Manufactured Home Industry

When Mid-States Corporation built the 1952 Executive Flagship dubbing it the world's most exciting mobile home and office, boy, they were not lying! Mid-States was the largest trailer manufacturer in the world in the early 1950s, so this one-of-a-kind mobile home was a perfect rolling advertisement for the company. Mid-States had 6 factories…

Buying a new manufactured home is no walk in the park. I wish I could say it's a lot like buying a site-built home but it's not. In fact, it's completely different from buying a new site-built home because the majority of the protections that site-built homebuyers have simply aren't there for new manufactured home buyers. A new manufactured home…

Esther Sullivan, the author of Manufactured Insecurity, calls tenants of mobile home parks 'halfway homeowners' and unfortunately she's not wrong. Mobile homeowners living in their own home but renting the land under it are the least protected housing group in America. They can be precariously close to losing their homes, even with it being paid…

Manufactured homes have come a long way since the 1960s in both design and quality. It is easy to find a manufactured home that fits every need and budget. Models range from the bare basics to top-of-the-line luxury design. We've shared a ton of great articles about buying mobile and manufactured homes. In this article, we asked a manufactured…

It may not be the Oscars, but for manufactured home builders the Manufactured Housing Institute's Annual Manufactured Home Design Awards are a pretty big deal. Awards are given for several different categories ranging from tiny homes to top interior designers. And, as always, we wanted to share with you a look at this year's mid-size manufactured…

Buying a new manufactured home is stressful but exhilarating! There are so many decisions to make. Buyers have to choose the home builder, the right dealer, the best model, the perfect floor plan, and their favorite materials and style. That's not including financing, insuring, and installing the home. We've collected our most helpful This article…

The history of mobile homes is fascinating and far better than any soap opera you could watch. The mobile home industry has faced more twists and turns and valleys and peaks than any other industry that I know. There have been political and social injustices, volatile and cyclical economies, and fighting and competition of all sorts going on…

Ever wondered who builds the best manufactured homes or what determines a good factory-built home from a bad one? Manufactured housing experts will always tell you that it's all about the construction specs. The size and quality of the materials used in a manufactured home is the best determination of its overall quality and they aren't wrong.…

Mobile home builders are finally coming up with some new ideas for both single and double wide designs. These 4 new manufactured home models are new to the market for Spring 2019 and we think they all look great. Just click on the title of the home to visit the builder's site. The Smokie Ridge Farmhouse from Meadowbrook At 1140 square…

Ready to buy a new manufactured home? The following tips have been cultivated over the last 8 years from books, articles, and personal conversations with industry experts. In this article, you’ll find advice on the best upgrades for a manufactured home and how to negotiate with the dealers to get the best home at the best price. If you…

Most of us started hearing about FEMA trailers shortly after Hurricane Katrina. FEMA had purchased 52,000 travel trailers to house the victims of the nation’s largest natural disaster but they ended up making thousands of their residents sick. The builders of these trailers used cheap composites with extremely high levels of formaldehyde…

We've lost a lot of manufactured home builders over the last forty years. In 1977, there were 577 plants building manufactured homes. By 1992, the number was 286 factories and it just kept decreasing. By 2007, we had 79 manufactured home builders running 183 production lines across the country. John Grissim, author of the popular Grissim…