38 ms·

The Rise and Fall of the Manufactured Home – Part I

158 points by samclemens 4y ago

bombcar 4y ago
The biggest problem was and continues to be lot rent combined with the absolute unresalability.
- rascul 4y ago
  There is a market for buying and selling used mobile homes. I've worked on a few already this year, getting them ready for tenants after they have been bought and moved. Maybe not a large market, I don't know. And I'm sure it's very location dependent. Lot rents are (edit: mostly) only in (some) trailer parks, the vast majority of mobile homes that I see around here (southern Mississippi) are not in trailer parks.
  - topkai22 4y ago
    Yeah, I was going to comment the same thing. I’ve lived in multiple regions where there is plenty large, owner occupant lots where the structure is a mobile home. The mobile home park/ground rent model is definitely not the only model in use for these structures.
  - 01100011 4y ago
    It's not uncommon to buy a piece of rural land and drop a mobile on it. I've even seen folks do it so they have a place to live while they build a traditional house.
    - rascul 4y ago
      > It's not uncommon to buy a piece of rural land and drop a mobile on it. This is the large majority of mobile homes I see and work on.
    - dylan604 4y ago
      I've even seen people go so far as to brick around the pre-built home to hide what it is or to comply with some sort of code. Sometimes, they'll match the brick on the house that was built, and keep the pre-built for an in-laws suite type of thing. One of those, "we already have this thing and we're not going to get much from selling, so what do we do with it now" scenarios.
      - ncmncm 4y ago
        There are hundreds of thousands of those all over the American West, going back well over a century. Typically, it starts with a shed over the trailer that the house is then built onto. Even after the bedrooms are built, the bathroom and kitchen serve until plumbing and fixtures go into the main house. Once the house is built, there is no value in removing the trailer, and it becomes guest quarters. With a proper roof over, it can last a long time. But enough decades later, it is torn out to make space for a back deck. Many of these can be seen along cross-country Amtrak routes.
  - alistairSH 4y ago
    Around here (DC suburbs out to Appalachia), it’s a mix of both. The closer to the city, the more likely the mobile home is in a trailer park. Though there aren’t many left - most that I’m aware of have been bought/closed/redeveloped. In terms of increasing the supple of affordable homes for people who are in suburban or semi-rural areas, mobile homes really are a mixed bag, for the reasons listed (which is then exacerbated by PE firms buying up parks and milking the residents dry).
  - kube-system 4y ago
    There’s technically a market, but they experience insane amounts of depreciation. If they’re sold with land, most of the value is in the land.
    - cudgy 4y ago
      For used mobile homes (caveat emptor), this can be an advantage if the structure is usable, since the buyer essentially gets a “free” or very low cost livable structure with a septic field included. Fast depreciation is an advantage to the used market buyer, since prior owners took the hit.
      - kube-system 4y ago
        The depreciation is a result of the value to the buyer, though. They’re a PITA to maintain because everything on them is an odd size and made from the worst possible material. Unlike a permanent home which has mature ecosystems for completely refurbishing them, a better bet with a mobile home is to use it up and throw it away.
        rascul 4y ago
        > everything on them is an odd size and made from the worst possible material I've found that outside of light switches, electrical outlets, and bath tubs, much of the stuff is the same or similar (2x3 instead of 2x4 or 2x6 walls for example, or 1/4 foam instead of plywood sheathing) than regular houses, and can be purchased from Lowe's or Home Depot at regular prices instead of super high prices from the only mobile home parts store around here.
- galaktus 4y ago
  > absolute unresalability That is not true. There absolutely is a market for resale.
- JKCalhoun 4y ago
  In some regions, you can purchase a lot and drop a mobile home down.
