THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, February 15, 1997 TAG: 9702130238
SECTION: REAL ESTATE WEEKLY PAGE: 34 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: ABOUT THE OUTER BANKS
SOURCE: Chris Kidder
LENGTH: 105 lines
In a January column about modular construction, I recommended the book Manufactured Houses: Finding and Buying Your Dream House for Less by A.M. Watkins. Two readers have written to say they can't find the book anywhere.
I checked with the book's publisher, Dearborn Financial Publishing, 155 N. Wacker Drive, Chicago, Ill. 60606-1719; the book is still in print. Any bookstore should be able to order it but the publisher also takes retail phone orders. Call 312-836-4400 and have your credit card handy. The book costs $14.95 plus shipping.
The same column brought this e-mail inquiry: ``I am thinking about buying some land and putting a modular home on it. Do you have any statistics on resale value on such `houses' should I decide at a later time to sell and get a real house?''
I'd hoped I'd done a better job of explaining the difference between a modular house and a manufactured house: the former being the equivalent of a stick-built house, the latter being what used to be called a mobile home. I'll try again.
A modular house, once tied to its foundation on-site, is indistinguishable from a site-built house. The only telltale sign - without clambering around in the attic or stripping off drywall - would be the building code compliance sticker required by some states (including North Carolina) to be placed in the kitchen sink cabinet.
Because the house is set on a traditional foundation and meets standard building codes, property appraisers and tax assessors say that the fact of its factory origin should have no bearing on its future value.
Future value of a modular house will be determined by all the things that affect any house including - but not limited to - its quality and design, recent sales prices of comparable houses, the condition of surrounding properties and the neighborhood.
The use of ``comparables'' is the most common method of appraising residential value and the appraisers I asked said they would not take construction method into account when choosing comparable properties. In most cases, they pointed out, they would have no way of knowing how the house was constructed.
If you buy an inexpensive box of a house built to barely meet the minimum building standards in a neighborhood of other inexpensive, marginal boxes, then your property will be valued accordingly. All other factors being equal, building the box on-site rather than ordering it from a factory will not make the house more valuable.
If you buy a more expensive modular home with custom features and place it in a neighborhood of other upscale houses, it will appreciate right along with its neighbors.
There hasn't been a lot of modular residential construction on the Outer Banks. Hatteras Colony in Avon is an older, predominantly modular neighborhood of inexpensive homes . More than 15 years later, the value of these modular homes appears to have kept pace with neighboring site-built homes of comparable size and quality.
This is not to say that in some people's minds ``modular'' doesn't have the stigma of being a cheap, poorly constructed house. Modular does equate with cheap for many folks because the majority of modular houses are cheap. In the case of my reader, he perceives modular as something less than ``real,'' a variation on cheap, and just as inaccurate.
These prejudices are missing the point: a poorly built house is a poorly built house, whether it's built on-site or in a factory. A well-built house with a good design and quality features will always be well-built regardless of its origin. All site-built houses are not equal; neither are factory-built modular houses.
I see a parallel between the modular house market today and the automobile market of 30 years ago. Japanese imported automobiles were once snubbed as inferior because they were less expensive than American-made cars.
In fact, the Japanese cars have proved over the years to be of equal or better value to comparably priced American cars. They aren't for everyone, they haven't replaced American cars, but they have developed a respected niche.
I think we're beginning to see a similar shift in thinking about modular construction.
My intent is not to champion factory-built houses but to correct misconceptions about it. Like the maligned ``imports'' of the 1960s and '70s , modular construction is a largely misunderstood and underrated option. In some instances, it makes good economic and practical sense.
You might choose to dislike modular construction because it displaces the traditional building trades in the local economy - and that's a worthwhile point to ponder - but don't dismiss it because it's inherently inferior. That just isn't so.
Following up on last week's column about rotting aquatic weeds in the Currituck Sound, Yates Barber, of Elizabeth City, a local authority on estuarine flora, shared his knowledge with me. Eurasian water milfoil is probably the culprit, he said, because it's the only plant growing in abundance in the sound.
Milfoil has become the aquatic equivalent to kudzu, taking over its habitat since making its first local appearance in the 1960s.
The odor is primarily a warm weather problem, said Barber, and usually limited to years when we have severe summer storms. Storm tides uproot the plants, which mass together, wash up along the shore and decay in the heat.
The summer of 1996 had the right weather, he points out, but even milfoil was scarce - not necessarily a good sign, but a relief, he's sure, to soundfront property owners.
Barber concurs with the Dare County agricultural extension agent's recommendation to rake the windrows of the plant out of the water before they begin to rot. Raking won't leave as big a mess as people might think, he said. Because aquatic weeds contain a high percentage of water, they shrink considerably once they begin to dry. MEMO: Send comments and questions to Chris Kidder at P.O. Box 10, Nags
Head, N.C. 27959. Or e-mail her at realkidd(AT)aol.com