[HN Gopher] The potential of mobile housing
___________________________________________________________________
The potential of mobile housing
Author : jseliger
Score : 49 points
Date : 2022-09-11 16:10 UTC (6 hours ago)
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| ww520 wrote:
| People need to see the downsides of owning a RV.
|
| https://youtu.be/IP_u2JR51_Y
| transfire wrote:
| What if build a Lost in Space style spaceship... I mean house.
| Where can I legally locate it?
| golemiprague wrote:
| I don't see how one storey on wheels is going to solve anything.
| The main cost is the land, a decent mobile home will not cost
| much less than a house of the same size. Once everybody are going
| to roam around in their mobile house the cost of parking land and
| infrastructure will be exactly the same but with added strain on
| the roads and cost of fuel to move those houses around. Not to
| mention the psychological cost of being a nomad with no roots and
| no community, especially with children. In addition not every
| country has so many empty spaces like the US, in many countries
| even a single storey home is something only rich people can
| afford and most people live in apartment buildings, like in NY
| city. Why not just build high buildings with various sizes of
| apartments, not too many limiting zoning laws and good public
| transportation like they do in Tokyo for example? This is already
| a proven way to solve those issues.
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| Yeah the article is about semi-mobile non-RV houses, but really
| it's the same use case as an upscale RV.
|
| Between solar panels, an EV drivetrain which comes with a HUGE
| battery for running appliances, skateboard design for more space,
| better acceleration/handling/regen braking, room for a "range
| extension" ICE generator as backup, and the final killer killer
| feature:
|
| ... stay with me ...
|
| Highway self-driving, even if it's just supervisory.
|
| I'd sell everything I own and live in a mobile home. If it drove
| me between places at night with better-than-human safety (and
| maybe a big huge airbag in the bedroom)... my god.
|
| Keep in mind that highway self driving should be much much easier
| than general self driving. You can get convergent evolution of
| the infrastructure with embedded sensors and warning broadcasts.
| You can get highly optimized pre-calculated route "programs"
| rather than rely entirely on some generally trained AI agent.
| You'll have a lot more room for sensors. You don't have to travel
| as fast at night either, so the RV can putter along at 40mph for
| excellent energy efficiency and better safety, and not offend any
| daytime drivers.
|
| When it gets to the destination, if you don't wake up there can
| be huge self-driving parking lots where the RV can park (and
| recharge) while you wake up.
|
| And the picture in the article says a 1000 words: I really like a
| design of a house where there is a central courtyard and a bunch
| of buildings around it. Japanese houses (well, the rich ones in
| anime and stuff) were designed like this. Your mobile home could
| simply drive up to part of that courtyard, and become part of
| your house. Need a new bedroom? buy a new segment and plop it
| next to the courtyard.
|
| COVID kind of killed a lot of commuting, but the idea of my
| bedroom driving me to work in the morning is a good one, and if
| you need to drop a #2 at work you can walk out to the RV and do
| it there (I'm not a huge fan of crapping in public bathrooms, but
| that might just be me, the #1 thing I like about WFH is crapping
| in my bathroom). Heck you'll have a shower and a change of
| clothes and a place to nap if you need it at work. Supports
| longer hours if you need it. If the RV has an attached office,
| and your workers tend to have this, you can simply have a pop-up
| office where a smaller building has meeting rooms but people work
| in their RV-offices.
|
| Your RV can drive you home in traffic while you get the last
| couple hours of work done, so even 100 mile commutes can be
| tolerable.
|
| Currently the RV industry, as I understand it is based in Indiana
| mostly, is pretty slow to change. It astonishes me that RVs
| haven't been hybrid drivetrains for a decade (that relates to my
| frustration that PHEVs weren't forced in adoption in the 2000s,
| 10 years after the prius and insight hit the market). I guess the
| pickup trucks never adopted the drivetrain, but there were hybrid
| SUVs in droves ten years ago.
|
| I think the Tesla semi and other BEV semis will be what does it.
| You can take a short range BEV semi and make it longer range with
| an attached ICE generator for the long haul. I'm hoping that
| "inside out" rotary or other small engine designs optimized for
| battery recharging can work here.
|
| With the skyrocketing cost of housing, would you rather have a
| luxurious mobile home for 500k and spend 300k for a house in the
| boonies, or have a 1 million dollar crap house closer to the job?
