Why live in a manufactured home community?

If you're weighing an apartment, a condo, or a house you'd have to stretch for, here is what a community like Colony or Jo Don offers instead.

Your own four walls

In an apartment you share walls, floors, and ceilings with people you didn't choose. In a manufactured home community, your home stands on its own homesite. Nobody lives above you or below you, there's no hallway outside your door, and the yard around your home is yours to use. A deck, a fenced yard, a garden, a place for the kids to play where you can see them from the kitchen window: that's normal here.

A home you own, not rent you'll never see again

Rent is gone the day you pay it. When you buy a manufactured home, the money goes toward something you own. You can sell the home later, in place, to the next family, and the equity you've built comes with you. For many Flagstaff families this is the first realistic step onto the ownership ladder.

Ownership without the price of the land

Land is what makes Flagstaff expensive. In a manufactured home community you own the home and lease the homesite, so you skip the land cost entirely. That's how a brand-new two-bedroom home at Colony can be $115,000 while the median Flagstaff home sells for about $700,000. Homesite rent at Colony runs $995–$1,100 a month and $1,200 at Jo Don, with no HOA dues.

A driveway at your own front door

Every homesite has dedicated parking right at the home, not a lot across the complex or a permit that may or may not get you a space. Both communities also offer affordable storage for an RV, boat, or trailer, something most apartments and many HOA neighborhoods simply don't allow.

Room for the whole family, pets included

Colony and Jo Don are all-age communities with a playground, a community center residents can reserve for free, and, at Jo Don, wide city-maintained streets with sidewalks where every home has its own address. Pets are welcome with registration (one per home, and the community rules apply), which is more than many rentals can say.

Built for Flagstaff, not just anywhere

The new homes here are built for life at 7,000 feet: 2×6 walls, a winter climate package, upgraded insulation, and gas appliances that keep heating bills reasonable in January. They come with central air, stainless steel appliances, and a smart thermostat, and they sit at the base of Mt. Elden with the trails, grocery stores, and downtown a few minutes away.

A good way to get started

A manufactured home is a sensible first home. The price of entry is a fraction of a site-built house, the monthly costs are predictable, and you stop handing all of your income to a landlord. Some families stay for decades; others build equity here and move on. Either way, the money you put in is working for you instead of disappearing.

Good to know

Honesty matters to us, so a few things to understand before you decide: you lease the homesite month to month under a rental agreement and pay homesite rent plus utilities; community rules and regulations apply; every adult goes through our application and background check; and financing for a manufactured home works a little differently from a mortgage on a site-built house, so it's worth talking to a lender early. The office is happy to walk you through all of it.