Why Manufactured Homes Are the Future of Affordable Real Estate

Kristen Knapp (01:31)
Welcome back to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I’m Kristen Knapp and I’m here with EricGranillo. He currently runs four businesses. He’s an investing and manufactured home dealer and he’s a contractor. We have a lot to talk about today. I’m excited to have you. Thank you for coming, Eric.Eric Granillo (01:44)
Yeah, thank you for having me on the show.

Kristen Knapp (01:46)
Awesome. So let’s just get into kind of how you got into the real estate industry. You’re so diversified. What drew you to this industry?

Eric Granillo (01:53)
My father’s been doing manufacturing home contracting for the last 40 years and I’ve been working with him as a kid. I started a communications business back in 1999 and I left it to my son. My son’s now 25 so my son runs that side of the business and I got into the manufacturing home business heavily back in about 2014 and we’ve been setting up manufacturing homes and doing investments through the manufacturing homes as well.

selling the manufacturer owns through a dealership.

Kristen Knapp (02:24)
That’s awesome. So your dad’s in the business, now your son’s in the business, and your daughter’s a realtor, correct?

Eric Granillo (02:30)
Yes, my daughter just got her real estate license and she’s working with the business. She’s been helping us out for the last five years. She used to do our permitting and a little bit of HR, but now she’s a licensed real estate agent as well. So yes, the whole family is in the business.

Kristen Knapp (02:40)
That’s so fun. Yeah.

How is it working with your kids?

Eric Granillo (02:44)
It’s great, you I’ve been working with my son for about seven, seven, eight years now, and with my daughter for about five years, and my wife, we’ve been married for 24 years, and we’ve been working together for 24 years. She’s our HR payroll, so she’s- Picked up the important stuff. Yes.

Kristen Knapp (02:55)
Okay, there we

go. Wow, this is, yeah, it’s all in the family. That’s awesome. Are there any challenges that come up working with family?

Eric Granillo (03:03)
It is, you know, we sit at dinner time and obviously we try to talk about other things and bring up other topics, but it always comes back down to business. we enjoy real estate, we enjoy what we do. So it’s always fun, you know, when we meet up for dinners.

Kristen Knapp (03:07)
Right.

Yeah. Okay. Well, let’s talk about this manufactured home side of the business. Tell everybody more about your business.

Eric Granillo (03:24)
So we do everything from start to finish. What we do is we we find land with our licensed agents and we buy land. We flip houses. We’re the manufacturer home seller. So we’re licensed dealer for Kafka Clayton and Champion Homes out of Arizona. And we sell the manufacturing homes to ourselves, to our investment company. I also own the construction company that we do all the setup work for. So I set up the home and we get it all set up.

and we fix it to the property and our license agents turn around and sell it. We also do the work for customers. So some customer walks into our manufacturing home dealership, we will sell them a home, assess their property and take care of everything from permitting to the foundation and get them all set up in their home from start to finish. All we need to do is hand them the keys and they got a home they can walk into, an affordable home they can walk into.

Kristen Knapp (04:12)
That’s amazing. You cover every aspect of it. It’s awesome that you can fold into your contracting business to this as well.

Eric Granillo (04:18)
Yes, yes, it really works. We don’t contract anything out. We do everything in house together between one of our businesses. So, you know, when the customer steps into our manufacturing dealership, our sales

know, you know, explains to the customer that we are a family owned business and we take care of everything for them and they don’t have to worry about contracting, you know, the electrical out or the drywall for the home or carpet would take care of all aspects of the home.

Kristen Knapp (05:32)
Wow, and then how involved are they from the start to finish? Mm-hmm.

Eric Granillo (05:36)
The

the client doesn’t really have to worry about anything. I mean, they can go over there and inspect what we’re doing and see everything we’re doing. We also send them photo updates and videos if they’re out of town, but they don’t have to get really get involved with anything. All they have to do is pick their home, pick their land, and we put everything together for them and make their dream come true.

Kristen Knapp (05:53)
That’s amazing. you what, you kind of mentioned it. You guys seem like you’re definitely a one-stop shop and family-owned, which is wonderful. What really sets your business apart?