|
| And right now RVs are kind of expensive because they are too
| bespoke. If demand skyrockets due to all the advantages listed
| above, we may actually get economies of scale in housing, since
| the footprints are all shipping container sized essentially.
| Heck, the skateboard design of an EV may mean that the entire
| drivetrain is simply an underbody and the top living part is
| relatively swappable.
|
| Also, some BEV drivetrains (million mile battery) may be far more
| long term and reliable, a lot of RVs have an issue of ricketly
| ICE drivetrains that don't age well.
| yourapostasy wrote:
| Check out National Indoor RV Centers (NIRVC). They are a
| perfect signal of the terrible engineering of even current
| high-end Class A's because they built their business around how
| much these contraptions need servicing. They themselves do an
| awesome job of that servicing, but generally the industry needs
| to ship marine grade engineering design and instead mostly opts
| for very unsustainable and marginally serviceable designs that
| don't nearly stand up to what marine engineers are expected to
| deliver. I wish there was a Dashew for RV's.
|
| If there is highway self driving in the near future for RV's,
| I'd expect it to piggyback onto what the commercial trucking
| industry builds and uses.
| foxhop wrote:
| your dream is my nightmare having to share road with a mobile
| bedroom on the highway with person in bed, you know that's
| essentially illegal right now, passengers should be seated &
| belted... giant airbag... good grief.
| zxexz wrote:
| I'm amusing myself thinking about a giant airbag for a sleeping
| person. I can't think how anything like that could work.
| Airbags in cars work effectively by inflating near instantly in
| a car crash, cushioning the occupant from the near
| instantaneous >27G (iirc) deceleration. Seatbelts do this very
| effectively, especially with the crumple zones of a modern car.
| An airbag keeps your head from decelerating against the
| steering wheel. I'd imagine an effective safety mechanism for a
| bed going at 40mph would be something more akin to a really
| tight blanket affixed to the bed, which itself was bolted to
| the floor, to take advantage of the protection of the crumple
| zones of the vehicle. So basically a cocoon.
| badrabbit wrote:
| One of the main appeals of a house is having a backyard and a
| garage. I can't tinker with and work on various project ideas or
| get certain pets because I live in an apartment,that won't change
| with mobile homes, you just end up doing your own maintenance,
| still make payments on it and pay a few hundred bucks to park the
| mobile home.
|
| There should be giant city-buildings with hundreds of thousands
| of dwelling spaces each with a large outdoor patio. A lot of
| problems like power distribution from certain powersources get
| resolved with this as well as many other resources like fresh
| water and fresh food (land is freed up for agriculture),waste
| disposal,transportation, medical care,etc...
|
| The urban sprawl made sense in the nuclear era but I believe the
| technology exists to make highly defensible mega buildings (10s
| of miles wide,50+ stories high).
| revolvingocelot wrote:
| Sounds like you and Buckminister Fuller would have gotten
| along. [0] Count me in, too. That said, if the 70s couldn't
| birth a few concrete proto-arcologies, I'm not sure it's ever
| going to be politically possible.
|
| [0]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Man_River%27s_City_project
| ianai wrote:
| It definitely requires a culture level buy-in. Maybe places
| already having high density populations could birth such a
| project. But that's a catch22 itself.
| badrabbit wrote:
| Yes it would. My idea was to start with the california
| coastline. Have it be very close to the ocean. 100k units
| facing the ocean, it makes it both economically viable
| (people will pay for it) and help bring housing prices and
| homelessness down. You will also have to fight a lot less
| NIMBY battles. The main problem is you need to commit
| billions of dollars to start with. The rent/hoa alone is
| probably not gonna give good ROI short term but having so
| many people there means a potential to design a very
| profitable center of economic activity. Ideally, the lowest
| levels would be stores. You would also be providing them
| with their supermarket, mall,hospitals,etc.... with an
| average total household income of 80k that's at least
| 3-4billion/year
| ianai wrote:
| Wouldn't you need 400k units for 3-4 billion with that
| income per household?
|
| I suppose on the ocean would be interesting if it were
| tied with some desalination and generally using the ocean
| sustainably.
|
| One way to kick that sort of thing off might be
| individual, modular units which could be brought together
| to make ever larger complexes.
