In the spring of ‘75 I received a larger income tax refund than I had expected so I thought it would be a good idea to buy a mobile home and use the refund as a down payment.  I bought a new 12”X60” 2 bedroom 1 bath mobile home for $5600.00.  It was in a “family park” with no age restrictions.  I believe the space rent at that time was $80.00 per mo. with the utilities separately metered.  The payment for 12 years was $102.00. When I received the huge manilla envelope with two thick payment coupon books and it hit the kitchen table with an ominous thud I was already disenchanted with living in that mobile home park.

I was only 24 and had this MH payment, a car payment, washer and dryer payment, a Bankamericard and Master Charge (this was pre VISA and Master Card) both maxed out and to top it off a Mervyn’s acct. too!  I felt like everything I earned was already spent before I even received it.  Plus I hated the park.  Rules, rules and more rules and neighbors that I had nothing in common with.  

The stress got to me and my blood pressure went sky high.  I was a Cosmetologist working on commission, and my income fluctuated. The doctor put me on disability.   While on DIB I met someone that I entered an ill fated relationship with and moved in with him.  

I went into Bank of America, they held the loan on the MH and I voluntarily surrendered the MH to them.  The only time in my life before or since that I ever walked out on a debt.  That voluntary repossession stayed on my credit record for 7 years and taught me a valuable lesson.  And the relationship ended almost as quickly as it began, also a lesson learned.  Within 3 weeks of moving in with him I knew it was a BIG mistake.  So I rented a Uhaul and moved out bag and baggage and went back to work and rented a little cottage.

I set about paying off ALL of my debt, beginning with the acct. with the lowest balance first, then the next lowest balance acct, and so on until finally in 2 years I was debt free. I even bought an older used ‘67 Buick Skylark after selling the ‘74 Chevrolet Nova getting rid of the remaining 18 mo of $139.00 payments.  Because of the repo I had to get a 12 mo. loan from Household Finance for the Skylark with $40.00 a mo. payments and I had it paid for in 6 mo., paying extra on it each month.  I never made that mistake again.  

We paid off our mortgage 11 years ago and have been totally debt free since then.  We use our credit cards, but payoff the balance in full every month, paying no interest.  It sure is nice to go to bed every night and know that we don’t owe a cent to anyone.

So, in conclusion, the MH would have probably been a good decision had I not already had so much other debt and if I had moved the MH into a park that was nicer and also had I been more mature and better able to adjust to the many rules.  Ya live and ya learn.  The MH itself was nice enough, the setting not so much.

Eddie

There's a HUGE difference between a mobile home and a manufactured (AKA pre-fab) home.  The former I'd never consider, except for the time when we thought we could find one cheap for weekend beach getaways, but that didn't pan out.  Pre-fab homes fall somewhere between mobile homes and tract homes, and are far more similar to the latter than the former.

Dave's parents bought a new pre-fab home near Lake Oroville around 1990 and it looked pretty much like a regular house, and the only indication inside the place that it bore a distant relation to a mobile home was in the bathrooms, which had the typical trailer type paneled-and-papered walls with vertical strips covering the seams.  They didn't stay in it very long, so I have no idea how it has held up.

Fast forward to 2020 when friends of ours bought a pre-fab home that was probably at least 30 years old.  It hadn't aged well, particularly in the bathrooms.  Hardly the miracle godsend described in the OP.  I don't think I'd consider one based on that, but I'm guessing that by now, pre-fab homes are better built.

My aunt and uncle bought a new double wide 24’X60’ MH in Marin County in ‘72.  I was with my aunt when she bought it and she paid $11,800.00.  It was in a lovely MH park in Ignacio, near Novato, Calif.  You drove up a winding hill drive then down into the park.  All the lots were terraced with lots of space to plant your own plants.  My uncle was a Chief Engineer of Standard Oil tankers and was away from home for long period of time at sea. My aunt had severe kidney disease and required hemodialysis 3X’s a week, so  the MH was low maintenance for her.  She passed away in late ‘95 after two kidney transplants and my uncle lived to 94, passing away in late 2019.  My cousin was the executor, he sold that double wide in that desirableMH park for $420,000!!!!  Talk about a profit!  They had upgraded lots over 47 years they lived there, but it was only a two bedroom home.  Granted the master suite was huge, and the living room and dining room and kitchen were very large, but $420,000 for a double wide, holy mackerel.

