Tired of a house after living there for six months

[Snipe Hunter]

133 days on the market. No takers. All unsold homes in this market have the same problem.. The seller is asking too much and not bending. It's a new house with no interest.

[Cooler]

133 days on the market. No takers. All unsold homes in this market have the same problem.. The seller is asking too much and not bending. It's a new house with no interest.

It was listed at $600,000.00.

The listing shows that it was sold on June 19, 2021 for $750,000.00.

I do wonder what the purchase price was.

Addendum:  I see that the listing shows a sales history.  In 2016 it sold for $49,000.00.

Maybe they added onto the house after that?

[Snipe Hunter]

It was listed at $600,000.00.

The listing shows that it was sold on June 19, 2021 for $750,000.00.

I do wonder what the purchase price was.

Addendum:  I see that the listing shows a sales history.  In 2016 it sold for $49,000.00.

Maybe they added onto the house after that?

That's what happened. It's got a build date of 2017

[Cooler]

That's what happened. It's got a build date of 2017

I seem to remember them trucking in the modules.  My guess is that the $49,000.00 was either for the land or for the land and an old house that was demolished. 

There was a stick-built modular home that went up about 5 years ago.  They poured the foundation.  Then the shell of the house arrived on two trucks (front half and back half) and was installed in less than a week.

About one month later there were cars parked on the driveway and I guess the house was complete.  But that house looks (and is constructed) just like a regular stick-built home. 

I toured the factory about 25 years ago, and other than the fact that they were working on a huge table with overhead cranes to move stuff, it was built like a regular home. They used fixtures to assure squareness, and I suspect it would be more nearly plumb than a site-built home.  When the two halves arrived they only had to finish the roofing (which was nearly complete when it arrived).

[Snipe Hunter]

I seem to remember them trucking in the modules.  My guess is that the $49,000.00 was either for the land or for the land and an old house that was demolished. 

There was a stick-built modular home that went up about 5 years ago.  They poured the foundation.  Then the shell of the house arrived on two trucks (front half and back half) and was installed in less than a week.

About one month later there were cars parked on the driveway and I guess the house was complete.  But that house looks (and is constructed) just like a regular stick-built home. 

I toured the factory about 25 years ago, and other than the fact that they were working on a huge table with overhead cranes to move stuff, it was built like a regular home. They used fixtures to assure squareness, and I suspect it would be more nearly plumb than a site-built home.  When the two halves arrived they only had to finish the roofing (which was nearly complete when it arrived).

I have only inspected a few prefabricated homes. The structure is basically made of the same materials as a stick built but every wall is square and every stud it straight and in the right place. IMHO, much better built than a stick built. The big tables are jigs and everything is aligned with lasers. It takes about 5 minutes to build an exterior wall including window and door openings. The stock is power fed into a saw that measures and cuts the wood to length. A lot of metal plates (Simpson type) are used in the corners. The big deal is getting the foundation perfect before parts delivery. Probably the best built few houses I've looked at. The walls come insulated, windowed, wired and covered in house wrap. The exterior doors go on after the sheetrock is installed. The one above is definitely a pre-fab. It looks like an Amazon HomeAmazon Home.

[brianwelch]

I more or less witnessed a modular home installed in the late 1980's.
Basement was prefabricated (precast insulated concrete wall panels) and installed in one day. No footings by the way, just set on pea gravel. Basement floor slab was placed well after the house was set. (thru the basement awning windows).
The prefab house sections were installed during a rainstorm, and not very well. Builder had to re-rock the ceilings and walls to make up for mis-alignment of the boxes/sections.
Garage grade beams had less than 1/2" of bearing on the corbels that were engineered/cast into the foundation walls. The stick built garage was rebuilt 2 times before it finally stuck (I guess the adage 3rd time is the charm, is well founded in this case).
House was vacant for 16 years. It's now on its 2nd owner...
I do believe that pre-engineered/pre-fabricated homes can be better than traditional stick built, but the devil is in the details and then how it's erected...
 