| badrabbit wrote:
| Rent plus,groceries and most bills, if that is at least
| 50% of income (rent alone is typically a third of income)
| on 80k/yr that is 40k * 100k = 4B. Even with just 1500/mo
| rent that is 1.8B gross/yr and 18B in 10 years if net
| profit is only a 3rd of that (assuming it won't collect
| taxes like cities!) it will be 6B/10y. My point is, to
| recover costs in 10 years, you need to make it at a cost
| of 60k/unit which seems low but I am hoping economy of
| scale would make things cheaper. Like, it would make
| sense to have your own factories close by just for the
| concrete,wiring,etc... but at least with 100k/unit
| cost(10B) it should still be possible and the recovery
| time isn't too bad given mortgages go 30+ years. And
| picking a good location can guarantee occupancy.
| octoberfranklin wrote:
| No, the main problem with your plan is the California
| Coastal Commission.
| thrown_22 wrote:
| >There should be giant city-buildings with hundreds of
| thousands of dwelling spaces each with a large outdoor patio. A
| lot of problems like power distribution from certain
| powersources get resolved with this as well as many other
| resources like fresh water and fresh food (land is freed up for
| agriculture),waste disposal,transportation, medical care,etc...
|
| This only works so long as they don't shade each other. Which
| means you end up with something like the Line from Saudi Arabia
| or ground level NYC where you're lucky to see the sun at noon.
| badrabbit wrote:
| Ideally they would be on mountains or have a pyramid like
| crescent shaped outline that is south facing so all units get
| sunlight and can grow vegetation,etc...
| geoduck14 wrote:
| I've seen people rent storage units, and use _them_ as "garage
| project locations". Mind you, they had to drive a mile to the
| storage unit.
|
| Would that meet any of your needs?
| brippalcharrid wrote:
| A person doesn't need to add much friction to a hobby that
| they would otherwise dabble in opportunistically during their
| leisure time for it to become a pursuit that isn't practical
| without structuring various other things in their life around
| it. If people had to drive to a self-storage unit to watch
| television or partake in baking, I imagine we'd see rates of
| television viewership and baking go way down.
| badrabbit wrote:
| I don't know what the restrictions are but I have one within
| walking distance, I will look into that, thanks for the
| suggestion. My only concern is for safety and liability
| reasons they may not allow things like welding and working
| with chemicals that require good ventilation that and noise
| are the main restrictions with apartments.
| xani_ wrote:
| Friction is the problem here. Even if it is 5 minute walk,
| well, it's PITA in winter, and the moment you have to move
| anything bigger than a backpack.
|
| 10 minute and 15 minute task turns into 10 + 15 + 10 minute
| task.
|
| Any longer and you're pretty much talking "I either go there
| for half a day or it is not worth it".
|
| Like, if there is no other option sure, but else it's major
| PITA for hobbies, something that's supposed to be fun.
|
| It would be cool if it was for example a bunch of rooms to
| rent in basement of apartment complex, but even then I can't
| imagine them being big enough (or with door big enough) to
| say work on a car.
| entropicgravity wrote:
| Why not just make it a largeish van like a long, tall Sprinter?
| All electric will make everything work more reliably and way more
| practical and cheaper(eventually).
| molotovh wrote:
| These are definitely being done, but in many cases, the well-
| done ones cost more than a trailer home. Look up some of the
| van life channels on You Tube; most of them have early videos
| detailing the cost outlays required. It's a lot easier to get a
| loan of $90k for something that technically qualifies as a home
| vs. a loan of $150k+ for what the bank considers a recreational
| vehicle.
| xrd wrote:
| One on hand, you've got Adam Neumann and his new startup
| providing new types of homes for the endlessly mobile young
| worker. On the other hand, you've got proposals like this one in
| Oregon, my home state, which has many problems.
|
| HB2001, if I understand it correctly, forces all cities over 25k
| to allow multiple homes, duplexes and quadplexes, on any plot.
| But the problem is, you can't add them if you already have
| something on there, and try finding an empty lot in the Portland
| metropolitan area under $250k. I certainly did.
|
| Sadly, I'm betting Adam Neumann will win here. Too much money to
| lobby and align with the tides.
| moistly wrote:
| > for the endlessly mobile young worker
|
| How does this differ from what we used to call the "Displaced
| Person"?
| hollywood_court wrote:
| I lived in a mobile home from 1st grade until I left home at 16.
