Customer Reviews

Manufactured Home Buyer's Handbook

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Currently a renter, I am starting to think about buying a home in the next few years. As such, I'm in the beginning stages of examining all my options, including manufactured, modular, and stick-built new home construction. I've pored over a number of home buying and construction guides over the past six months, but unfortunately, there are few books that deal solely with manufactured homes. Thus, I was ecstatic to learn of THE MANUFACTURED HOME BUYER'S HANDBOOK by Wes Johnson. Given the lack of consumer guides to manufactured housing, THE MANUFACTURED HOME BUYER'S HANDBOOK truly does fill a void in the existing literature.

THE MANUFACTURED HOME BUYER'S HANDBOOK is a must-read consumer's guide to the ins and outs of buying a manufactured home. The author outlines the process of purchasing a manufactured home from start to finish. He covers every facet imaginable, including shopping around for the right home; selecting a reputable dealer; customizing your home to order; bargaining for the best price; financing your purchase; overseeing the construction and setup of your home; and dealing with any problems that may arise along the way. Throughout the book, Mr. Johnson maintains a good-natured but cautionary tone, resulting in an informative and enjoyable read.

Unlike many comparable books, THE MANUFACTURED HOME BUYER'S HANDBOOK is written for consumers, by a fellow consumer. Wes Johnson doesn't work in construction, nor is he a salesperson for a manufactured home dealership. Rather, his knowledge of the industry comes from his experiences shopping for and purchasing his own home. As a result, he doesn't sugarcoat the shortcomings of the manufactured home industry. Not all of his experiences were pleasant, and Mr. Johnson is frank and open about the obstacles he faced - as well as the ways in which he triumphed over dishonest salespeople, sub par construction, and careless setup crews. While some of the information in THE MANUFACTURED HOME BUYER'S HANDBOOK might discourage consumers from investing in a manufactured home, this is a good thing - manufactured homes aren't for everyone. Instead of trying to push a particular product on readers, the author offers ALL the facts, good and bad, to help you make the choice that's right for you. This is perhaps the book's biggest strength - Wes Johnson is an advocate for you, the consumer, as opposed to home manufacturers or dealers.

THE MANUFACTURED HOME BUYER'S HANDBOOK is divided into fourteen chapters, each of which deals with a different aspect of the process: Doing Your Homework; Custom Ordering Your New Home; Illustration of a Customization; Dealing with Salespeople; The Devil Is in the Details: Responsibilities and Contracts; Cases from the Manufactured Housing Board; Who Owns the Bank?: Financing; The Walk-Through(s); Solid Foundations; The Setup; Final Analysis; When Things Go Wrong; Indoor Air Quality; and Making Your House a Home. The author also includes several appendices: Sample Requirements List; Sample Wish List; and State Administrative Agencies for Manufactured Housing. In each chapter, the main focus is on getting the most bang for your buck, whether it's wheeling and dealing with the salespeople, selecting the right mortgage for your situation, or doing some of the less complicated work on your own.

While many of the issues raised in THE MANUFACTURED HOME BUYER'S HANDBOOK are common to most home buying guides, I was happy to see that the author also talks about a few oft-neglected topics. For example, he devotes a good deal of attention to energy efficiency. As an environmentalist, this is of course a subject that I'm greatly interested in. Yet, building an energy efficient home isn't just the eco-conscious thing to do - it's also easy on the bank account! An energy efficient home, while more expensive to build up front, will also save you money in the long run, a point that Wes Johnson covers in detail. Since this is an issue that, too often, is glossed over in home buying guides, I was delighted to see the author point out the many benefits of energy efficient planning and materials throughout the book.

Along this vein, Wes Johnson also spends a good deal of time explaining how to examine your new home and determine whether you really did get what you paid for. Much of this was news to me, despite the volumes of research I've already done. For example, he advises climbing up on your home's roof and checking to see if the manufacturer provided the correct amount of insulation in the ceiling, as this is one of the many corners manufacturers have been known to cut when building new homes. This can only be done before the home's marriage walls are joined together, so it's crucial that you do so when you have the chance. Ditto for checking the wall insulation, the laying of the home's foundation, and the studs in the marriage walls. The chapters outlining the walk-through, foundation, and setup are well worth the price of the book on their own; it's impossible to underestimate their money- and headache-saving potential!

Finally, THE MANUFACTURED HOME BUYER'S HANDBOOK addresses the issue of air quality, which can pose a problem in newly built homes (particularly new manufactured homes). Wes Johnson offers a wealth of advice for curbing this potential health hazard, and also includes advice from relevant experts.

Although I found most of the suggestions to be helpful, pets are listed as a source of allergens in several studies, and the sources the author cites recommend keeping pets outdoors. This is perhaps the only advice in the book that I disagree with. "Outdoor" pets are at risk; in addition to extreme weather, predators - of both the animal and human variety - can prove dangerous to pets kept outdoors. Also, many pets are social animals, and they do not thrive in isolation. Dogs in particular are pack animals, and they prefer the company of their "leader" - you! If you're unbearably allergic to certain animals, the easiest - and most humane - solution is to either live without, or else choose an animal that won't aggravate your immune system.

