New manufactured homes cost around $43 per square foot; site-built homes cost $93 per square foot.As dwellers in two rural areas, the DrsC are well aware of how many people live in inaccurately named mobile homes. "Mobile homes" of course are only mobile in the sense that they are manufactured in a factory and towed to the site on removable axles, after which few ever move again, unless upended by a tornado.
Many young rural families start out in a mobile home parked on a parent's acreage, paying no rent. When the young couple no longer need the mobile, it becomes a rental.
A fair number of rural residents spend their whole lives in mobiles. It's true in rural CA, it's true in much colder WY. A minority in the latter location have an "overroof" constructed to help with snowload, most don't bother.
