Need advice on a used MH purchase
Posted: Tue Nov 20, 2007 12:00 pm
Hello, I'm a new user. I was doing some web searching and came onto this great site. Very useful and informative.
I did some search and reading but wasn't able to find the answer to my question. Hopefully I can get some helps and advice here.
Here is my situation:
- I'm looking at buying a used mobile home for my in-laws. It's a Fleetwood 2000 model (32x56) with Vinyl siding.
- The ask price is 22k, that's before some clean-up, repairs and moving cost
- Clean-up, repairs by the dealer (it's a huge mess, going have to remove all carpet and replace it) is 2k
- Moving and setup at new location is 3k
- MH is in Southern TX on cement blocks and will need to be moved for ~60 miles
- Total cost would be 27k
I've only started looking for MH in the past month, so I'm not sure if this is a fair price, but when compared to a new MH, it seems reasonable. What do you think of this price?
Since I recently discovered this site, when I looked at this MH, I didn't have the information from the "guideline when purchasing a used mobile home" (wish I did). It's kind of a long drive (60miles), but we could come back out and look at the MB more carefully again if it's worth it.
One main problem is this home is a repos and there is no electricity and no running water. So I cannot test any of that out. From just my observation, other than the unbelievable mess (will come to that in a minute), it looks to be in very good condition. I didn't notice any problem with the ceiling. The walls looks fine. The marriage line looks fine. The roof looks good. The outside, doors and windows looks pretty good also. There is an AC unit but can't test it due to no electricity. Overall, the structure looks pretty good. But again, unfortunately, I wasn't able to test out electricity or running water. Given that this is about a 7 years old home, would you expect that there might be major plumbing or electrical problem? From what I can see, I'm guess there is none. I wasn't able to see any type of water stain or leak.
Now for the bigger problem:
- It's stink because of all the dog fecal that was left inside the house (it covered about 70% of the house floor!). It seems like the previous owner had 10+ dogs and lived like that. The company I'm going through say they will remove all the carpet, paint the plywood flooring with oil based paint and that should seal in the odor. I'm concern with this. I'm not sure if the odor can be eliminated like that. Can it??? Would you be concern about the odor retaining in the insulation also? The wall panels and even the ceiling?
Sorry for the long note. Thanks again for any help you can provide!
-Austin
I did some search and reading but wasn't able to find the answer to my question. Hopefully I can get some helps and advice here.
Here is my situation:
- I'm looking at buying a used mobile home for my in-laws. It's a Fleetwood 2000 model (32x56) with Vinyl siding.
- The ask price is 22k, that's before some clean-up, repairs and moving cost
- Clean-up, repairs by the dealer (it's a huge mess, going have to remove all carpet and replace it) is 2k
- Moving and setup at new location is 3k
- MH is in Southern TX on cement blocks and will need to be moved for ~60 miles
- Total cost would be 27k
I've only started looking for MH in the past month, so I'm not sure if this is a fair price, but when compared to a new MH, it seems reasonable. What do you think of this price?
Since I recently discovered this site, when I looked at this MH, I didn't have the information from the "guideline when purchasing a used mobile home" (wish I did). It's kind of a long drive (60miles), but we could come back out and look at the MB more carefully again if it's worth it.
One main problem is this home is a repos and there is no electricity and no running water. So I cannot test any of that out. From just my observation, other than the unbelievable mess (will come to that in a minute), it looks to be in very good condition. I didn't notice any problem with the ceiling. The walls looks fine. The marriage line looks fine. The roof looks good. The outside, doors and windows looks pretty good also. There is an AC unit but can't test it due to no electricity. Overall, the structure looks pretty good. But again, unfortunately, I wasn't able to test out electricity or running water. Given that this is about a 7 years old home, would you expect that there might be major plumbing or electrical problem? From what I can see, I'm guess there is none. I wasn't able to see any type of water stain or leak.
Now for the bigger problem:
- It's stink because of all the dog fecal that was left inside the house (it covered about 70% of the house floor!). It seems like the previous owner had 10+ dogs and lived like that. The company I'm going through say they will remove all the carpet, paint the plywood flooring with oil based paint and that should seal in the odor. I'm concern with this. I'm not sure if the odor can be eliminated like that. Can it??? Would you be concern about the odor retaining in the insulation also? The wall panels and even the ceiling?
Sorry for the long note. Thanks again for any help you can provide!
-Austin