The Grissim Buyer's Guide to Manufactured Homes & Land: How to Find a Reputable Dealer and Negotiate a Fair Price on the Best Kept Secret in American Housing

Excellent book for comparing different brands/manufactureres of New Mobile Homes. I've found it very useful while searching for a used home to buy. I would like to see something like this for older models and obsolete brands but this one goes a long way. I now know which manufacturers sell in my state, What their typical prices are, How well they are constructed on a scale of 1 to 10. It does not break the value down to specific models but there is a chart i can compare with what ever home I'm looking at to see how it compares with the others. If I had found this book at the library I would go out and buy my own copy.

If you have any questions or doubts about buying a manufactured home, buy this book! I thought I had done exhaustive research (well, I had!) on manufactured housing, but this book is an excellent and necessary tool to use during the process. During a meeting with a dealer, I used the Guide as a reference and the dealer finally asked me if he could see it. He flipped through a few pages and then wrote down the author's name and the title and asked me where I bought it! After reading the Guide, I visited two dealers in New Mexico that I originally passed by and I am seriously considering the product of one. And, trust me, I am so well informed now by reading and studying this Guide and it's companion book, The Complete Buyer's Guide to Manufactured Homes and Land, that no dealer will ever think I'm a dumb broad they can take advantage of! Thank you, John, for writing these books.

My copy of Grissim's guide is pretty dog-eared and beat-up from being carried around while checking out home models, but the book has proved itself invaluable. I trust it. A couple of times when I had it with me, I got different reactions from sales people. One guy noticed it and winced uncomfortably, the other said "Oh, yeah, that's a good book." It figures. Dealers vary. Reputable ones are OK with knowledgeable customers, the cheesey ones hate the book because they can't pull any of their old tricks on you. Bottom line: this book puts the home buyer first, and in control, every step of the way. It's made me confident and swindle-proof and helped me find a dealer I can work with. Five stars.

This indispensable guide is packed with useful insights I've never seen compiled in any book previously. I wish this book had been available when I was recently involved in considerable research on manufactured homes for a nonprofit educational institute. Given the rising popularity of manufactured homes, this industry has been in great need of this no-nonsense, honest viewpoint by someone who has been though the essential ins and outs of choosing a manufactured home. He explains buying land, land-leasing, financing, warranty problems, building permits and building inspectors, how to find a reputable dealer and a wealth of other valuable information one needs to know about the world of manufactured homes. Grissim's book explains this ever popular way of life in a good and honest light. I highly recommend it to anyone looking to buy a home.

If John Grissim's fine and thorough book on the manufactured housing industry had only been written when I went through my own personal manufactured home horror story, I would have been saved plenty of heartache and lots of precious time. Grissim's "The Complete Guide to Manufactured Homes and Land" is exactly what the odd subculture of manufactured housing needs: it's an encyclopedic look at this growing business, a detailed roadmap on how to avoid the cheesy hustlers, and a step-by-step guide for those of us who realize a manufactured home is an opportunity to live the American dream, not a deadend introduction to the world of trailers [poorly built]....John Grissm knows that world of the manufactured home hucksters. But what he makes clear in "The Complete Buyer's Guide to Manufactured Homes and Land" is that the industry is changing fast. He takes the prospective manufactured home buyer by the hand and point by point shows how to avoid the [dishonest] artists and instead take advantage of the fact that today's manufactured home can be every bit as elegant and well built as an on site constructed dwelling.The book helps the American dreamer choose a reputable manufactured home dealer, figure out the often-confusing world of manufactured home financing, and find appropriate home sites.... all these details can be ponderous. But "The Complete Buyer's Guide to Manufactured Homes and Land" will undoubtedly be used by future authors as a model for the next generation of how to books becauseit is so easy to navigate, and at times even fun to read. John Grissim was a writer long before he became a manufactured home expert (he bases his book on his own experiences relocating to his dream house in rural Washington state). You may well have encountered Grissim's adventure journalism and fine writing over the last thirty years in publications ... His previous books include "Country Music: White Man's Blues" and "The Lost Treasure of the Concepcion." In "The Complete Buyer's Guide to Manufactured Homes and Land" I particularly enjoyed the chapter "Great Product, Checkered Past . . ." The stories of old trailer parks and the archival photographs of canvas-roofed travel trailers from the forties are satisfying pieces of Americana."Forget everthing you've thought about mobile homes," Grissim advises his readers as he takes them into his new-found version of the American dream. I'd like to extend his advice: If you're in the market for a new home, forget everything you've thought about homes and do not make your next housing decision without considering the manufactured home alternative and without reading John Grissim's "The Complete Buyer's Guide to Manufactured Homes and Land."