  - 800xl 4y ago
    This is true in a lot of areas of Texas. The mobile home dealer will even help you find land. You typically have to have a water well and septic system installed on the land. I see these mobile home land packages come up for sale on Redfin all the time. They do appear to appreciate in value if they are clean and taken care of, but not as much as a site built home. I have even seen some successful flips. I guess the main drawback is that they are typically located on less desirable land and the lifespan of the house just isn't going to compare favorably to a site built house, but at least they are affordable.
pram 4y ago
The peaks in popularity are super interesting because they line up exactly with my parents owning a manufactured home. They bought one as newlyweds in the 70s, and then a double-wide in the 90s. These were both on acre sized lots. We lived in regular suburban style houses too so I don’t know what the appeal was. Some kind of weird Boomer romanticism?
- rascul 4y ago
  From what I understand, the appeal is that it's quick and cheap to get a mobile home compared to having a house built.
  - lotsofpulp 4y ago
    In the US, tract builders target houses to be built from the ground up in 100 days, assuming supplies and workers are available. If it was more economical to do prefab, DR Horton/Lennar/etc would be doing it.
    - rascul 4y ago
      When I first got into construction a couple decades ago, I was working for a roofing and siding contractor doing a new development. Houses were going up so fast that as soon as we finished one house, the next was one ready for us. My recollection is probably about 12 to 15 weeks start to finish, which is approximately in line with your 100 day number. Although, if you already have the land, you can potentially buy a mobile home, have it delivered and setup, utilities hooked up, and move in within a week, for a lesser overall price. There are a lot of tradeoffs, though.
    - iancmceachern 4y ago
      Yeah but that's for a whole neighborhood, they gaun economy of scale. It entirely different to build one house, in 10 acres 2 hours outside of a major city. It's like building a hot rod vs. A production car.
jmyeet 4y ago
[flagged]
gumby 4y ago
I wonder if some of the quality and reputation issues could be fixed if the road constraint were removed. Then more robust building code rules could be required and enforced. The way to get rid of the road constraint would be airships, as discussed in a HN submission in the last week or so. If that worked, than manufactured housing could change the granularity: subassemblies would be worth building in a factory and moved onsite (imagine a stack of 8’x12’ walls, already drywalled and with code compliant electrical fittings) or, on the other direction, multistory building could be transported the way doublewides are transported and then joimed in situ today.
- brudgers 4y ago
  Modular buildings tick all your requirements and are ubiquitous in the US. There are technical (aka, legal) differences between “modular building”, “mobile home”, “trailer”, “motor home”, and “recreational vehicle”. “Manufactured home” is a trade association term and useful because a manufacturer might build both modular homes and mobile homes on the same assembly line and they may even be hard to tell apart because most of the difference is in the paperwork. As I said there’s a legal layer.
  - gumby 4y ago
    Thanks!
- sillysaurusx 4y ago
  Airships? I feel like you glossed over that little detail. Even if the safety were better than cars, being physically in the air is terrifying to most people. That’s not a deal breaker, but it’s certainly a hurdle. If you’ve been next to someone on a plane who had to down a whole bottle of xanax (metaphorically) just to get through the flight, you realize how traumatic it can be for some people. And then you’ll get stories like “mother of five perishes with all five due to airship failure”. Tesla has had relatively few such horror stories, and look how much it’s impacted them. (On the other hand, “how little it’s impacted them” might also be accurate.) But I really want to know what you mean by airship. My mind immediately went to FF7 Highwind.
monkeydust 4y ago
I am impressed by the potential of 3D printed housing, great video here of a sizable one developed using concrete printing. https://youtu.be/qWBA-6NgIJg https://youtu.be/qWBA-6NgIJg
- _jayhack_ 4y ago
  3D printing housing is exciting; I'm also optimistic about the future of modular architecture, in which walls (or even room-sized units) are manufactured and transported to the construction site, plumbing/electricity already included, and assembled like Legos. Nexii (https://www.nexii.com/ https://www.nexii.com/) is working on something similar. It seems there are significant construction cost reductions, faster to build, and easier to repair, although the space of possible buildings is more limited than in the 3D-printed approach
- kube-system 4y ago
  The big advantage of desktop 3d printing is that one machine can print infinite designs with no retooling cost in between design changes. This advantage is lost when the item you’re printing is the too big to be moved, and assembling the machine is a significant construction project by itself. And customizable design is not a hard criteria for low cost housing. It’s a neat demo, but I don’t see how that process could be leveraged for cost savings as is.
