

The Top 10 Mobile Home/ Manufactured Home Builders

Post by David Oxhandler » Mon Nov 21, 2011 2:17 pm

Last year Ask.com published a list ot the top 10 manufactured home builders. Here is an unranked list of those top ten mobile home, manufactured home and modular builders that were included, along with a short blurb from each compnay's web site.

Fleetwood
Since 1950 Fleetwood has been surprising families with how much home they can afford. And throughout the years, we have grown to become one of the nation's largest home builders by offering the quality, floor plans, and design options that you'd expect to find in a custom home. Families from all walks of life are drawn to Fleetwood because of our reputation for building the finest homes, pricing them affordably, and backing them with outstanding service and warranty protection.


Champion
Champion provides a wide variety of factory-built solutions, from single-family and multi-family homes, to commercial and government buildings. Our products are distributed through a large and ever growing network of retailers, builders and developers. As a result, you’ll find Champion-built structures in every neighborhood - from rural to urban and everything in between.


Palm Harbor
Palm Harbor has consistently set the standard in beautiful, innovative, durable and high-quality affordable housing. When you choose Palm Harbor as your new home provider, you have options - lots of options.

If you are looking to build a brand new home, we can customize any of our floor plans to suit your specific requirements and lifestyle. From engineering modifications to customized tile, lighting and floor coverings, trust Palm Harbor to help you build a home that is uniquely your own.


Cavco
Cavco is a leading builder of Manufactured and Modular Homes, Park Model Homes and Vacation Cabins in the United States. Based in Phoenix, Arizona, the company has built a reputation for quality, value and service since its founding in 1965.
Cavco operates fifteen factories across the nation. Cavco supplies homes from its manufacturing facilities to independent retailers and company-owned retail centers located in the most of the U.S., as well as in Canada, Mexico and Japan. Cavco also customizes styles and specifications to the exclusive brand names of land/lease communities, subdivision developers, and large multi-location distributors.



Clayton
Whether you’re looking for a bigger home for your growing family or you’re downsizing for retirement, Clayton can give you all the comforts you want in less time and for less money. Choose from hundreds of floor plans and customize your new home to fit your needs. From name-brand appliances and custom cabinets to a stone fireplace and spa bathroom – the choice is yours. Clayton builds, sells, finances, leases and insures manufactured and modular homes as well as relocatable commercial and educational buildings. We have 12,000 team members, 35 home building facilities and more than 1,000 home centers. We also finance more than 325,000 customers and insure 160,000 families. Clayton Homes also owns and operates 18 subdivisions. In 2003, Warren Buffett and Berkshire-Hathaway, Inc. acquired Clayton Homes.


Schult
As Schult enters the new millennium, the brand continues to be tastefully designed with today's families in mind. Current homes feature walk-in closets, efficient kitchens, luxury baths and functional living areas. Designs have changed over the years, but one thing has remained the same — the name Schult is still synonymous with "quality" in the housing industry. This dedication to quality and customer satisfaction is what will continue to propel the Schult brand into the 21st century and beyond.


Skyline
Skyline has implemented a Commitment of Excellence program that is designed to help us determine if we are meeting the quality expectations of our manufactured and modular housing customers. We ask each new homeowner to evaluate their buying experience. We want to know how well you are satisfied with your new Skyline home and if you are pleased with the professionalism, service and follow-up of the retail home dealer from whom your home was purchased. If you had to do it all over again, would you choose a Skyline home? Would you do business with the same manufactured home dealer? Would you recommend Skyline or the dealer to a relative or friend?

The responses from Skyline homeowners are translated into a Customer Satisfaction Index (CSI). The Customer Satisfaction Index is compiled by an independent nationally recognized industry leader in tracking customer satisfaction. The CSI score enables Skyline to monitor if the customer's expectations have been met. To date, the results have been extremely useful. The CSI score has enabled Skyline to continually improve customer satisfaction, even in today's competitive, quality-oriented market. This effort has resulted in improved homes for our customers.


Marlette
Focused primarily in the northwestern and northeastern US, Marlette has built affordable, innovative and energy-efficient manufactured homes and modular homes for over 40 years. With Marlette's industry-leading innovations such as engineered foundation systems, forced-air heating and reliable plumbing systems, it did not take long for a pioneering reputation to set its homes apart from the competition. Company history inspires pride in its team members and is expressed not only in the quality homes built, but also in their longevity of service. A majority of retail outlets are long-term partners and have contributed greatly to establishing Marlette as a home "Designed for Living. Built for Life."


Fuqua
At Fuqua Building Systems modular home builders - we pay attention to the quality of our materials and the quality of our workmanship. We believe that when you see the facts--and see the difference--you'll choose Fuqua over manufactured, modular, or site built homes of lesser quality. Fuqua Building Systems - Innovators of the Modular Manufactured Home Industry. Look to us for ideas that improve your future home!