Eric Granillo (06:03)
That’s it, the one stop shop. Nobody does what we do. And I’m looking to duplicate that. Nobody does what we do from start to finish. We’ve really mastered that. I think we took it out to the next level where a customer comes in and we just take care of everything. you know, being a one stop shop is huge because the customers, know, manufacturing homes are, they got a bad stigma, they got a bad reputation and we’re trying to change that for the market. And I think that’s one of our…

That’s something that we do very well. We show customers, we’ve got model homes at our site. So customers can go in there, feel the home, touch it, look at it. They can know what they’re gonna buy. And we order the home for them and yeah, they don’t really have to worry about anything. They love their home when they get it.

Kristen Knapp (06:42)
What are some of the misconceptions about manufactured homes?

Eric Granillo (06:45)
I mean, you’ve seen the homes back from the 60s and 70s and 80s where it’s side paneling wood paneling inside. You know, it’s got shag carpet. There’s you know, there’s all kinds of skirting on the side that’s falling apart. Some still have the axles and tires on there. And, you know, that’s all gone. You know, we take these homes, we put them on a concrete foundation, a stem wall, and we set it up properly. We affix it to the stem wall and it pretty much creates it like a house. So it’s it’s really

It’s really strapped to the stem wall. do the whole foundation and it’s all engineered and it’s state licensed here in Arizona. And you know, when you, got the nine foot flat ceilings now, we got the two by six construction. We got the heat package, heat pump unit.

Eric Granillo (07:28)
yeah, the the manufactured homes are pretty much built like a Stig built house with a two by six construction. They got the dual pane windows We put it we even install a heat package AC unit just like your regular house It’s got the installation just like a regular house and you know knife of flat ceiling So it look it looks and feels just like a regular house for a fraction of the price

Kristen Knapp (07:50)
Yeah, like what fraction of the price are we talking?

Eric Granillo (07:53)
In Arizona, know, the average home here in Arizona, the stick-built home, custom-built home runs about anywhere between $490,000 to $590,000, $600,000 range. And you can get these manufactured homes, you know, $300,000 to $350,000. So it’s affordable and attainable.

Kristen Knapp (08:09)
Wow.

Yes, I can see how that would help. mean, especially a younger generation who’s trying to own homes in this climate.

Eric Granillo (08:19)
Yeah, that’s what we shoot for. You know, our goal is to do attainable housing and affordable housing. My goal for my real estate is to find the best property we can find. Sometimes it’s large parts of the land that we break down into smaller pieces and we’re able to put smaller homes and make it affordable for people. So we will get you up to a half million dollar manufactured home, you know, set up on two acres or we’ll get you a smaller home in a subdivision.

So we can work all in between. There’s different. ⁓

Kristen Knapp (08:45)
Yeah, I love that.

So you said, you know, you’re in northern Arizona and central Arizona. Where are you in other markets? Are you looking to expand?

Eric Granillo (08:53)
Yeah, so right now we’re in northern Arizona and we do cover the Phoenix market. We are expanding to the Midwest. I got a business partner up there and we’re going to be covering parts of Indiana and Illinois and we’ll be selling Capcom Champion homes over there. And we’re looking to expand in my main focus is Southern Nevada, Southern Idaho, Southern Colorado and Southern California.

Kristen Knapp (08:57)
Okay.

Eric Granillo (09:15)
I like the southern states where it’s nice and warm and it’s popular.

Kristen Knapp (09:15)
Yeah, yeah.

Covering a lot of ground. What do you love? You know, you’re in the Arizona market right now. What do you love about that market?

Eric Granillo (09:25)
well one I love our weather. Our weather is fantastic. I think people found that Arizona weather is warm, it’s hot, but it’s not that we don’t get crazy tornadoes. We have great, great weather here in Arizona. And we’re able to work on it year round. So we’re able to the whole, pretty much the whole state year round.

Kristen Knapp (09:43)
Yeah, awesome. And what would you say to someone who might have land but doesn’t really know where to start?