|
| My own family will never live in a mobile home. Regardless of the
| sacrifices required, I will never have them experience that.
|
| In addition to the safety concerns, it's a poor financial
| decision.
|
| I replaced two water heaters and a toilet in a mobile home for a
| realtor about 18 months ago.
|
| I was shocked that the trailer was listed for $90k and sold the
| next week.
|
| We've got to do a better job of teaching financial literacy in
| this country.
| Syonyk wrote:
| Genuinely curious, what's wrong with a mobile/manufactured
| home? Do you object to the "trailer park" aspect, or simply the
| entire concept of the structure?
|
| I'm a detached, on-our-own-land double wide with a foundation,
| and I've no problems with the house at all. It's a higher end
| manufactured, we have drywall, quartz counters, upgraded
| electrical, etc, but... most people don't even realize it's a
| manufactured unless they already know what to look for (strong
| marriage line, all the water on one half of the house, etc).
| hollywood_court wrote:
| Mostly the quality and safety aspects. I made all of my money
| with my trades. My first and most lucrative trade is
| carpentry. There is no way anyone will ever be able to
| convince me that a mobile home is as safe as a traditional
| built home.
|
| I spent many an anxious night as a child in Alabama fearful
| that I wouldn't live until the next morning due to inclement
| weather.
|
| And they are depreciating assets. I come from a single parent
| violent home where I had to leave before I even finished high
| school. I somehow managed to become what I am with nothing
| but a high school education. I worked hard and sacrificed a
| lot to escape that lifestyle. I don't want my own child to
| see me ever make poor financial decisions.
|
| Edit: The above makes me sound like an incredible asshole. So
| the best answer would be: there are far better ways to spend
| my money and energy than on a mobile home. Ways that are
| better at ensuring my family's safety and financial
| wellbeing.
| Syonyk wrote:
| Can I ask what rough year the homes you're familiar with
| were built in? And if you've been around anything ~recent
| (2010 or later)? The standards changed in the 80s, and
| quality has continued improving since then.
|
| If your experience with mobile homes is pre-1980 or so,
| yes, they were... sketchy. But in the late 70s, the
| standards changed rather dramatically, so experience with
| older manufactured homes doesn't really translate. None of
| the older ones (within a rounding error) meet the newer
| standards.
|
| I've got 2x6 exterior walls, a concrete foundation with the
| house quite tied into that, a metal roof, drywall, etc.
| I've also done a factory tour, and was quite impressed with
| how everything was put together. They're able to do things
| like "assemble the roof separately at a safe working height
| and then tie it to the rest of the house without having to
| do roof work," so lower insurance rates and such for
| workers.
|
| It's a bit noisier in high winds than I'd prefer, and the
| combination of metal roof and vaulted ceilings make the
| rain sound harder than it actually is, but it doesn't rain
| _that_ often out here, so... not going to complain too hard
| about that.
|
| I wish the local tax authorities would agree with you that
| it's a depreciating asset, though. They certainly like to
| argue that the value keeps going up (and as I get the
| property and house tax bills separately, I can see the
| house-only values climbing rapidly - I didn't do the
| paperwork to merge them, as I simply don't care).
|
| You're clearly opposed to the concept, which is fine, but I
| just don't see any of your assertions being true of
| manufactured homes from the past... oh, 20 years or so. I
| know an awful lot of people who live in them, though it's
| not "mobile home parks" - they're just a standard enough
| style of housing out where I live, usually on foundations.
| And I consider having spent less money on a perfectly
| suitable house than having something built onsite to be a
| very reasonable financial decision.
| hollywood_court wrote:
| The mobile home I grew up in was a 1987 Sunbeam. I've
| been in and out of hundreds during the course of my
| career. For the past 12 years my base of operations has
| been a college town where it is popular for parents to
| buy trailers for their children while they attend
| college. I made a great deal of money repairing those
| trailers which allows for my (maybe worthless) anecdotes.
|
| The accessories and fittings like faucets and toilets and
| such are often lower than "builder grade" which is
| perfect for someone like me who makes repairs, but not so
| good for the home owner.
|
| Is your mobile home on a cinder block perimeter
| foundation or a slab? I imagine the slab would allow for
| a great deal more peace of mind, but the cinder block
| perimeter would not.
