Truly mobile home: Couple move house from Michigan to Dixon

DIXON – What do you do if you’re paying rent on two homes and just can’t sell one for love nor money? Move and merge.

Jamie and Li Arellano, tired of battling a tough Michigan housing market, decided it would be cheaper to truck their prefab 360 miles to Dixon than to keep paying lot rent in Ypsilanti.

About 9:20 or so Wednesday morning, a truck from Valley Mobile Home Services of Dixon pulled onto Heights Road, the rear half of the plastic-wrapped home in tow.

Contractors Curt Lawfer of Kent and Mike Haring of Elizabeth were on site, getting ready to move the first half of the home onto a prepared foundation poured by Hamlick Concrete of Amboy. It had arrived earlier.

The Arellanos’ journey back to the Sauk Valley started last year. Li, 28, the son of the Rev. Li and Margaret Arellano of Dixon, and Jamie, 27, the daughter of Dr. Eric and Deborah Forman of Dixon, married in 2005, and stayed in Michigan after college.

In May 2008, Li bought a Jimmy John’s franchise and the couple moved to Dixon.

Li’s $52,000 home, bought in 2003, was paid off, but they were paying $520 a month to rent the lot on which it sat, and $550 a month for their Dixon rental. They tried to sell the home, but no luck.

They decided that “between the lot rent and renting currently in Dixon, it’s cheaper to move it here and go and get a loan from the bank,” Jamie said.

Li is serving in Iraq with the Army’s 808th Engineering Co., 2nd Platoon, 844th Engineering Battalion, so Jamie organized the move.

To put the home on the foundation, it was placed on rollers set on steel beams that could be extended in segments, using pins placed on jacks set in the basement. Cables were attached to the underside, and Lawfer and Haring hand cranked, pulling the house along the beams and into position.

“As soon as they put the well and septic in, I’m hoping to move in in a couple weeks,” Jamie said.

Now all that’s needed to make the house a home is her hubby.