Manufactured homes have a green title and HUD data plate, built to national standards that ignore Michigan's climate. Modular homes are assembled on-site to state code and appraise like regular houses. Lenders require an affidavit of affixture to finance manufactured homes, a legal document that ties the structure to the land.
Hey there, so what's the difference between a modular home and a manufactured home? Well, stay tuned and find out. So I'm actually on Warren Street in Northport, and right behind me over my shoulder here is my first home, Shannon's and my first home. In fact, Isabel was conceived in that home. And, you know, we sold— this was our very first home. It is a manufactured home. So it had a green title associated with it. And if you stay tuned later, I'll talk about what an affidavit of a fixture is and why that is important. But let's stick with what is the difference between modular homes and manufactured homes. Well, manufactured homes, the biggest distinction, the two things to look for is there'll be a data plate on a manufactured home, which is a, like, a mobile home, okay? And it will have a steel— if you see a steel support in the crawl space or in the basement, anything steel on it, then you know, okay, this is a manufactured home and not a modular home. Now, a modular home is what it sounds. It may be manufactured, it may be done offsite and brought in modules to the site and then assembled, but that is considered a stick-built home. So in other words, modular homes don't experience a devaluing in the same way as traditional manufactured homes do. So when an appraiser appraises a modular home, it appraises it the same way it would a stick-built home. So, and if you really think about it, almost every newly constructed home, any newly stick-built home, has certain parts of it that are module. For example, the trusses. The trusses are, if they're engineered trusses, those are put together, they're manufactured off-site and brought in the form of a segmented module in the form of that manufactured engineered truss and then it's assembled on site. In other words, the carpenters are not building trusses on site. They're brought in and then put up with a crane or what have you. So anyway, biggest difference between manufactured or mobile homes and modular homes is also one is usually built to BOCA code, which means Michigan codes. This one behind me is not built to Michigan codes. This is a HUD manufactured home, so it's built to HUD standards. This was something that was done to help people get— like Shannon and me, this was our first home— help us become homeowners at a reduced cost. However, there are some issues that can come up with HUD manufactured homes, such as You can kind of see the roof pitch on that is not to Michigan standards. So HUD manufactured homes like this are more prone to roof leaks because ice buildup will go— because of the roof pitch not being as steep as you'd like it, then ice buildup can get underneath those shingles and cause problems on HUD manufactured homes. So now here's another important thing that comes up often. When real estate agents are working with sellers selling a HUD manufactured home, and that is you look for what's called an affidavit of a fixture. So in other words, and this all was created by a situation where an individual actually got one over on a bank, and then this process was developed because the bank was out. So Someone got over on the bank. So what happened was the bank loaned money to an individual to buy a mobile home that they put on a piece of land, and that individual then— a foreclosure happened and they pulled their mobile home, put the, you know, they hooked up to it, the mobile home, and took it off the property. Well, the Lender then said, "Well, wait a second. We're foreclosing. We own that mobile home." And they said, "Oh, no, no, no. That mobile home is different from the land. We own the mobile home. We have the green title for it." So after all of that, and I'll put a link in the comments to that court case if you're interested in reading the detail on it. But after that, what happened was this idea of the need for an affidavit of affixture. So that affixes that mobile home, is no longer considered mobile but affixed to the property so that they become one. And so that protects the lender against a situation like that from reoccurring. It is something that you You won't be able to get a loan on a manufactured home unless there is an affidavit of a fixture, in all likelihood. So, so there you go. There's a difference between modular homes and manufactured homes. Modular homes will be considered by an appraiser to be akin to a stick-built home. They're just manufactured off-site or put together off-site and You know, that's the term manufactured, um, can be a little bit of a misleading term because module— the modules are quote-unquote manufactured off-site and then brought to the site. The biggest difference is to what code are they built. If they're built to Michigan codes, if you're in the state of Michigan, also called BOCA codes, then you know that that modular home is going to appraise the same as a stick-built home would be. If it's manufactured to HUD standards, which means that it'll have a data plate, it'll have a green title, it'll probably have some kind of metal supports underneath the home, then that is a— what's now called a manufactured home, also called a mobile home, built to HUD standards, which are not— those are nationwide standards that aren't specific to the climate of Michigan. Because you have to manufacture it to Michigan in order for it to have the staying power in our climate where ice buildup is a major factor, for example. So there you go, there's a little bit about the difference between mobile homes, manufactured homes, mobile and manufactured being the same thing, and modular homes. So this house on Warren Street was also maybe just a little close to too close to my mother-in-law who lives on here. Just kidding, Sandy, love you to death. So in fact, we are actually living in what used to be Sandy's dad's place out on Christianson Road now. So there you go. Thanks a lot. Thanks for tuning in. Appreciate it.