Eric Granillo (09:49)
They have land, they can contact us, we can assess their land and we can figure out what, if it’s zoned for manufacturing homes, which most of the land is and the state laws are changing. And we can assess their land and see what they have. And we also purchase land. So if you have land for sale, we’ll purchase it.

And also, they can see what they can put on their land. If they can split it and make multiple properties and do investments.

Kristen Knapp (10:39)
Yeah.

Eric Granillo (10:45)
Investment properties as well, you know a lot of the times most people come over to us and they able to sell their Home like in California and come over and buy two houses from us and keep one as a rental So it’s huge for it’s huge for a lot of our customers

Kristen Knapp (10:55)
Wow.

And then in terms of the building portion of this, is it about the same timeline as building a home from the land, or is it a different timeline?

Eric Granillo (11:10)
That’s the great part. Usually it’s about 45 days to get your building permits from the county and the state. The bill time for the home is 45 days on average. So you got your homes and your permits coming out the same time. As soon as the homes and permits land, we’re able to put the house up in about 45 to 60 days we can have it done. So all in all, three to six months at the latest. And you build a house, it could take you up to two years.

Kristen Knapp (11:27)
Wow.

Wow.

Totally, I mean, and it always takes longer than you want it to. Wow, so it’s efficient not only from a financial standpoint, but also from a time standpoint.

Eric Granillo (11:37)
Yes.

Yes, that’s correct. most and and started to catch up on banking as far as loans, they’re offering loans with pretty much FHA and VA loans conventional, you can get all kinds of the same loans as a regular house can get with manufacturers.

Kristen Knapp (11:46)
Wow, I mean…

I mean, yeah, it seems like such a good segment of the business. I can see why you’re so passionate about it.

Eric Granillo (12:05)
Yeah, it’s a great business. It’s it’s it’s great to work with. It’s like I said, it’s it’s affordable and attainable. And I think it’s the future. And we’ve been doing it. We haven’t backed off from it. And now the state of Arizona and I know California has this law where you can put 80 units as well. Tiny homes, smaller single white homes on a property as well. So if you own a house and you want to do a mother-in-law quarters or a small rental income quarters, then we can we can also install, sell and install manufactured home there, too.

Kristen Knapp (12:19)
and

Right.

wow, that’s really cool. The tiny home thing is really interesting to me.

Eric Granillo (12:37)
Yes, there’s a lot of tiny home parts coming in in Arizona because they have a great rental income. It’s cheaper than a hotel. So they’re buying land and putting these tiny homes on with lot of amenities, pickleball, fishing, and it’s working out great. We’ve done a lot of those projects.

Kristen Knapp (12:40)
Yeah.

that’s awesome. Tell me about those projects. How are those to work on?

Eric Granillo (12:55)
Those are great. know, there’s one in particular and by Flagstaff Arizona in the mountains up there and they put about 40 homes in there. And you know, they’re rental on those are they use those for Airbnbs and they’re rented out almost every night. And those are nice or small, tiny homes, but they’re the same essentially as a manufacturing homes and they come with the same quality build. So they’re great. We love them.

Kristen Knapp (13:04)
Wow.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, that’s awesome. I think there’s just so much opportunity there. And again, as we were saying, like, I do feel like it is how it is the future, you know, as cheesy as that sounds. Like I do feel like so many people are feeling like they’re getting squeezed out of home buying. And I think that all of these different alternatives really present just more options for people.

Eric Granillo (13:39)
It is I think it’s the future too and as far as you know the contractors know how expensive it is and how expensive is to have material on site You know when you’re building a house, you have to have this huge fence so they don’t steal your material You got plumbing you got lumber you got You know AC parts you got all these all this material when you’re building a house and people come in and vandalize it You know steal your material, you know the manufacturer homemade

pretty much comes in in one piece and it takes us a couple of days to set it up and lock the home up.

Kristen Knapp (14:05)
Yeah, nice. And then just from the, you know, people interested in a manufactured home, what are some of, like, what do you wish more people knew about them? I know we talked about the misconceptions, but what are some things they should expect in the process?

