Stick-Built Homes vs. Modular

“I just know mobile homes are lousy places to put money. Please don’t kid yourself on this. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it is a duck. Call it “manufactured housing,” put it on a permanent foundation, add lots of improvements around the yard, and it is still a trailer when you are ready to sell it.” --Dave Ramsey, syndicated talk show host, quoted from “The Total Money Makeover” p60

If you are seriously considering purchasing a modular home/manufactured home/sectional/double-wide/whatever, please read this section.

Maplewood Home Builders was originally founded in 1996 with the goal of providing an alternative to prefab factory-built housing. We found that although there are a lot of great builders in the West Michigan area, no one was building a house for the average working family and as a result, people were turning to modular homes. We will list out some things to consider here, but please don’t just take our word for it. Ask around to people who have lived in a modular home for a period of time or tried to sell one and get their money back out of it. Talk to people who have purchased a mobile home and had problems with it. Were their problems handled right away - or at all? Ask them how long it actually took to get their “home” ready to live in. Ask them how much of the general contracting they had to do themselves. Ask them if their next house will be another modular or if it will it be stick-built. Obviously, not every single modular sales company is out to rip you off and some are better than others, but please make this decision carefully and take a look at the long term benefits of a stick-built home first.

Important Considerations:

1. Resale Value Your home is often the single largest investment you will make. We are talking tens of thousands of dollars here! For your own long-term financial health, it is obviously an important financial decision. Even if you don’t ever plan to sell you home, its value is an important part of your financial portfolio. A house with a high value will improve your net worth and allow you to borrow money against it if necessary. A house that is worth less than you owe on it can be a real problem sometimes. Again, don’t just take our word for it here – if you don’t agree just ask any professional real estate agent.
   
2. Quality It is a fact that a stick-built house, especially a Maplewood house, is far superior in quality to most, if not all, prefab houses. The high-pressure salesman at the typical sales lot will claim that the “controlled factory environment” ensures a more consistent level of quality. We would argue that it is consistently poor. Unfortunately, to the untrained eye, a modular can look pretty good on the surface. But, almost universally, the materials and the level of craftsmanship are well below what we put in our houses.
   
3. Time to Construct Often, the modular sales people claim that a stick-built home takes too long to built. We built our houses from start to finish in 90 to 120 days – sometimes it takes longer than this just to get a double-wide delivered. Then, many of the time consuming items of a stick-built home still need to be performed. For example, you still need to excavate and build a foundation, install a well and septic system, build the garage, get all the hook-ups installed, etc. On top of this, homeowners are often left to perform many of the general contractor duties themselves, such as getting the permits or inspections.
   
4. Customization Unlike factory built housing, a stick-built home is easy to customize. Suppose you want to make the living room a little larger, or change that wall between the living room and the kitchen. These are simple items for us. Every house we build is unique and reflects the special desires of its owner.
   
5. Service After the Sale At Maplewood Home Builders, we’ll be there for you if something comes up after you move into your beautiful new stick-built home.