Manufactured Homes: Not Your Grandpa’s Mobile Home!

Published on Wednesday March 16, 2022

Mobile homes have cemented a place in popular culture associated mainly with trailer parks. However, there’s much more to mobile homes than you might realize. You may not even recognize what’s on the market anymore that is considered to be a mobile home.

In this blog post, we’ll help you sort out the different terminology and how your grandpa’s mobile home has gotten a modern-day makeover. We’ll also give tips on picking up a modern mobile home of your own, as well as buying mobile home insurance online.

No More Mobile Homes?

When you hear the word “mobile home,” your mind probably goes to trailer parks. Any easy-to-put-together prefabricated house counts as a mobile home, right? And your grandpa might have very well set up shop in a travel trailer and called it home. 

Originally, the term mobile home was a very literal one. These homes were designed to be picked up and moved, making them ideal for people whose work took them around the country. Eventually, people clued in that there were benefits to mobile homes beyond being mobile and using them for travel. 

Mobile homes are very affordable and could be easily put together. They are often set up in a park which provides a sense of community and to be surrounded by like-minded people. Mobile homes and mobile home insurance then took off in popularity.

However, as mentioned above, these mobile homes were typically built off-site in a large park or empty lot away from residential neighborhoods. This means there wasn’t a lot of oversight in how they were built, which meant that they weren’t always the safest in case of emergencies or protected with homeowners insurance.

 In 1976, the HUD code was put in place to properly regulate the construction of these kinds of mobile or manufactured homes. This code also, interestingly enough, mentioned that these kinds of homes should be referred to as “manufactured homes.” This was probably to avoid confusion since not all of them were mobile and being moved around anymore.

So if you’ve been tossing around the term mobile home, you may have been using it wrong.  There is one caveat, though – any homemade before that 1976 code can still be referred to as a mobile home. Still, most people just use the term mobile home freely. If you are looking up mobile home insurance or manufactured home insurance. 

Manufactured Homes

So what makes these modern “manufactured homes” so special? Primarily, it’s the convenience, same as with the old mobile homes. These houses are constructed entirely within a facility and delivered to the building site to be secured to the foundation and furnished.

What makes manufactured homes so different from their antecedents is the level of luxury they can include. Mobile homes are often equated “affordable” with “cheaply made.” However, there is a growing demand for better put together manufactured homes, and insurance companies now catching on and selling ​​manufactured home insurance. 

The number of customization options you can get today for a luxurious and custom made manufactured home, certaintely put the old mobile home reputation to shame. Manufactured homes can be roomy, with amenities like granite countertops or hardwood flooring. 

Manufactured homes are essentially the evolution of mobile homes. They have much higher building standards attached to them, making them safer and much more comfortable to live in. 

Modular Homes 

You might also have heard about the term “Modular Home” in this same category if you’ve been looking for specialty insurance. A modular home is a type of manufactured home, and sometimes the terms get used interchangeably. (When you add in people still calling them mobile homes, it can get very confusing!)

The main difference here is how the homes are put together. While manufactured homes are incredibly customizable using modular home builders, they are intended to be put together with a certain floor plan in mind and delivered ready to the site in one piece. The pre-construction phase is much more organized and many people opt to work with manufactured and modular home builders to go over customized floor plans and expectations.

Modular homes, on the other hand, are always constructed in a variety of pieces. How they get put together is different, as they will arrive in multiple factory made pieces and be assembled once the pieces arrive on site. 

Modular homes also abide by regional and state codes, while Manufactured homes are regulated by Federal HUD code. 

Getting Mobile Home Insurance

No matter the home you buy, it’s always important to get specialty insurance on your alternative living home. Thankfully, with CoverTree, it’s easier than ever to get mobile home insurance online – in just three easy steps!