I go out for coffee with a buddy of mine who is a mortgage broker.  He has been a broker for the past ten years or so and has seen many patterns over that time.  Recently, with the housing boom in our area, he has seen a lot of lower income people being forced out of the home buying market by the prices.  Most people just cannot afford the high prices that some of the homes are going for.

I had to ask what these people were doing.  He had an answer for me that I wasn’t expecting - they were buying mobile homes.  I thought that mobile homes were a thing of the past - something that someone would own back in the 70s, but he assured me that it was not the case.

In fact, he had issued more mobile home mortgage loans in the past month than regular home loans.  He let me know that manufactured home loans were different than a traditional mortgage due to the quick depreciation of this type of housing.

Also, most applicants need to get PMI with their loan as they usually don’t have enough money for a large down payment.  But he said, that he had checked out some of the mobile homes that he issued mortgages for, and they did look really good - not like the dump that you would expect.  I think I will seriously have to take a look at mobile homes when I am out house shopping - they seem very interesting.