Posted on 09/26/2009 4:12:59 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Most of the mobile homes in the U.S. are located in the south, where land is more plentiful, the weather is warmer, and rural poverty is higher.
The region is home to over 56% of the mobile housing units in the U.S., according to the U.S. Census Bureau's 2008 American Community Survey data released Monday.
Specifically, two cities outside of Jacksonville, Fla., had the country's highest concentration of mobile homes, which are generally about 12-feet wide and include a kitchen, a living and dining area, and one or two smaller bedrooms. While mobile homes make up only 6.17% of the nation's residences, they comprise 45.5% of the units in Palatka, Fla., and 41.6% of units in Lake City, Fla.
"Florida has an overheated housing market, especially with the recent bubble," said Jacob Vigdor, public policy and economics professor at Duke University. "In any area where housing is expensive, mobile homes can represent one of the few cheap options."
Open spaces But high housing costs aren't the primary driver behind the large number of mobile homes in the southern U.S. Much of it has to do with the more sprawling nature of the Sun Belt cities that weren't developed until later in the 1950s, said Vigdor.
"You don't have to go far outside of a city like Charlotte to find trailer parks or single plots of land with mobile homes. Cities that grew up in the automobile age are naturally more hospitable to mobile homes," he said. "When land is inexpensive, you can get a parcel and put a mobile home on it for cheap."
And that notion is especially attractive to the south's poor, rural population.
"Mobile homes will make up a significant part of the housing market in any place you can find significant rural poverty," Vigdor said.(continued)
(Excerpt) Read more at money.cnn.com ...
Or a tornado!
LOL 8)
I bought a trailer house in 1974 northern New Mexico. I later found it was designed for Southern Texas. When the winter winds blew there was nothing between the wind and us but one sheet of aluminum siding, one 1” sheet of fiberglass “insulation”, no paper backing or vapor barier, then one thin sheet of paneling.
We nearly froze! the cold overwhelmed the centeral heat unit and the only way to get warm was to put on a long floor leingth robe and stand over the floor grates. Frozen water pipes were normal!
The sewage system was the worst I have ever dealt with! Sewer gas constantly seeped into the house. We never found the source of the leak. Finally I violated NM’s plumbing codes and put a P trap between the house and septic tank.
The heating system was not designed for that cold weather. The motor burned out within a short time. Many times we would come home and find the house cold because the gas pressure was so great it would blow the flame out!
The electricity wiring was atrocious! We kept blowing fuses for no reason I could find! I almost had a nervous breakdown due to that house!
Later we moved to another trailer park in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It was much better except the electric wiring was so bad we almost burned the house down because of Aluminum wiring.
I have never lived in a trailer since!
One of my friends in Tulsa had his trailer catch fire. He was out with his horses when he saw smoke coming from his back bedroom. Before he could get the 50 yards to the house the front was burning. I have seen several burn.
They are FIRETRAPS!
One of my friends here lived in a trailer house. We had some serious gusts of wind blow through here several years ago. His trailer was tied down so didn’t roll over. the wind did blow it apart and nothing was left but the floor and framework.
Another friend had his trailer flooded. He came home to find all his soggy furnature appliances on the ground because the cheap chipboard flooring used water soluble glue. The entire floor just disolved into sawdust!
Years ago one of my neighbors worked hauling new trailers around the country. While pulling one he heard a “Bang”!
the trailer broke in half at a poorly done weld in the I beam foundation.
My brother bought a used trailer in a park in Texas. As he walked through his new purchase his foot went through the floor. Not being mechanicly inclined he called me. We pulled up the rugs and found dozens of holes in the cheap chipboard, some patched some not. For two weeks I worked my butt off completely rebuilding his entire floors with good plywood and had to completely rebuild his bathroom because of hidden leaks and structure damage.
To be truthful, we later bought a nice foundation home in a suburb then found it was built about as bad! I would not even rent it or sell it as I didn’t want to palm this off on someone else. I later spent years rebuilding it before selling it.
I now live in an old house I personaly rebuilt. I know it is done right!
May well be so. I’ve seen reports-and actually posted a story here-on these shacks. But my master bedroom bigger than that..and crowded. What will people do with their possessions? If con and tax ever becomes law I fear this may be the norm in 20 yrs.
Manufactured might have some nicer interior features than older brick homes but the appreciation is zero.
There’s a nice manufactured home subdivision in my town where the units have appreciated a whopping total of $10,000 in the past 18 years.
I like my trailer house park, but it does attract tornados and fist fights on saturday night!
Yeah, that’s what I’m talkin’ about. Good stuff. Digger, I’m sure you remember those trailers of the 50s. We had moved to NM from TX and it was oil and gas country (still is) so folks were pretty mobile (in the 50s), it was a big deal when a family bought a “10-Wide”, like a whole new world.
Lots of huntin’, fishing (on the San Juan River—Four Corners), great place for a kid but hard to make a living for parents.
SteelTrap’s “supplemental watering” of tomato plants LOL!! I can relate to that...
Hibah Yousuf
Yousuf is a Medill senior studying magazine journalism and political science at Northwestern University. Her aspiration to pursue a career in journalism began when she interned as a reporter for The Dallas Morning News, her hometown newspaper, in 2004. Hibah has also interned for People Newspapers in Dallas and Muslim Girl Magazine in New York and Toronto. Most recently, she spent five months as an editorial intern at Money Magazine in New York. She is excited to be spending part of her senior year reporting on Capitol Hill and looks forward to a career in journalism after she graduates in June.
would this be categorized as a split level type housing? Funny
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