Need advice on a used MH purchase

[Austin07]

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

[klm9707]

No expert here but if you would like the opinion of a housewife, That is a lot of odor absorbed into the flooring, that would be almost impossible to hide. In my honest opinion, I would be afraid that it would not take care of it. I think I would require the floors to be done before I made a decision and made a down payment. And welcome aboard here!

[Greg]

Austin, Hi & welcome. from what you are telling us, the prices do not seen too far out of line. The only one I would question is the clean up. $2000 seems high to me. As for any odor problems I swear by a product called "Husky 400" made by Canaberra corp. I have yet to find an odor that it does not kill, we even used in a home damaged by fire to remove the smoke smell.
I would recomend relooking at the home armed with Yanita's guidlines and go from there, and then try squeezing them a little. Greg

[Yanita]

Hi,

Another welcome to the site...

Personally, the subfloor would have to come up, for me anyways, as said before is an awful lot of animal waste. Typically MH's have particle board flooring, and trust me they absorb a tremendous amount of fluids. At the very least I would want to be present when the old carpet comes up and the "repairs" or "paint" goes down. Another thing, when animals use the home as a rest room you can bet the walls have been sprayed as well. I know your post says there is no electric but a black light in the early evening hours will glow yellow on animal waste!

I know you said the home is 60 miles away...well that really is not to far all things considered. This is a investment and if you want to know you are getting a good deal then you need to use the guidelines that I wrote up and have it inspected by a licensed inspector. You can print the guidelines up and take it with you.

As for checking for water leaks, crawl under the home and look for visible signs of water damage.

Before you do any signing of paperwork, or deposits I would thoroughly check this home over and EVERYTHING that you and the dealer agrees up on MUST be in writing and signed by a witness. Even the smallest details, verbal agreements do not hold up in court. These details also need to include everything during transport and set up. Make sure that crew is licensed, insured and bonded...anything less will give you headaches.

Good luck and please keep us posted on how everything goes.

[Archie]

Personally I am not a big fan of buying repos of anything. There is usually only two reasons why someone lets something get repoed. Either something major went wrong with it and they couldn't afford to get it fixed or they couldn't afford it anymore. Either way once they know that it is likely going back they pretty much let the thing go and thrash it, which is how this place sounds. While I would not totally dismiss the home I think I would keep looking.

[mobtek]

Sorry - there isn't enough cleaning solution in the world to get that picture out of my head. NO WAY I'd buy a house that was filled with poop. Not a chance...

Have patience - look hard - you WILL find a better home, lower price, closer to you. ...p a t i e n c e...