A few months ago I decided that I wanted to get my own place to live. I researched apartments, renting, and so on. After the research I learned that by the time you've spent pouring your money into an apartment you could have invested it into a house and then you have something to show for all that money you've been dishing out. If you happen to be a roamer then this more than likely won’t apply to you.
So the hunt for the perfect living space began. At first I started looking at modular home and mobile homes. These homes are not “trailers”, they are premade in a factory and are mobile. Thus they are called mobile homes. Mobile homes actually have an amazing sturdy foundation and are made remarkably well now and are built to HUD specifications. HUD specifications simply mean that the mobile home HAS to be built just like a normal house, from the base boards to insulation.
After learning about mobile homes I decided to look into previously owned homes. Things to know when looking at pre-owned mobile homes: The home must be year 2004 or higher (because HUD specs weren’t introduced until then, maybe a year or two before that, I can’t remember…), check UNDER the house and look at the underpinning (if the underpinning is sagging that means that there’s water logging happens, which in turn means possible rotting of floor, mold, etc…), check for ANY sign no matter how big or small of water marks on the walls, floors, ceiling, etc… That’s the major stuff for mobile homes. Next I decided to look into brand new mobile homes.
Brand new mobile homes are nice! Single wide runs roughly $28,000-$38,000. This does not include the moving, land, sewage, electricity, and other hook-ups. Double wides, also a nice option for a home, very quant, and are around $40,000-$60,000. Same as above but keep in mind that now you have to haul two pieces of a house to your destined location. By that time you have spent around $80,000 dollars and in that case why don’t you just go ahead and cough up the money to build a house for a few more thousand dollars. Now this goes much easier if you have already have land on which to build.
So after going through this traumatic experience of trying to decide how and where to live I have decided to build a house. I have a good 1.25 acres of land and am building on that. The big thing to decide next is to find a good loan company. I am personally using the USDA/Rural Development company. The USDA is a company that works with people who have low to no credit scores, who have gone through a rough time, stuff like that. There’s a crap ton of hoops to jump through but it’s worth it in the end. Nice people, but damn! It’s like a million years later and we’re just now wrapping this stuff up! It’s taken a good 4 or 5 months to get this show on the road. Also, trying to find a house plan that you LOVE, is like pulling teeth. But once you find that perfect house plan, it’s all worth it.
I’m going to keep updates going on about the house and hopefully other stuff as well. I’m a yoga instructor and currently working on my first Ayurvedic certification (an ancient all natural healing system that I will cover in later posts), and love gardening. Just bare with me as I get the hang of this blog stuff J
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