|
| You're absolutely correct that I am a bit biased and am
| opposed to the concept. But I'm also opposed to owning
| any vehicle that isn't a Honda/Acura or a Toyota/Lexus.
| Simply because my shop never made any money repairing
| those just like I never made much money repairing modern
| traditional homes built by credible and competent
| builders.
|
| Depending on where you're located in the US, if you're
| going to raise a family in a mobile home please at least
| consider having an underground storm shelter installed.
| That would allow for more peace of mind. I lost a few
| friends in high school due to storms when they lived in
| mobile homes. And more recently I lost a handful of
| clients who perished when storms ripped through
| Beauregard, AL.
| Syonyk wrote:
| I'm on a proper concrete foundation with 4' stem walls -
| related to the slope of the hill. It's not cinder block.
|
| Our major risks are local grass fires, not tornadoes -
| rural mountain west. If we got one out here, it would be
| quite the freak event.
| rdtwo wrote:
| Mobile housing is only good as a way of getting wrong either
| permits or local labor shortages
| 8jef wrote:
| Most people here comment on past experiences involving 1970's
| mobile homes in trailer parks, people living in cars, and large
| RVs.
|
| Modern mobile housing, as per the article, is different. It's
| about large vans or tiny homes built on trailers, not made to
| permanently sit on ciment blocks. Not necessarily with children
| in it.
|
| Anyway, where there's a will there's a way. With over 1M people
| living the vanlife in the US alone, we are not far from future
| outdoor and/or indoor private communities regrouping migrating
| short term tenants. A bit like camping grounds, but geared toward
| vanlifers.
| moistly wrote:
| Yah, why advocate for real housing, when we can just stuff people
| into 100sq.ft. mobile tiny homes. That way we can ensure the
| working poor never set down roots or enjoy the stability of a
| neighbourhood; we'll be able to keep them moving, always
| travelling to the next temporary wage-slave job. Brilliant idea,
| Tim, fuckin' brillo! Why should we ever aim higher than that!
|
| Next, let's stack the tiny homes. Kowloon Walled City, here we
| come!
| jaclaz wrote:
| Mobile tiny home which costs US$ 10,000 [1] according to the
| Author, that then proceeds to illustrate it with the picture of
| a non-mobile (and not so tiny) house that was estimated US$
| 25,000 _in 2016_ [2]
|
| [1] What? [2] and which at first sight won't be anything less
| than US$ 50,000-60,000 today
| moistly wrote:
| I just looked up tandem 10000lb flat deck trailers, e.g.
| suitable platform on which to build a tiny home.
|
| They're about $5000 a pop. Maybe if you steal everything from
| a construction site, a tiny home could be built for $10K.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Real talk, a tiny home we'll equipped will run $40k to
| $100k; you only get close to the low end with lower end
| materials and supplying the labor yourself (I've helped
| build and haul to their final location more than one).
|
| With that said, the greatest challenge is the stigma of a
| trailer park. The local community NIMBYs fight _hard_ to
| not permit new communities from being established (speaking
| as someone who optioned a parcel of land in central Florida
| for this purpose and had to go plead the case at planning
| meetings), and existing ones are getting snapped up by
| private equity and real estate investors to turn the
| financial screws on people who have nowhere else to go.
|
| https://www.npr.org/2022/05/11/1098193173/what-happens-
| when-...
|
| https://rejournals.com/investors-appetite-for-
| manufactured-h...
|
| I think this model works as a coop or non profit land
| trust, where the resident owns the home but the community
| protects their stake in the lot. Think "A Tiny Home For
| Good" Tiny Home Park Edition. You need to defend against
| the Capital vultures.
|
| https://www.atinyhomeforgood.org/
|
| (Tangentially, someone from YC should reach out to the
| above non profit to have them go through their next non
| profit accelerator cycle)
| notch656a wrote:
| Tiny home dream for me died once I found out I couldn't
| park it as primary residence on residential zoned land in
| my city. Any big cities where you can do this and own the
| property? Paying rent for a house you own in the clear is
| a non-starter.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| All zoning is local. You'll have to research prospective
| locales to understand the nuance. Tiny homes kept on
| trailers are done for a reason; to be regulated as RVs
| instead of a fixed structured, avoiding typical ADU or
| structure to lot size ratio issues.
