Personally, I think there is an enormous business opportunity out there for anyone who can come up with a "life on the road" concept that can meet the needs of people like this who see home ownership as a financial disaster.
If there are any real estate developers out there reading this, please FreeMail me. I have had some ideas about this for some time, and it might be worth a conversation.
Maybe convert old drive-ins to plug in parking stops with security and electricity for a nominal fee. I ain’t sleeping in a car when it is going down to zero.
A generation whose instinct to breed having been rinsed out of them will not have the accompanying nesting urge.
>>>If there are any real estate developers out there reading this, please FreeMail me. I have had some ideas about this for some time, and it might be worth a conversation.<<<
The reason there isn’t a real estate solution is because the powers that be make it so one doesn’t exist. This woman would be happy living in a SRO. Single room occupancy. Imagine a floor of a dozen rooms with a few toilets and showers in a bath on the floor. Double that to two floors, one for men, one for women. You could probably do all that with a footprint of 40’ x 75’. 48 units with a rent of just $400 a month would be a potential gross income of $230K per year.
Now do the math on what it would cost to build said property and you know real estate investors would build that in a heartbeat. But they don’t exist because zoning laws don’t allow such a structure to be built. No, you gotta have a bath and kitchen in each unit. There are also limits on the density, number of units per lot size. All these are done to make such a building I described as illegal. And thus an affordable housing options many would be happy to have over a typical apartment, can not possibly exist.
The problem is government and said restrictions. Not everyone wants to pay the costs of a full fledged apartment. I personally find it asinine that local towns all over discriminate against the poorest of our countrymen in this manner.
I'll ask a few questions:
When Shawna Nelson leaves her office in Seattle’s suburbs, she does what 28-year-olds often do:dines with friends,
1. What's the mark-up on eating out every night vs. shopping at a grocery store and eating your own meals at home?
goes out dancing, or sees a show.
2. What if she limited this to weekends, and used the weeknights to home cook, tidy, pay bills, and invite friends over to watch TV or a movie?
Sometimes she hits her swanky gym.
3. Does the gym need to be "swanky?" Is there someplace more affordable in her career-starting range?
“Would I rather spend $1,200 on an apartment that I’m probably not going to be at very much, or would I rather spend $1,200 a month on traveling?”
4. Are this generation's "twentysomethings" setting expectations too high, or is this just the new lifestyle reality? Am I stuck in old-timer thinking, or will she soon wish that she had spent the time establishing a household routine. Where is she getting her mail? Where is she registered to vote? How is she establishing her credit without a history of rent or mortgage payments?
springs from a desire to live more fully with less.
5. I wonder if this is an illusion (or delusion) that is really a sort of "confirmation bias," that is, she thinks she's living more fully, when she really isn't?
I think it's going to be harder for her to form a long-term relationship, but that's just me? Maybe she's not embarrassed to tell a potential suitor that she lives out of her car?
-PJ
There are already long-term RV places popping up with pretty nice-looking “docks” for the RV, with an extended living area, large bath, screened porch, living room with flex space, murphy bed, etc. and some of them are really nice looking, just pull into the structure, somewhat like a detached carport with decking at RV door level. If they establish something nice and standardized, and build them scattered around the country, I could see it taking off. There really are a lot of people who have just hit the road, from “workampers” following jobs to retirees.
She could probably find a decent used Airstream for $10,000.