Understanding Today’s Manufactured Home and What Makes It “Special”
The need for quality, affordable housing has never been greater. Today’s manufactured homes, formerly known as “mobile homes,” can deliver outstanding quality and performance at prices ranging from 15 to 35 percent per square foot less than conventional site-built homes. These savings allow more and more Americans to own their home, even in the face of an ever-widening housing affordability gap.
The affordability of manufactured housing can be attributed directly to the efficiencies emanating from the factory-building process. The controlled construction environment and assembly-line techniques remove many of the problems encountered during traditional home construction, such as poor weather, theft, vandalism, damage to building products and materials, and unskilled labor. Factory employees are trained and managed more effectively than the system of contracted labor employed by the site-built home construction industry.
Much like other assembly-line operations, manufactured homes benefit from the economics of scale resulting from purchasing large quantities of materials, products, and appliances. Manufactured home builders are able to negotiate substantial savings on many components used in building a manufactured home with these savings passed on to the homebuyer.
Today’s manufactured homes have experienced a major evolution in the types and quality of homes being offered to buyers. Technological advances are allowing manufactured home builders to offer a much wider variety of architectural styles and exterior finishes that will suit most any buyer’s dreams, all the while allowing the home to blend in seamlessly into most any neighborhood. Two story and single-attached homes are but two of the new styles being generated by factory-built innovation. As a result, today’s manufactured homes are offering real housing options for all the neglected suburban and urban buyers.
At the same time, greater flexibility in the construction process allows for each home to be customized to meet a buyer’s lifestyle and needs. Interior features now include such amenities as vaulted ceilings and working fireplaces to state-of-the-art kitchens and baths, giving the homebuyer all the features found in traditional, site-built homes.
Enhanced energy efficiency in manufactured homes, achieved by upgraded levels of insulation and more efficient heating and cooling systems, provide another source of savings for homeowners, especially in this era of rising energy costs. Smart buyers are turning to Energy Star-labeled manufactured homes for substantial savings in many aspects of owning and operating a home.
Technological advances, evolutionary designs, and a focus on delivering quality homes that families can afford are the driving forces within the manufactured housing industry. That’s why more people are turning to manufactured housing to deliver homes that fit their needs and desires at prices they can afford!
