A holiday home is an investment in your health and relationships with your family. It is a bolt hole to get away from the normal pressure of modern day life for young or middle aged families, offering the opportunity for easily accessible holiday time where you don’t have to deal with airports and long distance travel.
For children or grandchildren it is an experience that they will remember and treasure all their lives.
For those retiring we are convinced it is good for your health and will prolong your life, making lots of new friends to replace those lost work friendships.
The first step for those thinking of purchasing a mobile home for use as a holiday home is acquiring a site in a Holiday Park. If you don’t have a particular park in mind then most dealers will be happy to offer you advice based on your wants and needs, pointing you in the right direction.
The next stage of the process is deciding the budget and whether you will purchase a new or used home.
You can get a brand new “starter” mobile home for just under 40k, a mid range model for around 43k and so on up the top of the range which will cost at least 70k. The differences in price come down to degree of comfort and size as well as extras available.
New
A starter home will generally be 35ft long and 12ft wide with winter pack insulation, central heating and double glazing. It will have 2 or 3 bedrooms, kitchen, bathroom with shower. Optional extras might include a microwave and fridge freezer. It will be fully furnished with seating, table and chairs and beds.
The differences offered by the high end models will be mainly size along with the specification of fittings and extras included. It will be much bigger, up to 42ft long and 14ft wide. Features can include: washing machine, dishwasher, skylights, bluetooth sound systems, walk in wardrobe, bath etc. It may also have residential standard insulation. If your park allows almost 12 month access the extra insulation will be a bonus as it will be comfortable even in the coldest of times.
Used
When deciding to buy a used home you need to bear in mind that you will be restricted by the holiday park’s rules regarding age. Many parks want to have units that are up-to-date to maintain the appearance of the park. It is advised by more and more parks not to buy a unit more than 5 years old and will probably require you to change your mobile every 10-15 years. You will get best value out of a new unit as you will get the full amount of years allowed.
There are however parks which don’t have this time limit although they are less likely to have sites available as customers hold onto the site for a longer period even if they are not using it a lot. Again, your dealer will be able to advise you which parks are practical to look at based on your budget. If you do get on a park without this time limit you will probably still need to spend at least 25k to get on.
