Hello Lalla!

I actually spent the early years of my housing career working in all stages of Manufactured housing so I am very well educated to answer your question.


"Mobile Homes" Now called Manufactured Homes are a great way to purchase an affordable home. Yes, if you are looking a a Manufactured home in a community...then the lot that the home is placed on is a rented lot. You purchase the home and rent the land. Manfactured homes are actually built better than stick built homes if you are purchasing something from 1980 and newer to keep things simple....the codes for building a manufactured home "mobile" home are written by the national government. The home is built in a factory (not outside like stick built) and if a home is built well enough to travel down the road usually 100 miles to the site "lot" where it will be set ...don't you think it is built well? Manufactured Housing is built very well and yes you are right...you do not own the land. But, the way the land owner makes money is by having you live on his land and you pay rent. The only way someone would want you to move your home is if you stop paying the land rent or if the land is being taken over to improve a public necessity like a air port expansion etc.

All and All....this is a wonderful way to own a home in a managed community..where you can have a yard, a dog and a garden and own a little piece of the american dream.

So, I say go for it and good luck.

The newer mobile homes are perfectly safe as long as you don't place it in an area that gets hurricanes or heavy flooding. The only side affect of living in a mobile home is that they are not built as good as houses but they are still fine for living in. I own two of them and love the fact that everything is on one level so there are no steps to climb. If you don't have your own land to place it on and you live in a mobile home park there are rules and regulations that you have to abide by otherwise the land owner can ask you to leave. You would either have to move the mobile home somewhere else or sell it and the landowner has to agree to whoever buys it that they are permitted to live there. They do credit checks.

Mobile homes are in a different category than a conventional home. First of all you don't get a mortgage, you get a loan similar to a car loan. Second, you lease the property that you put the mobile home on. (Unless you own land where you plan to park it).

Are they safe? Well don't park them in Tornado Alley or in the path of hurricanes.