In some cases, prospective homeowners find out about modular homes the same way the Tommasones did, by talking to a builder.
Mr. Kaufman cited a number of reasons that traditional builders make the move to modular: advances in the design and manufacturing capabilities of the modular home industry, the technical quality and durability of modular construction, and the difficulty that the builders have in finding skilled, reliable labor and subcontractors to work on stick-built homes.
She'd moved in with him, into his modular home on the windswept bench on the west side of the river.
What, then, is a lender to do? Mike Drury, senior vice president of the M and T Mortgage Corporation in Lancaster, Pa., said that in traditional modular home financing, the lender sends an inspector with a check to the construction site on the day the house is delivered.
With a modular home, however, the house cannot be used as collateral for a mortgage until it is attached to the foundation.
A Greene County legislator, Jim Hitchcock, said Ms. Osborn, an elderly woman with a walker, was in her modular home when the water lifted it up.
A fair number of the house thefts of yore targeted modular homes, like the one the Lee family hadn't yet put together.
Indeed, the very existence of Mr. Kaufman's organization -- whose members include about 60 manufacturers of modular homes across the country -- under the umbrella of the traditional builders' main trade group is testimony to the increasing interest in modular construction.
The remains of the house were bulldozed into a backyard gully, and a new three-bedroom modular home rose on the old foundation.
With a modular home by Chelsea, on the other hand, the floor joists are covered with a double layer of half-inch decking that is glued and then nailed into place, and surrounded by a double layer of 2 inch by 10 inch lumber.
