FACT: A NEW MANUFACTURED HOME WILL BE ONE-HALF THE COST OF A COMPARABLE SITE-BUILT HOUSE
Say what? Not only will today’s modern manufactured home cost 50% less, it will be comparable, and often superior to the site-built home in every measurable way, including quality of construction, quality of materials, skillful design, multiple floor plan choices, customization options, fire and wind safety standards, energy efficiency, plus much more.
In 2017 the average cost of a U.S. multi-section manufactured home with multiple upgrade custom options was $92,800 with 1,733 square feet of living space. That’s $54 a square foot, respectively, compared to an average of $111 square foot for a site built home, according to the Manufactured Housing Institute.
Naysayers will assume, incorrectly, that manufactured homes are constructed with inferior building materials. Others will opine that manufactured homes lack quality workmanship, manufacturers skimp on safety features, amenities are sub-par, and they are not energy efficient, etc.
The following factual reasons will validate why today’s manufactured homes may be the best-kept secret in America. Manufactured homes offer homebuyers truly affordable, quality housing, which is proven as durable as a traditional site-built home in every respect.
SAVINGS FROM INDOOR ASSEMBLY LINE PRODUCTION
“Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs.” — Henry Ford
The first automobile assembly line was introduced by Henry Ford on December 1st, 1913. Previous to assembly line production, Ford was building one car a day. His automobile, The Ford Model T, was in big demand; however, the price of his new vehicle was too expensive for the average citizen to afford.
After introducing the assembly line concept, he was capable of producing 5 or 6 cars per day, cut the per car selling price in half, improved the quality and employed fewer employees.
Time is money. Building a traditional house is often frustrating: a homebuyer may have contractor problems, material supply problems, realtor problems, or weather problems. A six-month project can turn into a year or longer. These common situations cost thousands of extra dollars that are estimated and anticipated in advance and passed along to the homebuyer.
Conversely, manufactured homes are efficiently constructed in factory assembly stations that can produce from 3 to 6 or more fully completed offline homes each day.
Manufactured home producers know exactly what their costs are going to be before the home is built and price that home accordingly before it goes on the production line to be built.
Today’s manufactured home, completely constructed in an indoor environment, delivered and installed on customer’s site ready for occupancy in about 4 to 8 weeks, depending on the manufacturer’s backlog of customer orders.
SAVINGS FROM EFFICIENCY AND QUALITY CONTROL
A big cost saving to the manufactured home buyer comes from volume supplier pricing on construction materials, which are the same materials utilized in on-site housing; lumber, exterior siding, roofing, drywall, fixtures, flooring, cabinets, countertops name brand appliances, insulation, hardware, windows, plumbing, electrical, furnaces and water heaters.
Extra cost savings and quality control are achieved by eliminating waste. Unlike site home builders, manufactured home building materials are stored indoors, protected from weather damage, theft from the construction site or worker misuse.
Manufactured home lumber is precision cut in advance, prior to being introduced into the construction process, further eliminating waste, passing the savings onto the home purchaser. Whereas, for decades the site homebuilding industry has operated the same way – highly inefficiently and based on a lot of guesswork.
As the manufactured home progresses down the production line each home is inspected by a third party federal approved agency at each of the 6 to 9 stations, from steel frame to final finish. Employees are trained and proficient in performing the repetitive assigned fabrication of a designated aspect of the manufactured home construction process.
STRINGENT NATIONAL BUILDING CODE ENHANCES VALUE, SAFETY, AND QUALITY
Today’s modern manufactured home is the only form of housing in the nation subject to a rigid federally mandated national construction code. Congress passed the “Manufactured Housing Construction and Standards Act of 1974, which became law on June 15, 1976, and upgraded in 1994, and has provided the framework of what we now know as the HUD Code.
Due to HUD Code construction and installation regulations manufactured homes have proven to be as well built as site-built homes. The Hud Code also requires manufactured homes to be in strict compliance with several health and safety standards that are more stringent than those set for the IRC Code (site built), and perform equally or better than site-built homes located in hurricane-prone zones.
A study issued by the National Fire Protection Association in July 2001 shows that both the occurrence of fire in manufactured homes is lower in HUD Code manufactured homes than other types of dwellings. To review the results of that study click “Manufactured Homes: Safer Than Site Built”
