40% of Americans said buying a home was the most stressful event of their life.
Another 44% said they felt nervous throughout the homebuying process.
It’s no wonder a ton of homebuyers get overwhelmed during the process, because 46% of homebuyers are buying a home for the first time.
We get it. Buying a home can be overwhelming, especially if you’ve never done it before.
It’s not like you’re buying a new shirt, replacing your dishwasher, or even buying a new car. Buying your dream home is most likely the biggest purchase you’ll ever make.
We want to take the stress out of home buying for you.
Middletown Homes is here to assist you before, during, and after your purchase.
We’re here before you build to educate you with our blog articles, during your purchase with a professional sales team to walk you through every step, and after your purchase to care for your needs with our in-house service team.
Here’s how to build a modular home in West Virginia through Middletown Homes, step-by-step.
Finding land is the very first step to building a modular home in West Virginia. You need to own land, or focus on finding land right away.
We're sure you know why land is so important: If you don’t own land, then there’s no place to build your home.
Once you own land or find a plot of land you’re interested in, we can send a representative to make sure there are no hindrances to bringing a home to the property.
If you're looking for land to purchase, you can still continue to step 2! A lot of our customers purchase their land and build their home at the same time.
The process does not drastically change if you purchase your land and your home at the same time. You’ll just need to make sure we’ll be able to access the land for the next steps.
Once you’ve found property you want to build your new home on, your next step is to visit one of our locations to tour our homes and strike up a conversation with a salesperson.
In the first conversation with your salesperson, you’ll get to tell them about the kind of home you want, what you like and dislike, and which of our model homes are your favorite.
This is one of the most exciting parts of the home building process for a lot of people. You’ve been daydreaming about the home you want for so long, and now you finally get to talk to an expert to make it a reality!
It will most likely take more than one conversation to hammer out all the details, which is fine with us! It’s our sales team’s job to make sure you get the home you want, no matter how many meetings it takes.
Once you get an idea for certain dimensions of your home, such as how long and how wide you want it to be, your salesperson will submit paperwork for what we call a site-check.
A site-check is when one of our home building experts examines your property to make sure we can successfully deliver and assemble a modular home on your land.
We do the site-check so early in the buying process to save you time and to know if there will be additional charges to deliver your home to your property.
We want to do the site-check as soon as we can. It’d be disappointing to design every detail of your home only to find the modules can’t be delivered and assembled on your property.
After the site-check, you can request an optional quote for your site-work.
Site-work is work that must be done before and after your home is delivered and assembled. Site-work includes things like:
The site-work quote is optional because you are not required to use Middletown Homes for this work. If you want, you can hire another company to do this part of the job.
However, trusting Middletown Homes with your site-work brings you a more enjoyable turn-key building experience. We’ll handle everything for you. You just have to turn the key and move in.
To establish your budget, you need to get pre-approved for a loan by a bank.
Loan pre-approval is when your bank decides how much money they’re willing to loan you. Once you have that number, you know the maximum amount you can spend on your home.
The bank decides how much they’re willing to loan you by examining items such as your credit score, down payment, and debt-to-income ratio.
Basically, the bank says, “We ran the numbers, and we’ll loan you this much money.”
After you know how much the bank would loan you, you can decide how much you actually want to spend.
For example, a bank might be willing to loan you $300,000. But what if you don’t want to borrow that much money?
That’s okay! You don’t have to borrow the full amount.
You could decide to borrow only $150,000, for example.
Whatever amount you decide to borrow, that’s your official budget.
Now your home buying budget is set, and you’re able to finish designing your home!
Now that your site-check is approved and your budget is set, it’s time to finish designing your home!
There’s a popular myth that modular homes aren’t very customizable, but this isn’t true.
A completely custom home is possible as long as your design can be built in modular units.
What does that mean?
Imagine the home you want. If it can be built in independent sections (modules), then it can be built using the modular construction method.
Thanks to the modular method, your customization options are nearly endless. Some things you can customize include the home’s:
Once you finish designing your home, your salesperson can quote you a final price, which you’ll use to finalize your loan with the bank.
Since you have your final quote, it’s time to lock in your home’s price and get the loan from your bank.
By signing a contract and giving a good faith deposit, Middletown Homes will lock in your price for 90 days. This protects you from price increases in the housing market or through our manufacturers.
Once you secure your price, you can use the three months it's locked in for to finish getting the loan from your bank.
A big advantage of building modular is that you get a final, definitive price when you sign a contract (unlike site-building, which often allows for overrun charges). A final price like this can make securing your loan more straightforward.
This is the moment you’ve been waiting for! Once your loan is secured, Middletown Homes orders your modular home from our manufacturers.
Your home’s modules are then built in a factory using an efficient, quality-controlled building process.
This indoor building process ensures your home is:
Your home’s foundation is also built at the same time as your home’s modules, shortening the construction process by as much as 1-3 months.
Now that your home’s modules are built, Middletown Homes delivers the modules to your land and assembles your home.
In a short period of time, your home goes from disassembled modules to a complete, beautiful, move-in ready home.
Here’s what happens during this process:
As mentioned above, this process takes Middletown Homes a short period of time to complete. And once we’re finished, it’s time for you to tour your new home with your project manager and get your keys.
The project manager who supervised your home’s assembly and finish will give you a personal tour of your completed modular home. It’s his job to give you a new homeowner’s orientation and make sure you’re happy with your home.
You receive your home’s keys at the end of the orientation. The home is all yours now!
Now you can move in and begin your life’s next phase in your brand new home.
Remember, Middletown Homes is here to help even after you move into your home.
As with any big project, situations may appear even after it’s finished. That’s why we have our own in-house service team to serve you after you move in.
You won’t have to hire contractors who aren’t familiar with your home to make repairs or do quick fixes. Our employees already know your home inside and out, so they’re ready to quickly repair anything in your home if needed.
You also won’t have to wait months to get help with your home. Our service team is constantly serving customers, so your problem will be solved as soon as possible.
Hopefully now you see that building a modular home in West Virginia isn’t as daunting as it may seem. It’s a straightforward process with a huge payoff at the end: owning a custom home you love.
