What is a manufactured home, and is it the same as a mobile home? A home built entirely in a factory on a permanent steel chassis to the federal HUD code, transported to its site in one or more sections; mobile home is the older name for the same thing built before 1976.
Since June 1976 every factory-built home on a permanent chassis has had to meet the federal Manufactured Home Construction and Safety Standards, the HUD code, which covers design, construction, fire safety, energy efficiency and transport. Homes built before that date under weaker or no standards are mobile homes; homes built since are manufactured homes, and the red HUD certification label on each section is the proof. In everyday speech both words are used for both, and listings and searches mix them freely.
Single-wide homes are one section about 14 to 18 feet wide; double-wides are two joined on site; triple-wides three. They sit on a rented space in a park, or on land the owner holds. That distinction decides almost everything about the cost of ownership: a home affixed to owned land can be titled as real property, financed with a normal mortgage and appreciates with the land; a home on a rented space is personal property, carries a higher-rate chattel loan and lot rent, and depreciates.
A modular home is a different thing: built in a factory in sections but to the local building code rather than the HUD code, set on a permanent foundation with the chassis removed, and treated as a site-built house for lending and appraisal. Kouzr's manufactured-homes pages list the HUD-code homes for sale in each place and whether each is on owned land.
A worked example
A 1,500-square-foot double-wide on a rented space in a Las Vegas park lists at $95,000 with lot rent of $850 a month. The same home affixed to a quarter-acre the owner holds in Pahrump lists at $240,000 and qualifies for an FHA mortgage. The first is a cheap home with an $850 rent attached for life; the second is a house.
Manufactured homes for sale in Las Vegas
Questions people ask
Can you get a mortgage on a manufactured home?
Yes, if it is on land you own, permanently affixed and titled as real property: FHA, VA and conventional programmes all lend on that. On a rented space it is personal property and takes a chattel loan at a higher rate over a shorter term.
Do manufactured homes lose value?
On a rented space, generally yes, like a vehicle. Affixed to owned land they move with the land's value, which in most markets means they appreciate.