Eric Granillo (14:20)
You know, they can expect the home to last, you know, 30, 40, 50 years easy. You know, we have plenty of manufacturing homes that we rent that are from the 90s and they’re still look brand new. So, you know, they’re 30 plus years old and they look great. The other, you know, the other thing they can look forward to is having a good quality home. Not there’s a, like I said, there’s a lot of misconception that.

just because the home is on the wheels, whether it’s a manufactured or modular home, just because it’s on the wheels that it’s not going to be worth anything. That’s the biggest misconception is that it’s not worth anything. It is. And to prove a fact, you can look

people selling houses for the last 15, 20, 30 years. They’ve made money on manufactured homes. They put them up. They lived in them. They resold them. I resell them all the time. That’s what I do. I buy land, put manufactured home on it, and resell it.

So when they say that, you know, once the house rolls off the factory, that it doesn’t, it’s not worth anything, that’s a complete misconception. And whoever, you know, I don’t know which home builder, probably a large home builder made that, you know, comment. It’s a total misconception. it’s, it’s, it’s all depends on how you set it up to, you know, you can have a manufacturing home, obviously rolling into a park. That’s, know, that doesn’t belong to you. And then the house is just sitting there you’ve got to pay lot rent on it. That’s different. That you.

Kristen Knapp (15:57)
Yeah. Right.

Eric Granillo (16:14)
you’re putting out somebody else’s land, that’s a liability, not an asset. You got somebody’s land that you’re paying $800 a month for and then they jack up the lot rent to $1,600 a month, double your lot rent, then you got a house that’s pretty much worthless. I can see that. But once you own the land, you set the house up on a proper foundation, get everything done right, get all your utilities right, put a little landscaping around it, you got a good quality home that’s gonna last you for many years, or you can resell and make some money off it.

After it.

Kristen Knapp (16:42)
Absolutely, I think that’s a really good point to drill home because I do think there’s a lot of misconceptions about it.

Eric Granillo (16:47)
Correct. Yes. So, obviously, everybody should do their due diligence. like I said, we’ve been in the business for a long time. Then contact us and we can walk them through the process and let them know what they’re getting into and make them feel comfortable.

Kristen Knapp (16:57)
Yeah. Yeah.

And you’ve been doing the manufactured homes for 25 years?

Eric Granillo (17:04)
Yes, in 1999 we’ve been a manufacturing dealer since 1999 and the construction side of it, my dad’s been doing it for the last 40 years, I took over about 15 years ago.

Kristen Knapp (17:15)
Wow. So you have all of these things going on. Like what are some major lessons you’ve learned from building up your businesses?

Eric Granillo (17:21)
lessons, you know, you got to got to partner with the right people. You got to make sure you are, you know, you’re you got all your state licensing because it’s it’s you know, in Arizona, it goes through the state. I know Idaho goes through the state, California goes to the state and the county. You know, you got to deal with the counties too. So as long as you have all your insurances and you know, everything’s up to date, you can you can get it done. But you know, you don’t want to burn any corners. You know, you want to be a licensed contractor, registered and licensed contractor.

Kristen Knapp (17:43)
Yeah.

Eric Granillo (17:49)
A lot of people try to do it without licensed contractors and I’ve seen people get burnt really bad and they call us. call us when it’s too late. They say, hey, I can’t get power in my home because I don’t have a sign off on it from the state. Can you help me? I said, no, we can’t because we don’t want to put our name on it because we didn’t do the job. So there’s you got to be very careful because there’s manufactured home dealers that will just sell you the house. They’re just going to sell you the house and say, here you go.

Kristen Knapp (18:05)
Yeah.

Eric Granillo (18:15)
And that’s really bad on their part. And that’s what’s making the market look bad is because when you sell somebody a house and they don’t know what to do with it, they don’t have any permits. They don’t have any land. They’re just excited to buy a house. That’s bad business. It’s bad for the market. We want to assess the whole situation from start to finish with the customer. Hey, where’s your land at? Do you have power? Do you have water? Do you have gas? Do you have all the utilities you need to set up the house? Are you going to go solar? Are you going to go?

Kristen Knapp (18:28)
Yeah.

