Wow! The credit market is brutal.

[deeaa*]

When I speak of manufactured homes, I mean something like this:

Or



They are called 'package houses' here and they are not strictly pre-fabricated, but the houses are more like built somewhere in the factory in something like 20 parts that each fit a truck bed, and then assembled on site and built. I don't think the structures per se differ from a house that would be built completely on site.

The same way most apartment buildings are done, except in apartment buildings they'd build a concrete/steel 'skeleton' and then furnish it all over with similar 'element' wall parts etc.

I think that's mostly used because the 'best' season for building is quite short here; you only have a few months a year when it's reasonably warm and dry and thus it makes sense doing it with this kind of 'elements'.

The selection for this kind of houses is HUGE, there are hundreds and hundreds to choose from, ranging from 2-bedroom houses for maybe $30.000 to six-bedroom houses up to $250.000 or so. I'd venture an average home such as depicted in these pictures costs 80.000 to 100.000 in dollars.

The house itself isn't the most expensive one; the property adds about 50% and then all the infrastructure etc. which would bring an average house price tag to maybe 250-300K around here. My house was handbuilt in early 50's and much renovated, and it's worth is circa 300K now.

If I were to build a house for myself now, I'd probably however build it out of stone/concrete blocks and brick outer walls and have it drawn uniquely by an architect - it'd cost maybe 30K more than a package house but in the overall picture it's not hugely more expensive. I could save that much by doing much of the work involved myself.

But speaking of hurricanes and earthquakes, we have neither here. Some small bursts of wind, sure, some might even fell trees here and there, or throw around a few camping wagons and such light garages/huts but I've never heard of any natural phenomenon being able to seriously damage a house here - the only exception would be a tree falling on top of it. We had a tree fall over our house once and had to rebuild a small part of the roof that was damaged. But the roofs are built to withstand up to six feet of heavy snow and ice so they'll last thru quite a beating from winds too.

[deeaa*]

This is what my house looks like BTW:



It's what's called a 'Front line soldier house' because this kind of houses were built by thousands and thousands after the war when soldiers returned home, they are all very similar in style and such, and very very common in every Finnish town. Very often depicted in movies etc. as everybody's dream to find a traditional handbuilt house like this in a city neighborhood and renovate it, have a golden retriever and a Volvo STW, LOL :-) but in reality these type of houses are a lot of work and their basic structures impose some limitations to furnishing them, for instance the idea that the whole house is built around a huge smokestack/furnace center 'tower' and in each floor the fireplaces and such are thus in the center of the house and quite big; ours has a full dozen pipes in the chimney for instance. SO all the rooms have to be around it in a circle sort of.

[Bloozcat]

If I wanted to build a new home today that was strong, energy efficient, and darn near impervious to the elements, I'd opt for a dome structure.

There's a guy on another unrelated site I visit who builds them. He posted about 30 pics of one of his under construction from the sight preperation through the finished interior. It was a large dome with a smaller one connected to it for a garage. Some people can't get over the non-traditional, futuristic look of the structures, but if that doesn't bother you they are very cool homes to own.

One of my co-workers has a relative who owns one up in Kentucky. During a really bad wind/rain storm a large tree came down right on the dome home. It hit, bounced, and slid to the ground. It cost him $100.00 to pay someone to fix the cosmetic damage the tree caused. His insurance agent told him that had the house been a traditional wood frame or CBS (block), the tree would have taken a large section of the roof and the support wall down to the ground. It would have cost tens of thousands of dollars to fix.

[tunghaichuan***]

I saw this design in Sunset magazine a few years ago:

http://www.mkd-arc.com/homes/glidehouse

&

http://www.mkd-arc.com/wp-content/up...ouse_08_10.pdf

Very cool, flexible, modular design.

[deeaa*]

Interesting. Neither would work here, though.

In case of a dome, the windows, if any, would be covered under snow most of the year. Also I foresee a lot of other problems associated with snow etc. and dome structures. There are some dome structures used here, mostly for large sports halls etc. but windowless. A sharp inverted V roof has many of the good qualities of domes, though.

That window style house is also nice, but wouldn't be very usable most of the year either. That kind of build is getting, however, quite popular in summer homes which are empty most of the year.

One interesting idea of late was to build houses on the water, just build them on big floating concrete bases. There's a lot of good to it - needs less insulation in the winter as the base is never under zero degrees celsius anyway, it's under water, and stuff like that.

If I were to build me a house, I'd build basically two houses joined with corridors of sorts to form a square with an inside yard - everything on one level, no basement or upper floors. High roofs sloped so that most of the snow falls on the outer side of the complex. Preferably on a sloping terrain so 3 outer sides of the house could be basically a balcony for summer use.

When I was a kid I loved drawing house plans on millimetre paper...I wanted to become an architect, but my plans were killed due to really poor mathematics scores at school.

[Spudman***]

This topic hit home yesterday when I was in a meeting with the mayor. He told me a business that is close to my house finally got financing for a new location, rather than the residential zone they are currently in. This is a very large and successful butcher shop/meat dealer/caterer and the bank initially told him he needed between 15% and 20% down to finance the new location. Then they kept messing with him and he is now having to cover around 40% down. That's crazy for a long term successful business.

[Tig***]

Thread revisit.
I've been shopping fixed mortgage re-finance loans the last 6 weeks. Many advertise below 3%, but turn out to be bait and switch ARM loans, or have terrible customer service reviews. I gave up on most and started working with the bank that my current loan is with, and they rejected me, even with a 749 credit rating!
(the rating system ranges between 320 for poor, to 844 for stellar)

All I can guess is there were too many hard credit inquiries from the other lenders I spoke with. I'm done.

[hubberjub***]

Stick with it. Find out why they turned you down and ask how the problem can be rectified. Have you been in your current house for a while or did you just buy it within the last few years? Do you plan to keep the house for a long time or are you just trying to lower your monthly payment for the short term? Was the value of your house affected by the housing slump?

[mapka]

I went to the bank today to open a CD. I couldn't believe how low the rate are these day. Was basically told that the bank(s) are sitting on lumps of money but refuse to loosen the lending rules. Seems they didn't have to jump through many hoops to get their bale out money from us (US Citizens).

[Tig***]

I forgot to update...
I ended up going with Quicken Loans. It is a real pain to buy/re-finance these days, but they were easy to work with. We'll be saving about $46,000 over the life of the new 20 year mortgage, and will pay it off in 16 years or less. It is about $320 per month cheaper than the old mortgage, so we'll put in an extra $350 into the principal each payment, and increase that more later. That will shorten the mortgage even more with additional savings.