Home Improvement & Interior Design Guide

For instance, is your building site below a canal that can burst and flood your home, or are there earthen dams above you that can do the same, or are you in a brush-choked canyon that can be a fire hazard?

Many buyers purchase a manufactured home to put on their own lot or a piece of land in a semi-rural area, or in a subdivision specifically created for these types of homes. You’ll need to do some research; don’t assume you can just place the home anywhere you want. Often, semi-rural or rural areas have lax or no zoning restrictions.

When buying a new or existing manufactured home, you need to know what the costs are before you start signing the paperwork. And unless you stay on top of the process and ask lots of questions, the costs will creep up until you get a final bill and go into sticker shock.

As the name suggests, precut homes, also known as kit homes, are just that: all the components of the home are precut at the factory and shipped to the site, ready to be used. These kit homes are like model airplane kits or automobile kits in that all you have to do is put them together and they will look like the picture on the box.

Panel homes, like modular homes, come in a wide variety of styles, sizes, and plans. They, too, are built under controlled factory conditions with the same quality control. Unlike modular construction, however, panel homes are shipped to their home sites in panels that typically are eight feet high and up to forty feet long, with doors, windows, and wiring factory-installed, and then the panels are assembled and the finish work [...]

Modular homes, sometimes called sectional houses, are almost completely built in sections, in a quality-controlled assembly plant. Each step of the process is inspected and the final sections are tagged, certifying that the home complies with all state and federal building codes. assembly line, they are loaded onto carriers for transport to the home site.

Another advantage is the cost savings. Quality control and lower labor costs of these homes translate into serious savings when compared to on-site construction. Typically, you can save 15 to 25 percent per square foot on a manufactured home versus one built on-site.