Five Key Driving Forces Behind the Quality and Affordability of Today’s Manufactured Homes
Affordability is cited by 71% of residents as being the key driving force for choosing a manufactured home according to the Manufactured Housing Institute, (CMHI).
Unfortunately. There are those that will not consider a manufactured home, mistakenly believing that a manufactured home must not be built as well as a site-built home, otherwise the sales price would be much higher. That assumption is typically based upon misconceptions, mis-representations and prevailing myths associated with “mobile homes” dating back to a half century ago.
So what is different now? The efficiency of the construction process and value added aspects of manufactured housing has evolved, resulting in manufactured homes being equal and often superior to custom-site-built homes in every aspect, including building materials, quality of construction, energy efficiency, amenities, appearance, enhanced safety in occasions of wind and fire and value appreciation/depreciation, with up to 50% of total cost of the traditional site constructed home.
The following are the top 5 reasons how savings from the modern manufactured home production process allows more Americans to realize quality affordable homeownership, even in the face of an ever-widening housing affordability gap versus traditional on site-built homes.
(1) Efficiencies of the Factory Building Process – The widening affordability gap in comparison to traditional site-built homes is due to the efficiencies of the factory-building process. Manufactured homes are constructed with standard building materials, and are built almost entirely on-site in a factory.
(2) Controlled Environment and Assembly Line Techniques – The controlled construction environment and assembly line techniques remove many of the problems encountered during traditional construction, such as weather, theft, vandalism, damage to building products and materials and unskilled labor. Manufactured home factory employees are trained and managed more efficiently than the system of contract labor employed by the site-built home construction industry.
(3) Benefits From The Economies of Scale – Much like other assembly line operations, manufactured housing benefits from the economies of scale resulting from purchasing large quantities of materials, products and appliances. Manufactured home builders can negotiate substantial savings on many components used in building a home, with these huge savings passed on directly to the homebuyer.
(4) Evolution in Factory Built Technology – Today’s manufactured homes have experienced an evolution in the types of quality homes available to buyers. Technological advances allow manufactured home builders to offer a variety of architectural styles and exterior finishes that were not available off-site, that will suit most any buyer’s dreams, while allowing the home to blend seamlessly into most any neighborhood.
(5) Measurable Savings in Reduced Completion Expediency – “Time is money.” Greater flexibility and efficiency of the manufacturing process allows for customization of each home to meet a buyer’s preferred lifestyle and needs and are preplanned before home begins the construction phase and does not delay completion. Typically, a customized new manufactured home can be built and ready within weeks, as opposed to months for a home to be built on-site. This expediency accounts for much of the savings in becoming a manufactured home owner.
