Here's a big question...is a modular stick built home considered a manufactured home or a single family home? In our MLS, there is a selection for all three, but shouldn't a modular stick built home be considered a single family home? If if walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck...isn't it a duck?
With there being three selections, selecting modular only stigmatizes it. Help!
A Modular Home is not the same as Manufactured Home.
A manufactured home is built on a frame in a factory to HUD code. This home does not meet commercial standards. The frame will always remain attached to the home. It may be labeled a red seal. It is transported to site and wheels and hitch are removed.
A Modular home is built in a factory to the UBC code orIBC Code. It is built different. The flooring system is different and so is the electrical. The roof trusses are 2x4 not the engineered sticks. It may even be built on a frame but the frame is removed when set on the foundation and has no load bearing requirements. It still has to be bolted to the foundation. It may be labeled a Gold seal. A modular home will also appraise for 20% greater when the project is complete. It may be used for commercial.
All regions are different so I can only tell you about the northwest, Washington area.
A modular home is not considered a stick built home either.
Barb yes there is lenders take on this...that is why I answered it. Mobile and manufactured are about 1% higher to finance...so where is the investment savings. And most of them only go back 15 years...double or triple wides only....Pre 76s and singles are a hard money loan....your looking at about 11% interest and only 65% LTV.
It walks like a duck, quacks like a duck...but its a big goose!
Wow Chuck,
I just got a ten year manufactured home financed twenty year with 5% down in a park and a 8% rate. we do 95% LTV all the time.
Chuck...Are we talking the same thing here?...Please check the web address to see Pleasant Valley Modular Homes models.. http://www.pvmhi.com/modelhomes/off-sites.html This is the type I was talking about in my earlier post...Factory built in sections and trucked to construction site.
Sorry, I checked this afterwards, you need to copy and past the url above.
Ernie,
Yes, these homes look completely like a home built on site. A friend of mine is getting ready to list one. She could not even tell it was a modular home until the owner told her...and that was with looking at an unfinished room over the garage...exactly the same.
Chuck, why don't lenders consider this to be a stick built residence? If the materials are the same or better (most use 2x6 instead of 2x4s), it's built away from the weather with the same person building the same part instead of some subcontractor, it appears to be a better quality product. Why don't the lenders see it that way? These are not the double or triple wides we are used to.
Thanks, Barb
A modular home is manufactured...somewhere else and then brought to the site on a flatbed and usually has a crane to put it in place. Modular was the previous term used to seperate them from Mobile Homes, which people started to term "trailers". Which implied they were cheap and only poor people lived in them...hense the name "trailer trash". Then they started to build them as Manufactured houseing and raise the class along with the price. The use of 2X4s for the roof is differently constructed..and does not need to meet the same pitch requirements. 2 X 4s are alot cheeper than 2 X 6s or 2 X 8s, which is what most truss companies use to build smaller spans. Though alot of new housing builders are useing 2 X 4s with a 12/8 pitch. Thats almost like a chelet type roof. Not all lenders seperate them. They do not need to be licensed and then do a title elimination....because you can get a 3 day permit for any vehicle and move it and it takes less than 3 days for them to put it on a flatbed and deliver it to the sight...the flatbed is just moving it...and is already licensed. Back before 1976, there was no real building standards for Manufactured houseing...so they were still using aluminum wiring, asbestes insulation, and plastic tubing. Then they started to add some building codes to them that had to be in place by 1978
Most of the reason Lenders look at them the same as a mobile is the fact that they were ment to be moved...even built that way...a stick built home is very difficult to move...If you've ever seen an old house being moved...you would see how unstable and delicate they are...they were not built to move....ever. It does vary by state....farther South were there is limited snow fall...the roof doesn't require much of a pitch to drain the rain. About 4 years ago, in the Southern states...people were moving their mobile homes...and then there was no home to repo....so alot of lenders got out of the Mobile home market completely. Months later...a few came back....but only because of FHA and VA still wanting to guarentee the loans.