Eric Granillo (18:43)
you well or hot water. So we assess all these items with the customer before we even look at a house. Once they have, you know, the lot in place or, you know, they say I need to buy a lot. We’ll find them a lot. Once they have all that in place, then we start the process of the manufacturer at home, let them order the colors, you know, what size, single, double, triple, whatever they want to go with. Then we figure out the cost of what it’s going to cost to put it all together and make their dream come true. So you.

You’ve got to be very careful on who you’re dealing with that’s going to sell you the home from the beginning.

Kristen Knapp (19:13)
And what are the right questions to ask when you’re kind of shopping around?

Eric Granillo (19:17)
When you’re shopping for a home, you know, want to make sure who’s going to do the setup. you know, like most manufactured home sales companies, dealers work with setup companies. You want to make sure who they’re going to, who’s going to be setting up your home, who you trust, because that’s huge. That’s, that’s your house. You know, that’s the setup is the house is one part. The setup is the other part. You know, who’s going to do the excavation? Who’s going to do your, your stem wall.

Who’s gonna do the setup? Who’s gonna marry the house together? Are they licensed? Who’s gonna finish it when it’s all done? Who’s gonna finish the backfill? Who’s gonna sign off on the home? And who’s gonna be responsible at the end? Who’s gonna take care of the warranty work at the end of the home? Is it gonna be the factory, the dealer, or the setup company?

Kristen Knapp (19:58)
Those are a lot of good questions to ask. That’s a good little cheat sheet for people. So what’s next for the business?

Eric Granillo (20:00)
Yes, there’s a lot that goes into it, yes.

Yes.

So next for the business we’re looking to expand. We’re looking to, like I said, we’re looking for investors. We’re looking for people that wanna know the business. We’re not here to sell a sales course. We’re here to partner up with people. We’re here to put our money where our mouth is and partner up with people. If people have land, if they’re interested in getting in the manufacturing home business, setup or sales of manufacturing homes, we can walk them through the whole process. We’re looking to expand in these other markets, Southern Belt, like I said, Idaho, California, Colorado.

Nevada, especially Nevada per Las Vegas southern markets. We’re looking to expand in these markets and we’re looking to take investors on and people that are interested in getting these programs. I got an investor friend of mine that he knows I’ve been doing it for long time and he asked me years ago and I wasn’t ready to expand and now we’re expanding to the Midwest. So we’re going into the Indiana and Illinois market and we’re going to hit a huge because there’s nobody doing it out there. There’s really nobody doing anywhere. It’s an open market and that’s why we’re looking to expand.

So our first expansion is gonna be in Indiana, so we’re excited about that. yeah, we’re gonna start him off with the whole construction side of things and he’ll be a licensed contractor here in the next couple weeks. And we’re gonna get our manufacturer home dealer’s license from Indiana and start selling homes out there.

Kristen Knapp (21:05)
That’s very exciting.

That’s awesome. It does sound like there’s a lot of opportunity. So that’s, yeah, and you guys are, I mean, you’re doing it from start to finish. It just seems like such a great business.

Eric Granillo (21:24)
Yes, tons of operative.

Yes, it’s a great business. We love it. We love doing it every day. We wake up every day. We breathe it. We live it. That’s our manufacturing homes is our business. You know, they used to call us trailer trash, but now we moved up a little.

Kristen Knapp (21:36)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, well look at us now, yeah. Awesome, so how can people find you?

Eric Granillo (21:45)
Yeah, I it as now, yes.

They can go to our website, Granios. Granios.com or bestbuy.com. That’s our manufacturer home dealership. Bestbuy.com. yeah, they can contact me through either website and I’d be glad to talk to anybody that’s interested in expanding and learning the business.

Kristen Knapp (22:14)
Awesome. Well, everyone, please take advantage of that, especially if you’re in the Arizona market. And obviously they’re expanding, so please keep an eye out. Thank you so much for doing this, Eric. This has been wonderful.

Eric Granillo (22:24)
Yeah, of course. I appreciate it. Thank you for having me on.

Kristen Knapp (22:27)
Yes, so everybody if you love this podcast, please subscribe and we’ll see you next time. Thank you so much.

Eric Granillo (22:32)
Thank you.