Expert: Russel Ray - 7/13/2007

Question
Hi Russel ,
I am planning to relocate to the state of Texas in the Houston vicinity. I have several questions that i hope you can help me with , first is what is the difference between a manufactured home a prefabricated home & a modular home. I have been looking through the Internet for a single family home in Texas which are way less expensive than the ones here in California , But have come with the thought that maybe if i buy some land i can build my own brand new home at a better price .Can you name some builders that you may recommend & do you think its convenient to go with this choice of that instead of purchasing a home already established i have some time still to think things through and i am not trying to jump into nothing with out doing the right research . So i ask as in please Russel any help will be truly appreciated . Thank you for your time have a great day .

Answer
Hey, Erik.

A manufactured home typically is a mobile home that has been attached to land, thereby making it real estate. In that case, the wheels are removed, and sometimes the mortgage company requires verification that the axles have also been removed. They don't want to lend money on real estate if it can be easily moved away.

A prefabricated home is typically fabricated at the factory and then transported to the build site. Most homes today are at least partially prefabricated in that the attic framing are trusses built at the factory and transported to the site. A fully prefabricated home would have only its foundation built at the site. It would have tilt-up walls and ceilings, and everything is just connected. They go up very fast, causing some people to comment on the apparent shoddiness of construction since "they built the house in just two weeks." It wasn't shoddiness of construction, just a different type of construction that is unfamiliar to the great majority of people.

A modular home actually has rooms that are built off site and then simply placed next to each other and attached to each other. Dorm rooms on college campuses quite often are modular in that each room is built off site and simply stacked at the build site. The first modular building was Krueger Hall at Texas A&M University back in 1971 (I graduated from Texas A&M). Since then, technology has allowed for building larger modules and the technique has come to the residential housing industry, although it typically is used in small to medium-size homes.

The less expensive it is to build a home, the less expensive it will be to buy it. Of course, virtually any real estate in Texas is less expensive than California. I lived in Houston from 1977-1983, and was born and raised in Texas. Beware of property taxes, though. I understand they are very high.

Many of the large builders here in California also build in Texas. However, I don't know what kind of construction techniques they are using in Texas due to the hurricane, tornado, and flood concerns they have there in contrast to our earthquake concerns.

Let me know if I can help with anything else.