BTW, it was this aunt and uncle that encouraged me to be my mistake of a MH.

Eddie

I have transferred i-phone pictures onto my laptop and rotated them, but when I post them here they still go sideways.  Then I rotate them in a way that I think will make them display straight up and down and they still go sideways in another direction.  Never do they display properly.  I've resigned myself to leaving them sideways and no longer bother to try and outsmart the highly flawed algorithm.

I read here when this first started to be an issue that browsers were to blame, and that the algorithm presumes that the brightest part of the picture is the sky even if it's not an outdoor shot.  Picture #1 of the subject manufactured home above disproves that theory.  This is highly aggravating, but like so much of modern technology, we are forced to accept it, warts and all.  Nothing like this would ever have been allowed at places like Bell Laboratories back in the day, but the target demographic only knows sloppiness and falls in line.

That's a nice looking cottage.  There are a few factories around here that build MFG homes.  A dealer in town has some I'd really like to look at....they are houses with steeper roof lines and flat ceilings instead of vaulted.  Some of them even have attics with pull-down ladders!  My only real problem with them is the fact that we live in TORNADO ALLEY!  I've seen what happens to them when a storm hits...it ain't pretty.  Statistics show that Tennessee has more night time tornadoes which is why we have more deaths.  My ex and I went to one of the higher end companies' factory in Russelville, Alabama to see them built.  I was very impressed by their quality at the time (1996 or so).  I picked up a packet with floor plans in it.  I took one of those plans and modified it.  Now, if I ever get to build a new house I'm going to use that floor plan.  It will be awesome and roomy, a ranch that's easy to maneuver through for a disabled husband.

When I bought my home here in the desert about 20 years ago I did look at a few mobile homes. I had the cash to purchase a regular new home but I thought wouldn't it be nice to spend a lot less and have all that extra money in the bank. I'm glad I didn't do that because with my poor spending habits all that money would be gone today.

Near me here in Rancho Mirage is a sort of unusual mobile home park. It was built in 1973 at a time when the desert had very few full-time residents. At that time it catered to the semi-wealthy who could afford second homes in a warmer climate but actually lived where it got very cold in the winter. Apparently you had to prove that you had a certain amount of net worth before you were able to purchase a mobile home in this park. You bought the home but simply rented the lot that it stood on. To give you an idea of the clientele they were attempting to attract they actually had two white Rolls Royce automobiles, the stately kind that you saw in the old "Burkes Law" television program. These were used to shuffle residents back and forth to the Palm Springs airport. One car was for people and the other one was for luggage. There are photos of these cars in their archive which is located in their clubhouse...and what a clubhouse it is! It is huge with a gigantic theater and performing stage along with a mezzanine. Very few people use the clubhouse anymore along with the gigantic round swimming pool and built in spas. It all just sits there. The cost of air conditioning that building must be very high and of course the residents pay for it.

Over the years the park has declined in appearance. Most of the homes no longer look like mobile homes. Many of them have been stuccoed-over and garage doors have been added to the carports. The management of the park is still pretty strict about what you can and cannot do however mobile homes don't age well in the desert heat. I have several friends that live there. Most of the space rents are well over $1000 a month. Like traditional homes, they all have meters for electricity gas and water. However, residents are billed by the park's management, not the utility companies. My friends pay more than twice as much as me for gas and electricity yet their homes are less than half the size of mine. I'm sure the park's management is padding the bills. I wouldn't like that at all. Rancho Mirage is a very pricey area and the mobile park's homeowners are always afraid that their property is going to be sold out from under them. It's happened before.

I'm sure that originally the park was very nice when several Hollywood "B" celebrities like Dagmar (think the front of a 1957 Cadillac) had a "get-away-from-Hollywood" place there. Now it is just a collection of aging mobile homes "personalized" in some bizarre ways. This is the way it is advertised today:

"Originally built as a weekend getaway resort for movie stars, The Colony offers first-class amenities and stunning mountain views. Live the life of luxury in southern California – all at a price you can afford. The Colony features an array of paramount accommodations and conveniences to suit your lifestyle. The resort-style swimming pool and multi-million-dollar clubhouse are notable resident favorites."

Miss Dagmar certainly was a healthy looking girl...