Manufactured Homes Popular | Video

Jenny Castro | 10/5/2012

Purchasing a manufactured home is proving to be a quick and economical way of replacing flood homes. But there is a little red tape to get through before the home placement.

For flooded homeowners, the attraction towards a manufactured home is quite simple, the companies save money by buying products in bulk, the homes can be customized, and most importantly they`re saving time.

"It`d cost more to repair or fix or rebuild, the manufactured home was the most economical thing that I could purchase without being in debt too far,” said Dale Schlag, a manufactured homeowner.

"Two by six construction with your heavy insulation in the walls, heavy in the ceiling, it meets all those codes, the plumbing is standardized, the electrical is standardized and they`re designed to last, like any sight built house would last today,” said Iseman Homes manager Tom Ripplinger.

But when you move a manufactured home into neighborhood, you need a permit from the city.

"Now we`re going to determine whether that house that you want to move into a neighborhood is compatible with the neighborhood and if it is better than half of its replacement cost,” said city assessor Kevin Ternes.

This is because of a city ordinance that safeguards a neighborhood`s character and value, and some residents are protective of that.

"There have been a few neighbors that have had some concerns, `Will this effect my property value?` I can only assure them that prior to these housing challenges we`ve had in the last few years, there were manufactured homes in existing neighborhoods and these manufactured homes have still appreciated in value and we didn`t feel nor did the existing neighbors feel in these cases that homes nearby were being penalized in any fashion,” said Ternes.

Whether or not they appreciate at the same rate as other homes though, is hard to say.

Ternes said that before the flood, the city typically received four to five of these permit requests a year and now they receive about four to five a month.

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