The questions,
answered in full.

Legally, no. “Mobile home” refers to anything built before 15 June 1976, when the federal HUD Code took effect. Everything built after that date is a manufactured home, and the two are governed by completely different rules.

In conversation people use the terms interchangeably, and we are not going to be precious about it. But if you are reading a loan document, an insurance policy or a zoning ordinance, that date is the line that matters.

On land you own, with the home on a permanent foundation and titled as real property: yes. Conventional, FHA Title II, VA and USDA all lend on manufactured homes that meet those conditions. On a leased pad you are in chattel lending, which is a real loan with real underwriting — just more expensive. Which situation you are in is a decision you make, and we would rather you made it on purpose.

The same as any other house: as long as the roof and the envelope are maintained. HUD-code homes from the early 1980s are still in service across the country. The structural failures people remember are almost entirely pre-1976 units, or post-1976 homes that were never properly anchored — which is a set-crew problem, not a construction problem.

Every home is certified to a wind zone, a roof-load zone and a thermal zone, all printed on the data plate inside the kitchen cabinet. New Mexico is Wind Zone I and Thermal Zone 2 under the HUD Code, so a home built for this market is engineered to the inland wind standard and the middle insulation requirement. Roof load is the one that varies here: a home going up at Sandia Park or Cedar Crest is carrying snow that a home in the valley never sees, so ask which roof-load zone a particular home is certified to before you commit it to the mountains.

Anchoring is engineered and torque-tested, and it matters more than any of the above. A properly anchored home on engineered piers performs comparably to a site-built house on a stem wall; the failures people remember are almost always homes that were never tied down correctly.

Usually — it is what most of our buyers are doing. The constraints are zoning (Bernalillo, Sandoval, Valencia and Santa Fe counties each handle manufactured housing differently by district), any minimum square footage or roof-pitch covenant on the parcel, physical access for a load up to 16 feet wide on a single section and half a double at a time, and utilities. Call us with the parcel and we will go through it with you before you spend anything.

With a permanent foundation, a continuous perimeter, a site-built porch and a conventional roof pitch — generally not, from the street. Several of the double-section homes on the lot are built for exactly that, and the difference between one of those and the same plan set on blocks with vinyl skirting is mostly what you spend on the ground under it. Whether it matters to you is a personal question, and a completely reasonable one.

The home, before options. That is how the manufacturer states it and it is how we show it, so the number you see on a listing is the house itself and not a package somebody built around it.

Delivery, the set, site work — pad, drive, well, septic, power run — and anything added at the order desk are quoted on top of that. Site work is the one number that genuinely cannot be guessed from a distance, which is why we quote it against your actual ground rather than printing an average.

It depends on whether the home has to be built. A home already standing on the lot is a matter of weeks once the ground is ready, while one ordered from the plant runs to a plant schedule we will give you in writing before you sign. Site work and trim-out sit either side of whichever it is. Ask for the dates on the specific home rather than a rule of thumb.