Repairs on an older mobile home (Leesburg, Lee: insurance, mortgage, loan)

[movingvanmorrison]

We are buying an older mobile home (1980) and we need to pull up the entire carpet pretty much everywhere (1330 square feet) and the roof needs some work - the owner has already asked for a roofer to come out and give an estimate this week.

So any idea how much a major roof repair would cost? Replacement if needed?

And how much it costs (ball park figure) to remove carpet and replace it with a medium priced linoleum or vinyl or whatever non-carpet material we use. What do you recommend?

Thanks for all contributions!

[Tulippsy]

If the roof is 15 years or older, you will not be able to insure the home. I have no idea about individual repairs, but we just put a metal roof on our 1,500 sq. ft. MH for $14,000. A shingle roof is a few thousand less.

Many newer manufactured homes have LVP (luxury vinyl plank) flooring. A simple Google search or a trip to Lowe’s should give you the price per square foot.

[movingvanmorrison]

Originally Posted by Tulippsy

If the roof is 15 years or older, you will not be able to insure the home. I have no idea about individual repairs, but we just put a metal roof on our 1,500 sq. ft. MH for $14,000. A shingle roof is a few thousand less.

Many newer manufactured homes have LVP (luxury vinyl plank) flooring. A simple Google search or a trip to Lowe’s should give you the price per square foot.

Thanks. Sorry I didn't get back to this thread sooner. Looking for and finally putting in an offer and going into escrow on a home has kept me pretty busy.

The only thing I will say - because I have been calling around at insurance companies - is that at least here in FL you CAN get insurance on a home 15 years or older. You may pay too much and it may not give you full value - especially in this market - if you have to file a claim. But yes you can insure it.

I was told by several "the roof has to be less than 20 years old".
Then I kept calling and have found at least 3 insurance companies that will insure it older than 20 years. Ours was a "roof over" (roof on top of original roof) in 1999 and so far we have found that Citizens will insure it for $1500/year. We are looking into others. We also got a quote from Farmers for $2200 or so a year as I recall, and one from some other company for $1800 a year.
So according to what I've been told yes you can insure an older roof, it's just more expensive and harder to find companies to do it.

Speaking of Lowes, do you recommend them for installation of flooring etc?
Our inspector (independent) told us he would use Lowes for the installation and also for other repairs - new sink, exhaust fans, taking out a cabinet to make more roof for a bigger refrigerator , and a few other repairs.

[Tulippsy]

I’m surprised you were able to find so many insurance options for a home with a 23 yo roof. Now that you mentioned Citizen’s I seem to recall we could have gotten a policy through them, but the roof needed repairs anyway so we opted to replace it. Citizen’s would be my last choice for insurance, btw.

We used Lowe’s for custom window treatments and I was very pleased with them.

Congratulations! I hope you’re very happy in your new home!

[Ghaati]

We've had folks in our community use Lowes for installation and repairs. Once. I've never heard a single repeat customer. Best bet is to buy the product at Lowes or Home Depot, and have it delivered. Schedule a licensed professional (plumber, electrician, general contractor, etc) to do the job on the same day it gets delivered (or the next day if it arrives late). In many cases, the contractor you hire will work out the delivery date/time with Lowe's, so everything is synced up.

Why do this: Because Lowes doesn't have their own installers or repair people. They hire contractors, some of which have expired licenses, or have let their insurance lapse, or don't speak English, or have no particular standards of care to the property they're working on. You're stuck with them, because you gave the responsibility of picking the contractor to a national conglomerate.

[movingvanmorrison]

Originally Posted by Tulippsy

I’m surprised you were able to find so many insurance options for a home with a 23 yo roof. Now that you mentioned Citizen’s I seem to recall we could have gotten a policy through them, but the roof needed repairs anyway so we opted to replace it. Citizen’s would be my last choice for insurance, btw.

We used Lowe’s for custom window treatments and I was very pleased with them.

Congratulations! I hope you’re very happy in your new home!

We found insurance options but they were over $1800 up to around $2500/year AND were very low on replacement coverage $.
In the end we went with Citizens because they gave us the best price AND the most coverage on our 81 home.