| hattmall wrote:
| You can build a permanent structure that's the bare
| minimum really cheaply and then just park the tiny home
| there, and that really only matters if you want to get
| grid utilities.
| xrd wrote:
| Are you still in Central Florida? Maybe you never
| actually were, just optioned the land? I'm a recent
| migrant to this area and would be interested in hearing
| more about the challenges of this region. Where can I
| learn more about what you are doing?
| klyrs wrote:
| I had some stigma against trailer parks, but due to
| housing costs, I got serious about them once. I could
| actually afford a home on my single salary! That got my
| hopes up. There was even a trailer park near me, close to
| transit, close to a grocery store, close to some nice
| parks, it even had some vacancies! Awesome.
|
| But then I looked at the terms. The trailer park is on a
| 99 year lease, coming up in about 5 years. The homes are
| the property of their owners, the land is not. Most of
| the homes are functionally immobile. A new build is more
| expensive than buying used, so to get an actually mobile
| home doubles the cost -- add disposal fees to that.
|
| Trailer park residents are living on the edge, a ticking
| timebomb where they might get evicted without the ability
| to move their homes, or if they're lucky, they can move
| their homes but they'll still be forced out of their
| neighborhood at a time when all their neighbors are also
| trying to move under duress to the same closest trailer
| parks they can find. And if they can't find a place, they
| lose the home and pay for its disposal.
|
| The stigma is real, but it's not the greatest challenge.
| The soaring land prices are.
| moistly wrote:
| Around here, the lease-land mobile-like homes are
| retirement communities. It is admittedly getting close to
| the time when we'll see community-wide leasing agreements
| come up for renegotiation. The concept really works out
| well for the Boomer-aged. Good luck if you're a Gen Z.
|
| Freehold land prices are up ten-fold. Lease rates? TBD.
| aaron695 wrote:
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| I loved out of a minivan for 1.5 years and it was one of the best
| experiences I've had. Cost almost nothing, too.
| notch656a wrote:
| Is there anyway to do this without having CPS seize your
| children or the school refusing their enrollment? Theoretically
| if you live in a minivan can you just park it in the best
| school district and have at it?
| voxic11 wrote:
| In the US if a child meets the definition of homeless in the
| McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act then schools must
| allow them to register without proof of residency. Children
| living in cars meet this definition.
|
| Note though that homeless students can still be required to
| provide reasonable proof of residency in order to receive an
| admission _preference_ based on where they are temporarily
| living.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McKinney%E2%80%93Vento_Homeles.
| ..
| notch656a wrote:
| That sounds awesome. Might be worth looking into the best
| school district in the US and buying a minivan, if that
| life is amazing as it sounds. Property taxes would be non-
| existent. Wonder if we could just get 2 or 3 minivans and
| make a 'room' out of each one. You could use one to tow the
| other ones every 3rd day to avoid violating park laws, so
| they wouldn't even all have to run.
| rdtwo wrote:
| Yeah just imagine the abuse your kid would get for living
| out of a van. The other kids would mock and bully your
| kids merciless
| hattmall wrote:
| I'm 99% certain it would completely suck with children.
| It could be cool on your own, or maybe even as a couple,
| but with kids I can't see it. Not to mention the social
| stigma the kids would face at school, especially in the
| best district.
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| I'm not so certain, if only because how many obstacles
| and problems people imagined for me when I told them the
| idea, compared with how surprisingly easy it was when I
| actually went for it.
|
| I think mindset is still the biggest factor.
|
| For example, there are all sorts of things you can get
| picked on for at school, and I think the most important
| bit is teaching them to navigate the process itself.
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| It's certainly more complicated if you have human children,
| especially if they're "on the grid" (not everyone's are).
|
| I have very little knowledge in this area, so I won't offer
| advice. CPS is definitely a risk, and you have to navigate
| that.
| alar44 wrote:
| Did you work during that time? Living in a minivan and
| vacationing in a minivan are 2 drastically different things.
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| At different times, I did part-time remote work, which was
| more than enough to sustain me, worked as a home assistant
| for a family member, and did not work at all (living
| primarily freegan lifestyle then)
| hotpotamus wrote:
| Was it down by the river?