There is no doubt that the homes are constructed well. But the lending industry still has there stipulations...some less than others. It will be noted in the appraisal also that it is a manufactured home.
Chuck...These homes are assembled by contractors. on a foundation, they're never going to be moved...It's drywall, copper wiring, blah, blah, blah...I'd buy one in a minute over a house built on-site...It's a better product.
Ok Earnie...go ahead...buy one. I am just saying...Lenders do not like them...I am with a brokerage/Banker. Brokers find the money, they do not lend it. Banks lend the money for a few days, then sell the paper so they can loan more. I can do both. But I don't make the rules. Financial companies do that them selves, based on risk factors and saleability on the OTC markets.
If they are built by Contractors (of course they are) on a foundation? The foundation is not sent in on a flatbed...so if it is built on the foundation...which is already on the property...it is a stick built!
Ernie .....sit and have a beer with me...no intention of argueing, no need to get protective. We are on opposite ends of the country. I am a Branch Manager at A+ Mortgage in Bellingham, Washington. Terms are different in each area. Some say Modular, some say Manufactured or Mobile. I was just stating how lenders look at them.
Imagine this...there is a little Engineering geek, locked in a small closet, people hand him papers, he takes out the correction sheet and puts red check marks on the wrong answers, then sends it back thru the small hole. The answers much match exactly. Answers can not require human thought or imput, that this highly tuned machine can not recognize. They usually feed him thru this hole, and after his shift, they let him out to see the light again. This person is also known as "The Underwriter"! music please...
Since these underwriters are usually never seen in public, or leave there computer for other than necessary functions, they still see things the way it was when they went into the underground, a time where the only home built other than on the Family Farm, was a Silver Streak Aluminum shell, known as a "camping trailer".
Here in Washington, you can only get a 30 year on a brand new one. Otherwise you only get to choose from 15 or 20.
Jeff The 11% was for pre 76s as I stated. You can still get them FHA for 3% down or VA with "0"...but most lenders only go back 10 or 15 years...after that its a hard money deal.
Your friend works for a small 6 LO office that specializes in Mobiles....I have an A+ and Sound Mortgage Branch. We still have over 50 Branches and over 600 LOs in Washington State. So we actually get better pricing because we get volumn discounts that we pass on to the customers. I would really check on that ARM you have at 5%...or is an Option ARM. Without buying down points, he couldn't get you 5% on a stick built today.
They are on the way out because the prices to set them up and the extra pricing on the rate makes them un attractable. You can get a smaller stick built for about the same price. The problem is that they don't appreciate like a stick built. They are much harder to sell due to the depreciation factor.
Hi Barb,
I'm way late for this one but it just popped up on my radar so here goes anyway.
Don't listen to a lot of jibberish from so called experts that know not of which they speak. Today's "Manufactured" "Factory Built" Home is constructed exactly like any Site-Buit (Stick Built) Home. In most cases even better inasmuch as they are built in a indoor climatically controlled environment and inspected by a liecensed HUD inspector through every phase of construction.
As a RE Broker, Manufactured Home Dealer, General Contractor and Manufactured Home Contractor in California, Arizona, Oregon and Florida for the past 25 years I can assure you that having built equally as many site built projects as I have Manufactured Home projects that I would select a manufactured home any day.
As for financing? There are plenty of lenders out there willing to finance MH's if they meet the following requriements. http://activerain.com/blogs/johnarendsen
Please feel free to log onto our Truliahttp://www.trulia.com/blog/onthelevelcontractors/ or Active Rain bloghttp://activerain.com/blogs/johnarendsen for more comprehensive information about the MH Industry.
Or you can check our our website and give us a call or drop us an email. We are RE Brokers, Manufactured Home Dealers and licensed, bonded and insured General Contractors and have been actively engaged in the MH Industry statewide for almost 3 decades.
We also do "Lonnie Deals"
Web Reference: http://www.onthelevelcontractors.com
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