[movingvanmorrison]

Originally Posted by Ghaati

We've had folks in our community use Lowes for installation and repairs. Once. I've never heard a single repeat customer. Best bet is to buy the product at Lowes or Home Depot, and have it delivered. Schedule a licensed professional (plumber, electrician, general contractor, etc) to do the job on the same day it gets delivered (or the next day if it arrives late). In many cases, the contractor you hire will work out the delivery date/time with Lowe's, so everything is synced up.

Why do this: Because Lowes doesn't have their own installers or repair people. They hire contractors, some of which have expired licenses, or have let their insurance lapse, or don't speak English, or have no particular standards of care to the property they're working on. You're stuck with them, because you gave the responsibility of picking the contractor to a national conglomerate.

Good to know. I am still considering Lowes and Home Depot unfortunately because we are under a deadline and they seem to be the only ones who can deliver both materials and contractors in a timely manner.

Went to an independent floor company and they said, "Sure, a couple months from now..." to which I had to say no thanks.

Sometimes in this time of heavy demand for construction / floor etc type people, one has limited choices both in terms of materials and contractors.
If anyone knows any options in the Leesburg area, I'm listening.

[Hemlock140]

Here you cannot get a mortgage on one built before 1976, buyers can only get a loan on the land value, and insurance is harder to find when that old.

[movingvanmorrison]

Originally Posted by Hemlock140

Here you cannot get a mortgage on one built before 1976, buyers can only get a loan on the land value, and insurance is harder to find when that old.

Yes, that is what we have heard from realtors and bankers. 76 is currently the cut off for getting a mortgage. It seems most people buy mobile (manufactured) homes with cash these days.

As for insurance, I don't know what people do with pre-76 manuf. homes. I assume someone must be selling insurance, or else people just go without if they have paid their mortgage off...?

On our 81 we ended up finding insurance for up to $110k damage for $1350 a year. We got some quotes as high as $2500 for LESS coverage from some companies. It definitely pays to shop around although it ate up a lot of my time doing so.

[movingvanmorrison]

Update re floors: We found an independent floor (quality vinyl) shop that uses licensed "regular" (ie used regularly by this small business) that sells quality viny for $3.99 sq.ft and $3/sq ft more for installation - both with 25 year warranty - though of course I realize that would depend on the shop still being in business 25 years later. But the vinyl co. is Mohawk so that should be worth something I presume.
That is not much more than what Lowes and Home Depot quoted us and the owner/manager of the shop convinced us he cares about his customers and quality, having installed it himself for 20 years.

I decided not to go near Home Depot after 2 things, fyi:
1) My friend said he worked there for awhile and found them absolutely horrible on every level - how they treated both employees and customers.
2) The latter was clear to me when I went in the other day to ask some questions.
The man on the floor said he would take me over to the expert on flooring to answer my questions.
As we approached she was reading something and ignored both us and the worker after he said "Hi, I have a couple customers here to ask some questions about vinyl flooring".
Silence. Kept reading.
After some long seconds she looks up and asks us what we need. I say "We are interested in finding out your labor cost for installing vinyl floor." She tells me the $ figure. No apology for making us wait. No smile. No friendliness whatsoever.

I say, "Okay, could you write that down for me please?"

She rather snottily says, "No, but I can give you a pen and paper and YOU can write it down!"

After I got over the shock of her saying that to me, I go, "Oh, okay, I guess I can do that." She gave me a pen and paper, and for no reason I went ahead and wrote it down. If I hadn't been still reeling from the way she was dealing with me as a customer I'd probably have said instead, "No, no problem. If that's how you treat customers here I wouldn't want to do business with you anyway."

I left vowing never to use Home Depot for my floor.

Had I seen the manager on my way out I'd have told him he might want to give that woman a talking to about customer satisfaction.

If I were the manager and had an employee treat a customer that way I'd give her one warning then fire her the next time she treated a customer for a potential $9,000 contract with such a lack of friendliness and respect.

Maybe I'm just an old fashioned fuddy-duddy but that is no way to treat a customer even if you're in a liquor store or dollar store. Let alone a potential $9k contract. Wow.

It's no surprise that I had a similarly horrible experience (in a different way) at the local Office Depot. (I assume they are owned by the same corporation.) I refuse to shop at either now unless it's "necessary" for some odd reason.