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| Very often it was. It is one of the best places to park. By
| the lake and by the ocean is great too. You can go for a swim
| first thing in the morning.
| danny_codes wrote:
| What did you do for showering, cooking, etc?
| jrgoff wrote:
| I lived out of a tent for a couple of summers. Getting a gym
| membership was an easy way for me to have access to showers.
| At the time I mostly just ate food that didn't require
| cooking though I certainly could have used a camp stove
| easily.
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| I showered less frequently, but there are many options out
| there, such as:
|
| Friends and allies, beach and camping showers, gyms, pirate
| bath.
|
| I did not cook much, and just ate things like nuts, bread,
| and cheese. But I had a simple wood stove that runs on little
| sticks. (Look up rocket can stove.)
|
| Generally speaking, for most things, it was just a matter of
| "stay calm and improvise".
| AlexandrB wrote:
| There's a 15 minute documentary about the takeover of the mobile
| housing industry by large conglomerates:
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9DQa3Ajhzv8
|
| The key takeaway is that many/most of the people living in this
| kind of housing cannot afford the expense of moving it (video
| gives a price tag of around $5000), especially on short notice.
| Older mobile homes may not have enough remaining structural
| integrity to be moved at all. Meanwhile the land their house is
| on is rented and they can still be evicted _from the land_ at
| anytime which typically results in the loss of the home that they
| "own".
|
| This catch 22 means that residents are seen as ripe for rent and
| fee increases since moving means losing their investment in the
| home.
|
| I'm sure mobile housing is great for middle class people looking
| for a nomadic lifestyle where they plan to move their home from
| time to time. As low-income housing though, it seems mobile homes
| are in a nasty grey area between renting and owning.
| Quequau wrote:
| There are broad swaths of non-rural residential spaces which
| are zoned to excluded most mobile homes. These facts are part
| of what is driving the popularity of "Tiny Houses on Wheels".
| hollywood_court wrote:
| Whenever my wife and I buy a piece of land, we always make
| sure to be certain that no mobile homes will be allowed
| anywhere near the borders.
| evandwight wrote:
| Why?
| gardenfelder wrote:
| One version I've heard is the concern that land value
| will decline if neighboring property turns into a kind of
| holding grounds for run-down, ill-maintained old
| trailers. It does seem like our vernacular in this space
| is ripe for change; perhaps "homes on wheels" is teasing
| open that door...
| dylan604 wrote:
| My family bought one of the very first lots in a new lake
| front property development way back in the 60s. After a
| very slow sale of these other lots in the development,
| the developer halved the size of the lots and opened them
| for mobile homes. The lots sold, the mobile homes moved
| in, and my family's property valued plummeted.
|
| There were more than a few neighbors that fit the very
| stereotype you imagine, and they were the ones that lived
| there full time. Most of the direct neighbors were just
| weekenders (as were we).
| pasquinelli wrote:
| sounds like a good outcome to me. more affordable housing
| and all it costs is a drop in the resale value of
| vacation homes, (that also comes with a drop in property
| taxes for those same vacation homes.)
| hollywood_court wrote:
| It's attitudes like this that have caused my wife and I
| to build our forever home in the middle of a a huge plot
| of land. The house will not be visible from the road and
| I'll be able to fire a gun in any direction without
| worrying about hitting anything or anyone. We've both
| grown weary of allowing our comfort to be dictated by
| neighbors and however they decide to behave on a
| particular day.
| xani_ wrote:
| Well, unless you're a sucker that saved whole life to buy
| that home and now half the value is worse and
| neighbourhood is shit...
|
| But maybe we shouldn't let private companies decide on
| things like land usage in the first place...
| ReactiveJelly wrote:
| Who has the right to live and move where is a problem
| older than humanity
| colinsane wrote:
| older than humanity?
|
| i guess in the sense that we aren't the only animals to
| enforce territory. on the other hand we probably are the
| only animals to have conceived of "rights".
| hollywood_court wrote:
| That sounds like Lake Martin in Alabama.
| hollywood_court wrote:
| After living in a mobile home park for most of my
| childhood, I don't want those kind of neighbors.
|
| The folks that think it's wise to spend $70k+ on a
| trailer are often the same folks who think it's ok to
| have multiple broken down cars in the yard and/or
| multiple unfixed and unrestrained dogs running around
| and/or the worst of all: people who don't see the irony
| of waving a Gadsden flag right next to their thin blue
| line flag.