[Cooler]

Westchester Modular bought a large tract of land and subdivided it.  It also built a factory on that land, so delivery of the homes was less than a mile.  By now they have sold off all the remaining subdivisions.  They now do home improvements and an occasional home.  I don't really understand their current business model. 

But I took a tour of the plant and the construction was typical stick-built methods, but with a factory setting and the attendant quality improvements.  The large table had huge squaring arms so all the walls were perfectly square.  They had spacers for the location of the studs so those were perfectly on 14" centers. 

Overall, I was impressed.

Here is a section being built in the factory:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/proxy/...z7GZCqFzwc

[crokett™]

I seem to remember them trucking in the modules.  My guess is that the $49,000.00 was either for the land or for the land and an old house that was demolished. 

There was a stick-built modular home that went up about 5 years ago.  They poured the foundation.  Then the shell of the house arrived on two trucks (front half and back half) and was installed in less than a week.

About one month later there were cars parked on the driveway and I guess the house was complete.  But that house looks (and is constructed) just like a regular stick-built home. 

I toured the factory about 25 years ago, and other than the fact that they were working on a huge table with overhead cranes to move stuff, it was built like a regular home. They used fixtures to assure squareness, and I suspect it would be more nearly plumb than a site-built home.  When the two halves arrived they only had to finish the roofing (which was nearly complete when it arrived).

My house is a modular.  It took about as long as a stick built. Actually thats not accurate.  The foundation was poured in July.  We moved in 4 months later.    The delay for us was we were getting the upstairs finished and we had a garage added.  Those took a while on their own.  There were also some delays because I had specced some plumbing be added by the factory to accommodate an upstairs bathroom.  The factory put all that plumbing in the wrong spot, so work had to be done to open walls downstairs to run all of that.

Still, the house is better built than it would be otherwise, and it took about a month's less time, give or take.

[llarisaabramova]

Well, I don't think that every owner was switching this house every six years. I heard the stories like that, and in most cases, they pretend to be mythical stories, but the truth was in the insects/rats/house positioning or the bad neighbors. In my opinion, the better option is always to buy a new house instead of buying the old one with hidden problems. Usually, if I need a new house, I'm searching for a professional mortgage consulting service, and only after consulting with them, I make my decision.

[K. L. McReynolds]

I did the finish work on a factory built, trailered to site, and crane set(2 halves) house. I installed all the doors, flooring, trim, and strapping to the foundation. The house was 2" by 6" framed with a real stone fireplace. The chimney was built after the house was set. Took the installation crews less than 8 hours to set the two halves, make the connections, and raise the hinged 12/12 pitch roof.

My brother bought a factory built house(28' wide and 70+' long) with 2" by 4" walls studs and a conventional truss framed, asphalt shingled roof. The top 3' of the roof was finished on site. The house came on a single trailer and was moved from the side of the foundation over into place. Took the crew 2 days to set the house and finish the roof with small truss sections, sheathing, and shingles. The foundation had normal studs cast into the concrete and the house bolted to the foundation. The only things he had to do (with my help) was install the finished flooring and porch. 

I helped build a factory build modular section house for Habitat. Wall sections(8'-12') were built in the factory and shipped to the site. A wall section consisted of the framing and exterior sheathing. The factory reps had the installation maps and each section was identified with a code.
An army of volunteers had all the exterior walls, windows, trusses, roof sheathing, and shingles in place in less than 7 hours.

All three houses were indistinguishable from on site stick built types. Except for the joints between the two halves(invisible when finished) and the strapping on the first house.

Helped build three ICF(insulated concrete forms) houses for Habitat. Not sure I would like to live in one simply because of the interior finishing. Regular sheet rock, but no wood studs(unless added) and no spaces behind the sheet rock(installed flush to the foam forms). Not easy to hang pictures or add wiring etc. One benefit is those houses are pretty much drive by proof.