Why not a used trailer home?

[Wrecked944]

For some reason, if I don't post some hairbrained idea on OT every now and then, I feel empty and sad.

So here is today's nutty idea. Tell me why it won't work...

A friend of a friend recently sold his house (yes, house) to buy a trailer home. Sounds bad. However, he paid peanuts for the trailer home, renovated the crap out of it (without concern for zoning or permits or inspections etc etc) and now his "trailer home" is nicer than my freaking house. From inside or outside, you'd never know it was a trailer. He essentially used the trailer as the basis for an inexpensive luxury home. He started out with a "double wide" (bought used, I think) and built additions and so now his trailer has more sq footage than my apartment (NOTE: I own a 2-family and I live in the tiny top floor apt).

So who is the fool here, him for living in a trailer or me for spending big $$$ to live in a tiny apartment in a "house"? He seems to have flown under the radar of the zoning board, building inspectors, etc etc.

So is this a bad idea? I see used 2 bedroom trailers going for less than $10k. I paid $225k for my house. Suddenly, I'm not feeling very smart.

[Joeaksa]

I have a couple of friends who have done this. They have bought some land (5-10 acres) and put the trailer there. No bills, payments or anything other than yearly taxes and insurance. If you have a place with some land, then get solar power, perhaps a wind generator and you could be really set.

When you get to a point where you do not need that much and are not showing off to anyone, what else do you need? I owe about $150k on my house, and its worth around $500k so looking at it from this aspect I could retire in a few years and live with a setup like this very easily.

Have seen some doublewide versions that have all the room most people need and are very nice. Well worth looking at IMHO... especially if its located on a fly-in airport and I have a hangar for the plane and cars next to the house!

[bell]

they aren't really called "trailer" homes anymore, the construction methods are alot better so they call them manufactured homes......unless you live on 8 mile in detroit

my sister and her family are military and have a very nice "double wide", when they were in the market for a new home they did tons of research and concluded that it was the way to go. they bought a 6 acre piece of property, cleared a bunch of trees, poured a slab, and had their +/- 3000sqft home delivered....when they finally moved in they were around $105k total, so she has a brand new modern 4 bedroom 2 bath house....the master bath is bigger the living room in my house.
walking through it i was very suprised how quiet and stable it was, i think "trailer" homes have come a long way


my father also has one in the mountains in pa which he and his wife plan on retiring to......it's as nice as their home on the lake near cleveland.....only you don't get in trouble for shooting guns off the back porch

[vash]

there is some sick trailer park in malibu california that will make your head spin.

for me, i dont have a problem with it, if you have a sweet piece of property somewhere, that you can plant one. for me, living in a community of homes with wheels is the problem. get an iroc Z28.......new tranny for the house....sweet! put all this in a hurricane or tornado zone for excitement.

[asphaltgambler]

naw..............spinners for me

[Mr_Wizard]

Originally posted by bell
they aren't really called "trailer" homes anymore, the construction methods are alot better so they call them manufactured homes......unless you live on 8 mile in detroit

Hey, I used to resemble that remark!!!!!!

[turbo6bar]

Wal-Mart doesn't do layaway on fuchs, foo. I already tried.

I've heard of trailers homes fetching $1M+ in exclusive parts of SoCal. What's great is you don't even own the land beneath? You still get to pay lot rent. Janus, will those super-duper "trailer" homes fetch any real bucks if you were forced to sell? I think this is like a nice salvage Porsche. It might be fun to drive and own, but it's never worth a real Porsche. If you enter this venture with some idea of the limitations, you could find success.

[ronb]

re prefab / manufactured homes - see dwell magazine....some are pricey, some are not...reworked modernism, but so what. Great design, compact but spacious.

[slakjaw]

There is a guy I know in Nebraska that dug a basement for his. Not 100% sure on the details but from what I understand, it was very nice. He was on 10 or so acres.

This is something I plan on doing when I get older.

[RoninLB]

Originally posted by JanusCole
(NOTE: I own a 2-family and I live in the tiny top floor apt).


So is this a bad idea? I see used 2 bedroom trailers going for less than $10k. I paid $225k for my house. Suddenly, I'm not feeling very smart.

Paying $10k for a roof in some pristine wilderness or in an expansive wide open wetland hurricane zone isn't a bad idea imo.

The options are endless. I know a guy who has had dirt in an expensive Calif golf community for years. A 4k ft fairly big bucks house was just constructed by residents right next door. He's waiting to be surrounded by millionaires and then he's putting up a single wide and renting it weekly to college students for cheap.
He's expecting huge profit from the eventual sale.

ps: ditto on 2 family.. only now the smaller apt generates enough to cover ins, taxes, & utilities.

[Rick V]

When Beth and I sell in about 10 years we are concidering doing the exact same thing. We bought our current house about 15 years ago and it is too damn big. Even with 2 teenagers we still have a couple of rooms we just plain old don't use.
Buy some land and plant a new house is one of our options. We would realy like to find an old "farm house" and re-do it but we are keeping an open mind.

[red-beard]

Posted for your pleasure

http://www.missouritrailertrash.com/page1.htm

[Rick V]

Too funny

[bell]

this one is my fave

http://www.mytrailerpark.com/

[Wrecked944]

Originally posted by red-beard
Posted for your pleasure

http://www.missouritrailertrash.com/page1.htm

If you get enough objects, and spread them out evenly, those mowing days are over!

Don't laugh but...one of my rationalizations for acquiring my 1973 911T project car was that I could park it in the back yard under a tarp and thereby have less grass to mow...I figure if I acquire enough Porsches, then my mowing days will be over too!

[Rick Lee]

I think trailer homes contribute to violent weather. If there were no trailers, there'd be no tornados.

My aunt and uncle from VA retired and moved to Yuma, AZ, in a retirement trailer community. The rest of the family thought they were nuts. But I visited them in Jan. and it was a pretty nice place. It cost next to nothing, they grow their own oranges and make OJ, they've made it real nice and are happy as clams. I couldn't do it until retirement, but I definitely view trailers differently now.

[Joeaksa]

Originally posted by bell
this one is my fave

http://www.mytrailerpark.com/

Isnt that a photo of Slopat there? About 1/3 of the way down riding a yellow lawn tractor and called Cleeton???

Always knew we would find his hideout someday!