| moistly wrote:
| Let's be honest: it varies widely. There are parks with
| age restrictions: they tend to be okay. There are parks
| that do enforce their bylaws, including visual
| appearances, and they're pretty good. A well-managed
| small park of newer double-wides and larger pads can be a
| nice place to live.
|
| As with all housing, there are good neighbourhoods and
| bad. Hell, my in-law is in a nice millionaires
| neighbourhood and his immediate next-door neighbour is a
| swinging cokehead wife abuser who throws ragers every few
| months. It's hell, but the properties are all freehold:
| short of a lawsuit, ain't nothing to be done.
| hollywood_court wrote:
| I shouldn't have specified "mobile home parks." In my
| personal experience, the people who buy plots of land and
| move mobile homes in are often worse than anything you'll
| find in a mobile home park.
|
| The park I grew up in had some rules and regulations, but
| everything goes whenever you buy a plot of land out in
| the county.
| moistly wrote:
| Ah, yes, the infamous small acreage with an old, failing
| mobile home. I grew up in the wilds. Many of the people
| were not living in town for good reason. It was not an
| environment packed with high-functioning people. A lot of
| abusive families. A lot of hard-scrabble survival.
| Avicebron wrote:
| I can confirm, just down the street there are two mobile
| homes. (Within less than a few minutes walking distance,
| before they were evicted, one of these homes had several
| instances of domestic violence, repeated calls to the
| animal control who on entering the house found several
| dogs days into starvation eating their own feces from
| hunger (they also would growl and bark at anyone
| attempting to walk or bike down the road). They were
| close enough that every so often we could hear the angry
| yelling for hours on end as the woman and her partner(s?)
| would fight. The other one, while quieter has
| approximately 3 unused vehicles, assorted junk, and lots
| of other good stuff dangerously close to spilling on to
| the neighbor territory, I'm living in a very rural state
| and can assure you this is the norm
| hollywood_court wrote:
| I'm well aware that it's the norm unfortunately. You
| could have just described any of my mothers numerous
| neighbors.
| chrisco255 wrote:
| Whenever I buy a piece of land, I make certain there are as
| few restrictions on the use of that land and that no NIMBYs
| or HOA types are anywhere near the borders.
| hollywood_court wrote:
| I don't blame you. HOAs are the worst. I've never owned
| property with an HOA.
| smegsicle wrote:
| "buying a house but renting everything that doesn't depreciate"
| cbsmith wrote:
| This is the main catch that the article skips over.
| pessimizer wrote:
| It's only profitable to rent the things to you that you would
| be better off buying.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Rental cars, hotel room, and certain machinery/tools?
| Owning something has costs too, and if you are not
| interested in learning how to or paying someone else to
| maintain and secure something, then it can make sense to
| not buy it also.
|
| I need a vibrating plate compactor once in 10 years, and
| Home Depot has a stream of customers who need it all the
| time. I could buy it and rent it to others when I am not
| using it, but I have other things I want to do with my
| time. Therefore, it is profitable for Home Depot to rent it
| to me, and for me to pay a slight premium to never have to
| worry about it outside the few hours I needed to use it.
|
| Similarly, I have rented apartments in my 20s in places I
| had no intention of setting down, and buying would have
| been a waste of time and effort.
| janef0421 wrote:
| I think temporary rentals and indefinite rentals are
| fundamentally distinct products, so analysing them
| together doesn't make a lot of sense.
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| Considering property taxes, do you really ever own your
| house?
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| An indefinite rental sounds like a misnomer better stated
| as "being too poor to buy <x>". Or maybe "insufficient
| supply of <x>". Which, in this discussion would be land,
| in certain locations.
| adrianmonk wrote:
| It's more or less a nonstarter in tornado-prone areas.
|
| From https://www.weather.gov/jan/swpw_mhsafety :
|
| > _Mobile homes are not a safe shelter when tornadoes threaten.
| NOAA and FEMA recommend that mobile and manufactured home
| residents flee their homes for sturdier shelter before storms
| with tornadoes hit. On average, a total of 72 percent of all
| tornado-related fatalities are in homes and 54 percent of those
| fatalities are in mobile homes._
|
| I don't know the percentage of people who live in mobile homes,
| but I'm sure it's nowhere close to 54%.
| thrown_22 wrote:
| On the other hand in fire prone areas I'd want something I can
| drive out.
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