Fuqua utilizes a multi-million dollar modular home building facility to offer you a better way of building.

Fuqua manufactures modular, System-Built structures for use in Residential, Multi-Family, and Commercial construction. Most building concepts and architectural designs can be adapted to meet those specifications necessary for Systems-Built construction.




Silvercrest A Division of Champion Home Builders, Inc

Silvercrest / Western Homes, Corporation designs and engineers the construction of superior quality homes. As a standard feature, Silvercrest provides the SilverShield Warranty which is only available to Silvercrest home owners.
There are many reasons why Silvercrest provides the SilverShield long term warranty. Here are a few of the reasons:

Customer satisfaction
Maintains home's image
No need for a handy man
Adds value to the home
No surprise repair bills
Completely insured
Worry free living

Which builders are your choice for this years top ten list. Tell us which builder you favour and why
David Oxhandler
[email protected]

Celtlund
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Re: The Top 10 Mobile Home/ Manufactured Home Builders

Post by Celtlund » Mon Nov 21, 2011 2:27 pm

I presume these are the Top Ten in number of units sold, not necessarily the Top Ten in quality.

David Oxhandler
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Re: The Top 10 Mobile Home/ Manufactured Home Builders

Post by David Oxhandler » Mon Nov 21, 2011 5:11 pm

Which builder would you rate top in quality? and Why??
David Oxhandler
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trmimo
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Joined: Tue Sep 12, 2006 9:54 am

Re: The Top 10 Mobile Home/ Manufactured Home Builders

Post by trmimo » Tue Nov 22, 2011 5:21 am

Wow! This top 10 list only contains 4 different manufacturers! Fuqua probably builds the best house of this bunch, but it doesn't seem like they are long for this world. Silvercrest is known as the best, but like all Champion divisions, they are trying to be everything to everybody and are building substantially lower priced homes than they used to.

Celtlund
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Re: The Top 10 Mobile Home/ Manufactured Home Builders

Post by Celtlund » Tue Nov 22, 2011 4:19 pm

David, we did many years of research and read both of Grissim's books twice before we finally bought our home. We were looking in Alabama, Oklahoma, and finally Louisiana so many of the homes listed in the books were not available in these markets.
We ended up purchasing a Southern Energy Home (made in Alabama) and put it on our property in Louisiana. We did get many upgrades such as 2x6 walls with added insulation, dual pane vinal windows, etc. In doing our research we felt this was one of the better built homes with quality materials and workmanship. After the purchase we received excellent support to fix the minor problems we had from both the dealer, Greg Tilley's in Bossier City, and Southern Energy. We closed on the home in Nov 08 and moved in after I retired in March of 09. We love our home and have no regrets on our choice.

Believe it or not, our first choice of an MF home was Palm Harbor. I think they are also a good quality well constructed home. Our son bought a Palm Harbor here in Louisiana and that is the reason we DID NOT buy one. They had a major problem with the placement of the home on the property (set up contractors fault) and very poor to non-existent service after the sale. They have been in the home for about 5 or 6 years now and have had problems with roof leaks and cracks. Probably from set up and or settling. That does not reflect on the quality of the home but Palm Harbor prides itself in the fact that they sell you the home and the instillation is done by "professional factory trained" Palm Harbor people.

Another home that we seriously considered if we had moved to Alabama was Patriot Homes. I understand that unfortunately they are no longer in business. The homes we looked at appeared to be well constructed and of quality workmanship. If I recall correctly they we rated pretty well by Grissim.

We also looked at Fleetwood, Clayton, SE of Texas and a lot of other homes but they did not have the quality of construction or workmanship we wanted. As I understand it there are three classes of MF homes; entry level, mid-level, and high end. Admittedly we were looking for a high end home and I truly believe we got what we were looking for. Fleetwood, many of the Claytons, and SE of Texas seemed to fall into the entry level category. This isn't to say they are not good homes but they were not the quality home we were looking for.

My advice for anyone looking to purchase a MH is to get Grissim's books and read them TWICE before even starting to look. Secondly, sit down and figure out how much you can COMFORTABLY afford to pay for the home AND land or park rent. Once you have figured out how much you can afford to pay for the home you will have some idea which category of home you can afford to buy, and what upgrades you can afford to make to that home.

Please folks, do your research FIRST and that way you can avoid most of the problems that people have in purchasing a manufactured home.

David Oxhandler
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Joined: Tue Oct 02, 2007 8:37 am

Re: The Top 10 Mobile Home/ Manufactured Home Builders

Post by David Oxhandler » Thu Nov 24, 2011 9:33 pm

John Grissim continues to update his amazing books. Our book store is running a special offering both bookk:

The Grissim Buyer's Guide to Manufactured Homes and Land

PLUS

The Grissim Ratings Guide to Manufactured Homes,

at a discount. That’s over 300 pages of essential information, product evaluations and no-nonsense insights. Orders usually ship within 1 business day in a high quality mailer.


