The Shockingly Affordable Home This Couple Risked Buying—Should You Get One, Too?
Joey Leisz
Joey and Sydney Leisz were losing hope of ever becoming homeowners.
“Being in our late 20s, even though we both have great careers working in real estate and my wife as a college professor, we were having a difficult time getting our foot in the door with a home purchase,” Joey says.
They were living in south Orange County, CA, one of the nation’s most expensive markets where “entry-level homes … can be between $800,000 to $1 million,” according to Joey.
They were resigned to being lifelong renters—but shortly after they tied the knot two years ago, Joey received an intriguing offer: A client of his was looking to unload a mobile home for $65,000.
The price was certainly appealing, but Joey had never considered living in a mobile home.
“There is a bit of a stigma,” Joey acknowledges. Plus, this mobile home, built in 1963, was in rough shape.
Joey and Sydney Leisz purchased this mobile home for $65,000.Joey Leisz
“But my wife and I don’t really care,” Joey says. “We were young, and we were just trying to get our foot in the door for a place we weren’t renting.”
They decided to move ahead with the purchase, moving in with relatives for several months while pouring about $40,000 into fixing the place up.
This mobile home needed work.Joey Leisz
Three years later, they’re still there and loving it.
“A lot of people think manufactured homes aren’t as durable, not as glamorous,” he says. But for them, it was a great option.
“We’re very grateful to be in a position where we didn’t have to pay an arm and a leg, and got a chance to build some sweat equity.”
Mobile/manufactured homes: A solution to America’s housing affordability crisis
While the majority of America’s homes are built on site from the ground up, a far more budget-friendly option exists that’s growing in popularity: manufactured homes, which are built in factories, then assembled on site.
Many might think of manufactured homes as mobile homes, yet these two terms do not mean the same thing. While mobile homes are also built in a factory, this term refers specifically to homes built before 1976 with wheels that could be pulled by a vehicle. (This is why they’re also known as “trailers” and must be licensed by a state Department of Motor Vehicles.)
Manufactured homes are built in a factory from 1976 onward, after new federal regulations governing their construction came into force to make them stronger and safer structurally. Manufactured homes also rest on a permanent, nonremovable steel chassis.
Some 22 million Americans live in manufactured homes, according to 2022 data from the Manufactured Housing Institute. Those residences cost a mere $108,100 on average—about one-quarter of the national median cost of existing single-family, site-built homes in November, of $416,000.
Joey and Sydney’s finished homeJoey Leisz
While manufactured homes are often stigmatized as being “cheap” or flimsy, regulations have greatly improved the construction of these residences over the years. A recent study by the Institute for Building Technology and Safety found manufactured homes built from 1994 onward to be as safe as their site-built counterparts during tornadoes and hurricanes.
And due to their low price tag, many real estate experts see manufactured homes as “absolutely” a solution for America’s housing crisis, says Karan Kaul, a researcher with the Urban Institute who’s studied them extensively over the years. In fact, Kaul and a colleague wrote in 2022, “Quality improvements in construction and installation practices have increased durability so that the life expectancy of factory-built housing is increasingly comparable with that of site-built housing.”
The challenges of manufactured/mobile homes
Yet, despite the major savings manufactured homes offer, these residences aren’t without their unique challenges. For starters, local governments often impose zoning restrictions that make it difficult to find a viable location where a manufactured home can be placed.
Many are relegated to very specific areas, many of which defy the run-down “trailer park” stereotype and can be downright posh. For instance, in Paradise Cove, located along the ocean in Malibu, CA, manufactured homes regularly sell for over $1 million.
Paradise Cove manufactured home for sale for $1,250,000Realtor.com
Owners of manufactured homes also typically rent the land on which their home is situated. While this can leave homeowners vulnerable to rising rent, the Leiszes were lucky to live in a park that offered some protection from spiraling costs.
“We live in a park that is run by a not-for-profit, so there are stipulations as to how much they can increase the space rent per year,” Joey explains. “We currently pay about $950 per month for our park’s space.” Plus, their annual rental increase is capped at 3%.
Another big hurdle for some would-be buyers is financing. Borrowers who don’t own the land on which the home sits won’t qualify for a traditional mortgage. The alternative, what’s called “chattel” financing, can be significantly more expensive at more than double the interest rate of a traditional home loan.
The circumvent this hurdle, the Leiszes paid $65,000 in cash for their fixer-upper.
In terms of renovations, there were some limitations. Unlike in site-built homes, there’s no way to move walls or do other major renovations. So the couple invested in flooring, paint, millwork, and trim.
And when it comes time to move on from their starter home, Joey isn’t worried about being able to sell for a profit. Manufactured homes appreciate at rates comparable with site-built properties. A 2018 Urban Institute analysis found that between 1996 and 2018, manufactured homes rose an average of 3.4% per year, just below the 3.8% annual price gain for traditional homes for the same period.
But who knows if they’ll ever sell. As Joey explains, “Many might not think of these homes as permanent,” but why not?
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