Posted on 10/27/2014 3:02:31 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Houses made in a factory are a cheap and energy-efficient way for poorer Americans to become homeowners—plus, these days, the mass-produced units can be pretty spiffy.
You’ve seen it before: a house, on a truck, on a highway, slowing down traffic with its yellow “OVERSIZED LOAD” sign, its tan vinyl siding nearly screaming “Trailer Park!”
The snobs among us may judge these pre-fab homes as shoddily built, cheap eyesores in a country that’s increasingly eschewing the suburbs for walkable urban areas.
But pre-fabricated homes just might be part of the solution to America's affordable housing crisis.
Home prices are continuing to rise, even as incomes on the lower-end of the scale remain flat, putting home ownership out of reach for many Americans. In some cities, that’s led to renters flooding the markets, which in turns drives rental prices up. Homeownership in the U.S. was 65 percent in the fourth quarter of last year, down from 69 percent in 2005, according to the Census Bureau (PDF).
Families who can't afford homes often find that the apartments available to them are tiny, expensive, and old. Manufactured homes, affordable-housing advocates say, are spacious in comparison....
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
My mother’s PEX piping let go in June. $3500 insurance job and 2.5 months to repair.
I would recommend them to young first time buyers who lack a sufficient down-payment & income combination to make a “regular” house affordable, with these caveats:
1. Research the mobile park choices very well, and one of the things you want the ability for is to rent your unit out in the future.
2. You don’t need to “buy new” as resale value goes down fast but then only up to a point, so condition, condition, condition is more important.
3. Take the shortest loan you can manage. Your mortgage will be small compared to a “regular” home and yet you want it paid off as soon as you can.
4. You have some choices after the mobile home is paid off. (a) Live rent/mortgage free for a while after the unit is paid off & put your old mortgage payment in savings/investment. (b) Plan on renting your unit out to supplement your income for a mortgage on a “regular” house. (c) Sell your unit to supplement any down payment you can make on a “regular” house. (d) Any combination of (a), (b) & (c).
I knew a guy who owned a plumbing repair company...wouldn't work on 'em due to the type of piping.
and hurricanes.
Oh, yeah....when Northridge hit, it knocked each and every one in a huge Newhall park off the foundations, taking the gas lines out.
Each. And. Every. One. burned to the ground.
I’m working on my third mobile home rental now. I buy them in a rural county close to a big city. All the county’s schools are A and B rated. The nearby city’s schools vary from F to B. The homes in the higher rated city areas are VERY expensive. Return on investment is about 20%.
The PEX or an improper joint?
What we really need is “actual modular” houses built like LEGO blocks, with no more than 20-30 different types of “parts” that can be assembled into houses of any size/configuration.
So that if you need to add a room, it can easily be done, if you retire and need to remove a room it can be done easily too.
The trouble with PEX is the fittings that were used for years to hold them together - a crimping ring setup that wouldn’t last long.
I have a 28X66 MH, and it is fitted with PEX.
I also have a bin full of Sharkbites - when PEX is Sharkbitten, it’s good forever.
The expansion fitting failed but the report said nothing about improper installation.
I came up with that idea for modular building parts in high school. Would have plumbing and wiring pre-installed with quick disconnects, so they would snap together like Legos. Structural integrity might be an issue though in earthquake and wind storm areas.
“Trailer parks are very often developed by rural slum lords in bottoms subject to 50 year floods.”
The wife’s family trust owns 3 of them, fairly large. They are literally money-printing machines.
Might have cracked the fitting and I would never use the plastic fittings.
I don’t hate trailers or trailer parks but do not like trailer park “trash”. I don’t want trailer park “trash” within 50 miles from where I live.
A study of tornados and mobile home parks was conducted last year, and it found that yes, trailer parks are hit more often than surrounding areas.
I don’t think I can provide a link.
As long as you put up some decoy trailer parks, tornado season isn’t too bad ...
In my opinion, some of the manufactured houses these days are of far higher quality than those built by contractors.
The manufactured houses use standardized plans and parts and each is constructed with actual quality control standards like ISO9000.
A contractor-built house can be great or a disaster, depending on the contractor, and sometimes it takes years for major flaw to show up.
Put a manufactured home on a basement, and they can be just as good an investment as a contractor-built house.
What planet is this ass clown living on? Walkable urban...means target rich for feral blacks, wiggers, and beaners.
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