A new law signed by Gov. Mark Sanford allows mobile home owners to convert their homes from personal to real property and clears the way for them to take out mortgages.

Before the law went into effect, mobile homes and the land they sit on were considered separate pieces of property. Owners received separate tax bills for the land and the home.

Under the new law, a buyer may combine the home and the land, converting the home to real property.

"Over 80 percent of manufactured homes sold in South Carolina are multiple-section homes that go to the home site and stay there," Mark Dillard, executive director of the Manufactured Housing Institute of South Carolina, said in a state-
ment. "The homes aren't very mobile anymore, and the new law recognizes that."

The bill could have a wide-reaching impact locally and statewide.

The state has the highest concentration of mobile homes in the nation at almost 20 percent, according to the 2000 census.

Horry County has more than 24,000 of the homes, the most of South Carolina's 46 counties.

But many of those mobile homes aren't the trailers of yesteryear.

The proliferation of modular homes, which in many cases sit on semipermanent foundations and are in practice almost as fixed as a site-built home, has made mobile homes a popular alternative to first-time home buyers.

"They're not very mobile," said Mark Branstrom, regional consumer real estate executive at Bank of America in Myrtle Beach. "But that didn't matter. They're considered mobile homes, even if they're on a permanent foundation."

The law could also have an impact on the struggling manufactured housing industry, which has been in a slump the past four years. Bob Roberts, manager of Todd's Manufactured Housing in Conway, said the changes should boost business and keep customers from running when they see high interest rates.

"Sometimes you can get the loan all fixed up and when you get down to the fine figures, which everybody avoids as long as possible on any loan, the customer will flat out tell you: "No, I ain't paying that kind of interest,'" Roberts said.

It's too late for mobile home owners like Denise Wright of Myrtle Beach.

"I had a hard time paying," said Wright, who had to work two jobs to pay off her home while raising five children.

Wright recalled more than a decade ago when she first saw how much she'd have to pay for her mobile home: "I said 'Oh man, I'll never get through paying for this.'"