Here are excerpts from some reviews of The Grissim Buyer’s Guide to Manufactured Homes & Land in newspapers and magazines, together with comments from other sources:
“...a soup-to-nuts, definitive buying guide to manufactured homes, a comprehensive work.”
Marin Independent Journal

“This is a guide no manufactured homebuyer should be without....John Grissim has performed a fine public service in writing this guide ....[Readers] will gain a lot of good information that will help them make a financially sound purchase.”
Carson City Appeal

“Finally, consumers have a detailed map of the manufactured home marketplace....Presents a huge amount of sophisticated information about financing, land-home packages, construction quality, leasehold communities and, above all, negotiating a fair deal....Extensive and up-to-date information about the industry....Grissim’s advice on developing sites is especially welcome....He also hopes a new breed of ‘swindle-proof’ consumers will force [industry] change. With this solid book, they have their tool.”
Shelterforce magazine

“....offers detailed information on every aspect of planning for, purchasing and situating a manufactured home, plus information about the top 25 manufactures in the country.”
Sequim Gazette

“...Grissim did an outstanding job of research to publish a book that is jam packed with good material....[He] goes to great lengths to point out the cons in each chapter as well as the good points. You can say it is fair and balanced....There is excellent advice for anyone considering a land-lease arrangement....Grissim spells out how to negotiate a square deal on the price and any financing you might need....If you know someone contemplating a manufactured home in Florida, do them a favor and tell them to invest the small purchase price. They will save money, time, effort and frustration [by] reading this book.”
St. Petersburg Times

“From locating a reputable dealer and negotiating a fair price to understanding the pros and cons of the manufactured home...packs in ratings of top manufacturers, insights on the importance of trustworthy dealers, and guidelines for checking out models, land, and construction loans. Everything you need to buy and build one of these homes is here in one handy place.”
Midwest Book Review

“...delves into issues that could save buyers thousands of dollars and many headaches.”
Reno Gazette-Journal

And from the manufactured home industry, these comments:
“I would like to see every new hire (and a few who have been around for awhile) read this book as a condition of going to work.”
Gub Mix, Director, Idaho-Nevada-Utah Manufactured Housing Associations

“As a 20-year-plus industry marketing professional, I know how critical it is that manufactured housing hear the voice of the consumer. John Grissim’s shopping experience not only led to home ownership, but inspired a thoroughly researched consumer guide that I hope the industry welcomes.”
Fred Townsend, Principal, Maxxus Consulting, and Merchandiser Magazine columnist

“Highly readable, packed with information, and an absolute must for community owners and managers. We sent copies to all our management and sales staff in our Florida, Arizona and Oregon communities.”
Nancy Rickerd, Operations Manager, Jennett Investments, Corona Del Mar, California

“You may or may not agree with John Grissim, but if you make your living in the manufactured housing industry, you need to read this book.”
Jeff Wick, President & CEO of Wick Building Systems, Inc. & former Chairman of MHI



The Grissim Buyer's Guide to Manufactured Homes and Land


The Grissim Ratings Guide to Manufactured Homes,
David Oxhandler
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trmimo
Posts: 202
Joined: Tue Sep 12, 2006 9:54 am

Re: The Top 10 Mobile Home/ Manufactured Home Builders

Post by trmimo » Sat Dec 17, 2011 7:32 am

Fuqua has closed. And by the looks of it, they won't reopen.

David Oxhandler
Posts: 1459
Joined: Tue Oct 02, 2007 8:37 am

Re: The Top 10 Mobile Home/ Manufactured Home Builders

Post by David Oxhandler » Mon Dec 19, 2011 8:22 am

The Oregon Department of Consumer and Business Services issued an order today revoking the manufactured structure dealer’s licenses and leveling $155,000 in fines against Fuqua Homes Inc, which manufactured modular homes in Bend, and Eugene Super Sales Center LLC., a manufactured homes dealer based in Coburg.


For more on this story Click Here
David Oxhandler
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ms122r2
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Joined: Mon Apr 16, 2012 10:14 am

Re: The Top 10 Mobile Home/ Manufactured Home Builders

Post by ms122r2 » Mon Apr 16, 2012 10:20 am

I think that the best modular home builder in Illinois would be Bob Smith Building Contractor. As far as manufactures go I believe Wisconsin Homes and Hi-Tech Housing are good quality homes.

ndagris
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Joined: Fri Jun 08, 2012 5:35 pm

Re: The Top 10 Mobile Home/ Manufactured Home Builders

Post by ndagris » Fri Jun 08, 2012 5:40 pm

What is the reputation of AZ Champion Homes manufactured in Chandler AZ. I have not discovered positive nor negative reviews of their homes.They are currently running a sale.

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