Has anyone drywalled a doublewide/manufactured home.

Question

I'm just curious if anyone has replaced the wall panels in a doublewide with drywall and later sold the home. Do you think you broke even on the cost, made money or lost money. (Why do these manufactures use wallpaper designs that your great grandmother would have picked out?)

We are thinking about moving into a rental property that we already own so that we can save money for a house we would like to have built in 1-2 years.  This is a nice 4 bedroom 2 bath 2100 sq.ft home on 3 acres. All the other homes on the street are stick built and more much more expensive. (If you want to see the house go to Zillow and search on 228 Gardner Rd. Temple, GA 30179) Although I'm not sure how long we would stay there my guess would be 2 years and we'd like to spruce the house up a little for our own enjoyment. New floors and maybe the drywall. Once we are done living there we may rent it again or sell it if we want to use the money for the house we have built.

I'm just curious to hear from other people that have actually replaced these ugly panels with drywall and do they have any idea how it affected the sales price or rent? The only reason I'd even consider this is because we'd be living there and it would be for our own enjoyment.

Curt Smith · Answer

I agree that you can do the above as Jeremy said.  IE leaving existing drywall in place.  Oil based primer over the vinyl print, mud and sand the joints.  But in the end you've put a few thousand into a mobile home and it won't increase your rent or sale price.  Just my opinion.  We do put a case of caulk into a double wide, oil based primer then a nice contemporary color.  HD's Beher Antique White, same color in Sherwin Williams.  If the doors are the vinyl oak look, we never paint those.  Replacing the flat strips around doors, we never do that either.

FYI, we exclusively do doublewides on land, rent to own, seller finance.

The rule in the rental business is fix up just nice enough but not too much.  I'd apply this rule even if you are going to live in it.  Your cap rate after you turn it back into a rental is a function of your all in costs, right?

Putting in cheap laminant floor does make sense.  The cheap stuff is just as durable as expensive grades I've found.  We like the Eco brand at floor and decor.  $1.90 ish per sq ft.   But Atlanta has A LOT of discount shops selling no name 8-9mm laminant for $1.50 sqft.   We advertise in Craigslist.org under "gigs" for an installer.  Call references.  But advertise $1.25 sq ft installation (here in GA).  Pay no more than $1.50 sq ft.   The flooring places charge crazy prices for what is an easy job.  I've put in alot of flooring but it kills an old back.  Don';t underestimate the pain factor.  A younger installer can put in 2 rooms a day or more.  Leave a 3/8" gap on all 4 sides of the room for expansion.

Rehab costs can sky rocket!!!  Just laminants in 1200sqft of a 1500 sqft mobile home will say $3.50 sqft or $4k.    I'd never do that for a mobile home that we rent to own.  We always work with what's there.  Alot of laminant, great, someone else paid for that.  Otherwisee replace carpet.  Which I feel should run $12/sqyd installed or $1600 for that 1200sqft area.  The rest is vinyl for $13/sqyd installed.  Only use the super thick stuff that floats in a mobile home due to un even floor boards.  Glue down (old way) shows all the imperfections.

Good luck.

Jeremy Gunn · Answer

Typically the walls are made of 3/8 drywall with a wallpaper type finish instead of the standard paper finish of drywall.  if this is the case on your property you can remove the strips and mud and tape the joints like any other drywall. Put down a nice base and trim out the door frames.  Once finished and painted it makes a big difference in the look and feel of the interior.

Ken Rishel · Answer

Personally, I like drywall, but recovering the cost is going to depend on the park itself, and the home it is being considered for. One of my prior companies ( a finance operation) drywalled a number of repo 12x60 pre HUDs and made money on the resale.

The catch was - they were in the Florida Keys. Location also makes a difference.

If you drywall, plan not to move the home unless you knew how to do correctly for a home that might move. Skyline was the first manufacture to learn how to do it right in their Oregon plant. Their midwest plants did a terrible job of it until they worked with their Oregon people. I think many other manufactured copied what Skyline did to solve the problem of moving a home with drywall. Also remember that a drywalled home is much heavier so you may need to make some perimeter support additions to the setup.

Natalie Kolodij · Answer

This is kind of a wonky solution but I want to try it on my next home...

On our last single wide we pulled down a wall and had it drywalled- however...I  noticed that the Backside of the grooved wood paneling was totally flat.

Next time I'm going to pull down the panels and flip them around. Then just re-cut/patch outlet  and light switch holes.

Steven Wiltz · Answer

bah - I just hang 1/4" rock right over the existing. Pull the battens first, reuse them and prime & paint. Texture if you want.

Shelli Callan · Answer

We are in the middle of a 1984 that has the ugly wallpaper, we were just going to prime and paint, but it cost such a small amount to go ahead and tape and texture we decided to do it.  My husband can do it him self so it really isn't a big deal to us and makes me feel much better about what we are selling.

Brandon Brown · Answer

Good insight Ken. I didn't even think of the added weight to the trailer if you put in drywall. Our first mobile home I'm doing, we're actually gonna fill in the holes and then texture it as well. And then paint after that. It would look a heck of a lot better than those atrocious panels.

Harold Anderson · Answer

My wife and I argue about that one.  So far, we've only done the older MHs with wood panelling.  I prefer to fill in the grooves and make the place look as much like a stick built as possible.  She says, just paint it.

We renovated a 76 double wide on land.   I filled the grooves and made the walls look like standard walls.  Where I had to take panelling down, I replaced with 1/2" drywall.  The going rents in the area for a doublewide on land were $6-700.  We hired a management company and they easily got $1150 for ours.  And, so far, the 2 families who've rented it have been very respectful of the house, keeping it up better than most renters.

Is it because of the renovations or a good management company?  I don't know because I haven't rented one that hasn't been renovated.

Patty Maas · Answer

I have taken down the strips, filled in the gaps, primed and painted. It does give the walls a better appearance but does not look quite the same as regular walls.  They are still wallpaper smooth unless your adding some sort of texture to them. They are also next to impossible to wipe anything off of them without paint rubbing off.

Curt Smith · Answer

hi Harold.  I've found a counter intuitive relationship.  Raise the rent to filter out weak renters who's values tent to do a lot more damage.   But like you're guessing the place has to apeal to high rent quality families.

I have never had a complaint about those wall strips.  Buy a case of Alex caulk and HUD all the cracks and paint antique white.  It'll look great.    Good luck.

Has anyone drywalled a doublewide/manufactured home.

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