  - StillBored 4y ago
    It also apparently takes significantly longer than just building with cinder block. So, yah its interesting, and the rounded corner things, along with the hollow walls are "neat" but much of the cost of single story homes isn't the first story walls is it? Its all the finish work/etc that still will need to be done. So, its hard to see where any cost savings can come from if they are optimizing a part of the design that contributes a minority to the total cost.
zabzonk 4y ago
I lived in prefabs twice - both RAF married quarters. Married people were my parents and this was back in the 60s. First was way out beyond the perimeter track at RAF Jever, in West Germany, the second at RAF Hemswell, in Lincolnshire. Both were actually quite cosy, and we got through the dreadful 1963 winter at Hemswell with few problems. In fact I found them warmer than the brick-built married quarters we moved into at RAF Scampton, after Helmswell.
- cudgy 4y ago
  Prefab is a different animal altogether in the US from manufactured homes. Prefabricated homes are many times built to higher standards than regular homes, and prefab homes are usually permanent with no intention of moving the structure to other sites over their lifetimes. Unfortunately, prefab homes are equal (if not more in some cases) in cost relative to standard “stick-built” homes.
moistly 4y ago
Manufactured homes are going up like gangbusters in BC, but they’re not mobile manufactured homes. IMO it’s a brilliant system. Prefab the wall and truss structures off-site, where you can use CNC and jigs to build precisely. Wiring, plumbing, sheathing, siding, insulation, possibly roofing, all pre-installed. Erect on-site using a boom-arm delivery truck in one or two days. Do finishing work in a few days. Three three-person specialized crews building a new home every week. Many are on lease-hold land with strata expenses for water, area maintenance, plowing, etc. many others on small rural holdings. Sometimes in town, usually in a development with micro-sized lots and ~1000–1200 sq.ft. retirement/starter homes. Mobile homes are common enough on small rural acreages/homesteads. The new ones are quite nice. New mobile home parks are rare: regulations are undoubtedly a burden, and the cost:payoff too low. Old parks continue to go strong.
- Invictus0 4y ago
  Something like this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJJ75IBV1hU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJJ75IBV1hU
  - robocat 4y ago
    Nice 3 story home. It looks to be in an unpopulated area. Building offsite using prefabricated elements would make sense even it it were quite costly, because getting builders and tradies out to a wop-wop location to do an on-site build would be even more expensive.
  - moistly 4y ago
    That sort of thing, and one’s where there are standard 2x4xOSB sheathing, flat-panel patterns, and they arrive as a package of walls to be fastened to a foundation or rim joist, and trusses to be placed on top. More or less plug and play. I believe most non-mobile prefab homes have gyproc installed post-construction, not the jointed fibreboard panels used in (older?) mobile homes. A local homeless transitioning apartment block appeared to use a very modular design, a crane lifting frameworks into place. Now that I think of it, I wonder if those were the same units an Albertan motel chain had been using, that were being constructed locally and shipped off on a flatbed. Most home construction is still done on-site, with framing being cut and nailed and clad per the blueprint, and various specialty crews coming through in sequence to housewrap, install siding, wire, plumb, insulate, sheetrock, trim, install windows and doors, lay flooring, roofing, etc. It is astoundingly quick when well-managed and there are no supply chain issues. And then there are ATCO units. I believe the Alberta oilpatch lives in their modular systems.
antupis 4y ago
Prefab homes are very popular at Scandinavia and Finland. Eg Honka https://honka.com/gb/en/dream-plan-build/custom-home-path/ https://honka.com/gb/en/dream-plan-build/custom-home-path/
- betaby 4y ago
  That's unattainable quality for USA/Canada. Here are such home here as well, but they are not referred as 'manufactured' normally.
