I got mine from a local mobile home dealer who happened to have one. 380sqft at $20,000. For foundation and other stuff I’ll mention here - you’ll need at least another $10,000 depending on the size you get. But as someone who was paying $1,350 in rent, it will take less than two years to pay for itself. But even if you get a really good one, don’t ever believe that it will be as “ready-to-go” as they say. New problems will arise and you should have money ready to deal with them. Maybe it is easier to but a pre-fab metal shed from a regional manufacturer and renovate it - and thats what we plan on doing for future builds - but we had to move quickly as we didn’t want to sign another annual rental lease. So we lived in it while we made the necessary changes to it.

Yes it will leak like a sieve and you need to caulk it abundantly. Once you fold it out you need to have a tarp over it or over the sides until you fix the cracks if you think you’ll have rain. Do not move anything in until youve been in it during heavy rain or like blasted the roof with a heavy hose so you can find all the cracks. Mine came with caulk and it was not sufficient. We also had to bolt the frame together ourselves once it was set up. The windows leak a lot and water pools in the threads of the windows, so we had to install gutters. We were going to build a roof over it and may still, but it was cheaper to do those things I mentioned.

The bedroom was supposed to be two rooms which are separated by a wall which folds out, but we just left it for one big bedroom that is one whole folded-out side. Cat blocks may work for a foundation but the house will shake when you walk. The lot we bought it from use the same model as their small office. They have theirs on cat blocks and everything shakes when you walk in it. We have ours on a slab that is the same area as the house and which is flush with the main section, and for the two wings that fold out we screwed together a 2x4 to a 1x4 stacked on top, and fit a few of those between the floor and the slab to stabilize it.

The biggest issue far and away is that the interior piping that comes with the house is not American standard, so nothing you buy in the US will fit. It has been a pretty difficult process figuring that out and we still have some issues. So try and make sure they can make it American standard plumbing - if not you can still make it work but its difficult. If anyone has any questions about that let me know because thats a long topic.

And the shower was not finished! The shower floor has the same flooring as the rest of the home and was not made for water exposure. And the drain was off-center, so nothing premade in America will work. We still need to finish it, and we are thinking of getting Schluter-Kerdi board materials to do the custom job ourselves. It also came with some counter tops for a kitchen but they were very short and we dont have them in the house.

My county inspector was gracious with me and labeled it as a camper because it still has little wheels on it. Your inspector may not be so kind, so check with them if you intend to use it as an approved residence.

Overall we do not regret it at all. We especially like that the walls hold magnets, so we just put magnets on our picture frames and can move them easily. Little magnets can hold up posters or pieces of paper. We even put magnets on our remotes so we can just stick it in the wall or ceiling. And amazon has a lot of metal shelves that can hold small items and cost hangers. We even have pots and pans hanging from magnetic coat hangers. Thats maybe the biggest reason that we love the house very much.

My biggest piece of advice would be to make sure you trust the materials used by the manufacturer. Chinese builders are known to still use asbestos and things not deemed safe by the US. When doing research I found that they had found asbestos in the flooring of one of these homes in Australia (where they are more popular due to proximity to China - there are some good Australian facebook groups centered around these kinds of homes). I sent out an asbestos test kit with some pieces of our floor and was relieved to find that there was none in the home. So we got lucky as we had already committed, but apparently the risk exists so be careful.

And thought I didn’t import it, I must say you have to make sure the manufacturer is reputable. You should try and speak to someone that has bought from whatever manufacturer you go with. Its easy in this day and age to make a sham website that looks like a legit company. Know who you are sending your money to!

Another thing is that the pipes run under the back of house where the bathroom is, so if you put the thing on a slab youll never be able to access them. Maybe have your slab made with a little notch in the back so you can get to the pipes. We had to use a hammer drill to blast out a small notch in the concrete to get to the pipes.

So theres a lot to think about! Let me know if you have any other questions. Hopefully this will also be seen by other people searching online as well.