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Homes cost what they do because we have a wide number of policies designed to keep housing expensive (how many politicians celebrate falling house prices, after

Homes cost what they do because we have a wide number of policies designed to keep housing expensive (how many politicians celebrate falling house prices, after all?). Mobile/Manufactured homes are often de facto illegal (even if they're allowed in theory they're hard to get planning on) though it depends a lot on the area. If you were allowed to buy a plot of land and plop a mobile home on it for $50k what's going to keep you working yourself to the bone? (though zoning is a somewhat different consideration from mobile homes, and there are practical reasons for not wanting a bunch of scattered houses on big lots in the middle of nowhere).

Mountain_Skies 7y ago
Mortgages can be difficult to obtain for mobile homes. Part of the reason is that mobile homes tend to decay and lose value over time. After a certain number of years almost no moving company will accept the risk of moving one. As a result, mortgage loan rates can be higher with less issuers to choose from. Also due to changes in regulations from the Great Recession, smaller mortgages can be very difficult to obtain. Banks don't like making home loans under $150k due to fixed costs they're not allowed to adjust for the size of the loan.
- CalRobert 7y ago
  All true, not to mention that a mobile home can be stolen if you're in possession of a tractor-trailer. A bank sending someone to their now-repossessed empty site might decide not to lend on mobile homes again. Of course, if we had a constrained supply of mobile homes like we do stick or block-built homes, the mere existence of mortgages would drive the price up. There's a weird bifurcation in the housing market between "banks will lend on this" and "you'll never get a mortgage on this" - the latter is shockingly cheap in part because it can be dodgy, but ALSO because without the availability of mortgages you face far, far, far reduced competition. This is how I ended up buying a house (stone cottage, thatched roof, needed work) for hardly more than the deposit I'd saved up before giving up on my dysfunctional city. The cost of a house seems to always adjust to the amount of debt available to purchase it. Sweden had an average mortgage length of 140 years until recently - now capped at 105 (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/personal-banking/mortgages/sweden-cuts-maximum-mortgage-term-to-105-years-the-average-is-14/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/personal-banking/mortgages/swede... ) - and of course anyone who thinks "I'd like to pay my house off in 30 years" has to compete with someone who will take out a 4-generation mortgage. But that's separate from whether or not mobile homes should be permitted - hell, I can't build a yurt without planning permission (which I'd never get). I'm a lefty greenie type at heart and actually think a bunch of one-off houses on big lots tend to be terrible for auto-dependence, service delivery, social isolation, etc. but when we started allowing the government to restrict where people are allowed to build AND didn't ensure that it at least meets population growth (not to mention letting asset owners vote on whether to create more of said asset) we laid the seeds for our current housing predicament.

Mountain_Skies 7y ago

Mortgages can be difficult to obtain for mobile homes. Part of the reason is that mobile homes tend to decay and lose value over time. After a certain number of years almost no moving company will accept the risk of moving one. As a result, mortgage loan rates can be higher with less issuers to choose from. Also due to changes in regulations from the Great Recession, smaller mortgages can be very difficult to obtain. Banks don't like making home loans under $150k due to fixed costs they're not allowed to adjust for the size of the loan.

CalRobert 7y ago
All true, not to mention that a mobile home can be stolen if you're in possession of a tractor-trailer. A bank sending someone to their now-repossessed empty site might decide not to lend on mobile homes again. Of course, if we had a constrained supply of mobile homes like we do stick or block-built homes, the mere existence of mortgages would drive the price up. There's a weird bifurcation in the housing market between "banks will lend on this" and "you'll never get a mortgage on this" - the latter is shockingly cheap in part because it can be dodgy, but ALSO because without the availability of mortgages you face far, far, far reduced competition. This is how I ended up buying a house (stone cottage, thatched roof, needed work) for hardly more than the deposit I'd saved up before giving up on my dysfunctional city. The cost of a house seems to always adjust to the amount of debt available to purchase it. Sweden had an average mortgage length of 140 years until recently - now capped at 105 (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/personal-banking/mortgages/sweden-cuts-maximum-mortgage-term-to-105-years-the-average-is-14/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/personal-banking/mortgages/swede... ) - and of course anyone who thinks "I'd like to pay my house off in 30 years" has to compete with someone who will take out a 4-generation mortgage. But that's separate from whether or not mobile homes should be permitted - hell, I can't build a yurt without planning permission (which I'd never get). I'm a lefty greenie type at heart and actually think a bunch of one-off houses on big lots tend to be terrible for auto-dependence, service delivery, social isolation, etc. but when we started allowing the government to restrict where people are allowed to build AND didn't ensure that it at least meets population growth (not to mention letting asset owners vote on whether to create more of said asset) we laid the seeds for our current housing predicament.