Whether you're just thinking about buying a manufactured home, or you're already negotiating with a dealer, THE MANUFACTURED HOME BUYER'S HANDBOOK is well worth your time and money. It is, by far, the most helpful book available on the subject!

If you're shopping for a manufactured home, The Manufactured Home Buyer's Handbook is absolutely the best book investment you'll ever make in your life. Don't set foot on a dealer's lot without it! It will walk you through the entire process, and tells the real story behind the manufactured housing industry and HUD. It also goes on in detail about how financing and insurance differs from that offered by traditional housing. What you don't know really CAN hurt you! Without this thorough and well written guide, my wife and I would have probably made the biggest financial mistake of our lives. With it, we got a really great deal on a good home. We estimate we saved over $15,000 on the price of our double-wide, and by the time financing is considered (not only are we saving the interest we would have had to pay on that $15,000, but because of the book we also found a lower rate) we easily saved over $50,000 altogether. I can't recommend The Manufactured Home Buyer's Handbook highly enough!

Saving our bacon is the nicest way I know to put it. This handbook told how to check your marriage wall studs before your home is assembled, and we found our support studs were broken in half! Our new home was seriously defective despite all the promises about wonderful quality. Thanks to this
book, we were able to get a replacement home ordered! Without it, we wouldn't have even caught most of our problems until it was too late.

I've read 3 books on how to purchase a manufactured home and browsed through several more because I heard there were a number of tricks and problems you needed to be aware of. This is the best book by far! We've been shopping for our home for several weeks now, and have seen example after example from the book come to life, only in many cases we wouldn't have recognized what was really going on without the book. We'll save thousands of dollars on the price of our home and on financing (I thought Burnside's book was worthless in this regard). It's laid out logically, just as the customer goes through the entire process, they can follow it in the book. It's also very well researched and well illustrated. The chapter on the home's setup is a little frightening, but we can't wait to check our new home against the potential list of problems listed there in Chapter 10 to see if our home is really built the way we were promised it would be. Apparently, frequently you don't get what you pay for with manufactured housing. This book is worth its weight in gold, don't buy a manufactured home without it!

This is a great book from someone whose "been there", and if you haven't bought one of these homes before, you'd probably be shocked to learn some of the dirty secrets of the trade. I read the chapter about warranty service, and the comment below about it doesn't do this book justice. 90% of Johnson's book is describing how to AVOID the need for warranty service, and then he tells you how to have the contract worded and what to do if you have a problem anyway in his warranty chapter. The warranty chapter is also the shortest one in Grissom's book - but Grissim says its basically because quality is so great you don't need one! If you believe that, you'll likely be taken to the cleaners when you buy your new home, and you'll be paying for that mistake the next 20 or 30 years. Listen to someone who has been there. This book is the most realistic and complete guide I've ever seen for manufactured homes, and I highly recommend it!

This was a very thorough and well organized book. It tells everything the customers need to know, and everything the dealers don't want you to know. Don't buy a mobile/manufactured home without it! Lots of information that really surprised us, but it was borne out by our new "dream" home. This book saved us a lot of misery.

This was just a terrific book. Expected it to be boring because of the subject matter, but it wasn't. It was actually very easy to read and often humorous. The energy efficiency tips alone made the book worth reading. This book is filled with great tips throughout, and has a lot of unexpected information! We think we'll save a lot of money on our new home now. The [...]There are descriptions of all the chapters.

There's no ranting that I found in this text, although it was chock full of particular information and things to watch out for. As for most of the material being aimed at multi-section homes, over four in five manufactured homes being sold are now multi-section. As for it being specific to SC, that's silly. It talks about every region of the country, and talks about specific problems in other states like Texas and West Virginia, and plusses in states like Pennsylvania. As far as this being of no help for "used" homes -- many of the issues are IDENTICAL. There is even a list in one part of the book which tells of typical manufactured home problems broken into what percentage of occurances they appear in which makes a great checklist for used home shopping. (For instance, you need to check the floorboards near windows in used homes for water damage.) This is undoubtedly the BEST book on the subject, and it is by far the most concrete and comprehensive. It covers subjects that have been sorely overlooked, and if you don't need a particular chapter (like Air Quality or Negotiating with the Dealer) then just SKIP it! Their are plenty of people who do need the information this book offers. I think anyone who takes serious issue with this book must work for a dealership or a manufacturer. I bought a home using it and it paid for itself many times over. I don't want a consumer guide which sugar coats the issues, and which tells how great every brand manufactured home is. They call that sales literature where I come from.

This is a great book if you are looking for a manufactured house! This is packed full of terrific tips and common sense solutions. In every chapter you can find worthwhile information to utilize. This is a must have book!

I was very pleased with this purchase. Of the other books I've bought on the subject (five so far), this by far gave me the most important, relevant information. The author uses his experience as a buyer to warn of the many possible ways to be "ripped off" during and after the process of manufactured home buying. It can be a little scary to know about so many possible pitfalls, but it's much better to be aware and knowledgeable. When buying any kind of home, ignorance is NOT bliss.