Latestarter's ramblings/musings/gripes and grumbles.

[misfitmorgan]

Manufactured houses have come a very long way, at least the modern ones. I was stunned and shocked when we started looking at house firstly at how much modulars cost....and how nice "trailers" are now.

I feel in love with a modular house and then had my heart broke when i found out just the house and setup was $115,000 and the house is "only" 1.800sqft.

Then i found this house....which i am more in love with!
http://www.americanhomestyler.net/_Schult_28x56_32__23-84.php#prettyPhoto
This house locally to me:
Base price - $59,535 (pretty much what you see is the "base" stuff for that model)
manufactured home is $59,900
Modular house is $88,284

Schult and fairmont brand modular/manufactured seem particularly nice.

 

[misfitmorgan]

Also....you could just move here..

33 acres with 1 bedroom and a separate "cabin".... creek and woods on property, major whitetail/rabbit/turkey area, annual taxes $745 and an asking price of $89,900 could likely easily get it for 85K

AND the best part....its 5 minutes from my house

 

[Baymule]

@Latestarter are you starting to feel loved and wanted??

 

[babsbag]

Nobody wants to come to CA

Our neighbor was shooting into a bank and I guess he hit a rock as the bullet whizzed past my head. I was about 200' away in a totally different direction. We shoot into a ravine with no neighbors anywhere near us.

 

[Latestarter]

Holy crap @babsbag That is NOT a good thing! Did you let the neighbor know? Hopefully he'll be able to shoot at a different angle or something... Maybe make a "U" shaped berm or something to shoot into... I really don't want to/can't move to CA, (really, can you blame us?) but it's nothing personal against YOU! And now that you've gone so far on your dairy, there's no realistic way you'd move either...

OK, I'm responding/going backwards here...

Why yes @Baymule as a matter of fact, I'm feeling just all warm and smiley here Everyone wants me to contribute to their local economy/tax base

@misfitmorgan I have no problems with the newer manufactured homes. I know they have improved 1000% in the past 30 years. Even the one that I'm in that's 26-27 years old now isn't terrible... It's nowhere near a stick built (mine) quality, but also nowhere near as good as the new ones are. There are differences though, like the interior walls are not drywall, they're lightweight paneling. No paint here, it's all designer panels. The trim isn't regular trim... it's paneling trim. that sort of thing. Modular homes are (way) more expensive than manufactured or stick built. Out of my market range. Sorry... I don't see Michigan in my future . But I do see a very good possibility of another manufactured home in my future.

 

[misfitmorgan]

Holy crap @babsbag That is NOT a good thing! Did you let the neighbor know? Hopefully he'll be able to shoot at a different angle or something... Maybe make a "U" shaped berm or something to shoot into... I really don't want to/can't move to CA, (really, can you blame us?) but it's nothing personal against YOU! And now that you've gone so far on your dairy, there's no realistic way you'd move either...

OK, I'm responding/going backwards here...

Why yes @Baymule as a matter of fact, I'm feeling just all warm and smiley here Everyone wants me to contribute to their local economy/tax base

@misfitmorgan I have no problems with the newer manufactured homes. I know they have improved 1000% in the past 30 years. Even the one that I'm in that's 26-27 years old now isn't terrible... It's nowhere near a stick built (mine) quality, but also nowhere near as good as the new ones are. There are differences though, like the interior walls are not drywall, they're lightweight paneling. No paint here, it's all designer panels. The trim isn't regular trim... it's paneling trim. that sort of thing. Modular homes are (way) more expensive than manufactured or stick built. Out of my market range. Sorry... I don't see Michigan in my future . But I do see a very good possibility of another manufactured home in my future.

No actually the one i linked for the manufactured has a all drywall interior and normal "brick" moldings, except where it is purely decorative like by the wooden wall in the foyer, which is a thinner molding. That is actually an ad for a texas place too. When you say out of your price range you mean the property and taxes are? Cause that's quite cheap for most US places. There are better and worse deals here lol like our place is 20acres for 45k...our buddy just bought his place for 20acres and 126k. he irony is he wants to farm too but his place just had a nice-ish house and a small pole garage, our has all the outbuildings and tillable etc but crappy house aka trailer built in 1970. In all honesty i would not want to move to michigan either but my family lives here and they wont move, the buggers.

 

[Latestarter]

I was talking about MY manufactured home... that I'm living in right now... with paneling etc... I was saying that a modular home (new purchase) was out of my price range. At least for what I want it is. I priced them and for what I want they start around 150K, and that's just the home, no land/foundation-basement/installation-moving/well/septic/fencing/barns/animals... When it was all said and done, the total cost to be move in ready would have been in the 250K range just for the home.well hope you see what I mean... I'm all about downsizing and for those who can live in one of those "tiny houses" (closet on wheels), more power to them. I need SPACE... I'm in a 1480 square foot place now, and that was a downsize from my large home which was in the 2400 range. I'd really like something somewhat north of the middle ground there.... 1900-2000 square feet. 3-4 BRs 2.5 bath with decent sized bedrooms. OK, so if I won the lottery I'd buy a 5000 acre ranch and build a mansion log home; something I could get "lost" in.

As for moving from Michigan, family is great and all, but you have to do what works for you and yours. You can always visit them and vice versa...

 

[babsbag]

Holy crap @babsbag That is NOT a good thing! Did you let the neighbor know? Hopefully he'll be able to shoot at a different angle or something... Maybe make a "U" shaped berm or something to shoot into... I really don't want to/can't move to CA, (really, can you blame us?) but it's nothing personal against YOU! And now that you've gone so far on your dairy, there's no realistic way you'd move either...

I did let him know and he was pretty surprised. He had his 3 year old son outside playing at the time too. Thankfully no one got hurt. He doesn't shoot very often and is usually careful when he does. Right now the house is empty, hopefully they will sell it. He wasn't a HORRID neighbor but didn't like my dogs, flies, roosters, bees, or guineas. Fortunately he would complain but never do more than that, he wasn't vindictive which was good.

I had two roosters when he first complained about them, and no guineas. Probably 6 goats and no dogs, and one beehive. Now I have who knows how many of each (not really but you get the picture). I would be better if they sold the house.

If I did leave CA it would be to move to AZ or Utah. I need to stay west of the Rockies for humidity reasons and I am not overly fond of rain and long cold snowing winters are a no go. But I am a CA girl so here I'll stay.

 

[Baymule]

@Latestarter look into repos. HUD has repos, HUD is the devil incarnate to deal with, but you might find a good deal.

 

[babsbag]

There was one thing nice about dealing with FHA and having a manufactured home...the manufactured homes are built to HUD standards and FHA requires that the house conforms to HUD standards. So anything that they found that wouldn't be allowed in a stick built home they had to let slide as it was their code the home was built to. Very convenient . It was only a few things like a crawl space entry into the attic (Which we had put in ourselves) and the number of attic vents. When it came to financing a manufactured home it was much easier with FHA than it was with a conventional loan.