  - acchow 4y ago
    Why don't they try to make this quality in California? There's certainly money for it.
    - rndmize 4y ago
      They do. https://www.attainablehome.com/the-best-21-modular-prefab-builders-in-california/ https://www.attainablehome.com/the-best-21-modular-prefab-bu...
    - barry-cotter 4y ago
      Almost certainly illegal. Every jurisdiction has its own idiosyncratic building code to better stifle competition. Having separate licensing and subtly different requirements is a jobs programme for locals.
- Ma8ee 4y ago
  We mean something quite different when we talk about prefab homes in the Nordic countries that they mean in the US.
- juhanakristian 4y ago
  I think Älvsby houses in the Nordics are closer to what the article is talking about. Their houses are built from large pieces manufactured at a factory and later assembled at the site. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5fIqBGybi4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5fIqBGybi4
baxuz 4y ago
Prefabs are rising in popularity in Europe. Especially as passive houses.
- fnordpiglet 4y ago
  What’s a passive house?
  - bjelkeman-again 4y ago
    Simply said, a house with no or very limited heating system. But it is of course more complicated than that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_house#Space_heating_requirement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_house#Space_heating_re...
  - klodolph 4y ago
    As far as I can tell, it's a standard which just means that the building needs very little energy for heating or cooling. It mostly comes down to making the building very insulated (as far as I can tell--not saying that's the complete story, but that's a big factor). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_house https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_house
  - nocubicles 4y ago
    Passive house atleast here means a house that generates more energy then it consumes. E.g very well insulated house with solar power, ventilation that gives back energy etc.
  - timbit42 4y ago
    They are designed to reduce energy requirements (especially heating and cooling) by at least 75% to 90% compared to regular homes and ideally by 100% by capturing and holding heat in the winter and blocking heat in the summer. They tend to have thick walls, triple paned windows, and be air tight. https://passipedia.org/basics/what_is_a_passive_house https://passipedia.org/basics/what_is_a_passive_house
- PontifexMinimus 4y ago
ssharp 4y ago
In my area, I see a fair number of manufactured homes placed on permanent foundations on private lots come up for sale. For whatever reason, they almost never mention the fact that they are manufactured, which I guess must not be a legal requirement. They are pretty easy to tell apart -- vaulted ceilings that end up being very close to door height, strips that cover seams in the drywall, a very clear split down the center where the house was shipped in two parts, etc. I cannot believe people are either naively buying these homes for the price of a normal house or don't even realize it's a manufactured home. There is a lot you can do to make these homes nicer but coming from the factory, so much of the materials are sub-par. Most of the "cabinets" are just fronts placed onto thin particle board "frames" that are sloppily stapled together. The plastic plumbing fittings are very prone to wearing down quickly. A lot of the times the bathroom plumbing isn't vented. The windows are absolute garbage. The furnace and water heater are squeezed into a tiny cubby that would probably have to access from a small access door in one of the closets, or maybe two closets, where each side can access a certain portion of it. Sinks are made of thin, cheap plastic. Lots of things can also be built to a code that wouldn't be allowed in other construction -- the electric wires are 3-in-1 wires that snap directly into the outlets, the house's frame is thinner than normally allowed, drywall is thinner, etc. etc. I think all that is fine if you know what you're getting but I suspect a lot of people don't realize what they're actually buying.
- KennyBlanken 4y ago
  > I think all that is fine if you know what you're getting but I suspect a lot of people don't realize what they're actually buying. They realize. They can't afford anything else. From the article: > Almost as soon as trailers appeared, they began to be used for year-round living rather than camping trips, typically by traveling salesman or other itinerant workers. In the 1920s and 30s it was estimated that between 10 and 25% of trailers were used for year-round accommodation. And as unemployment soared and housing starts collapsed during the Great Depression, trailer living became more common. By 1937, it was estimated that 50% of new trailers were purchased as permanent shelter. The "van life" trend should have been a huge warning sign...
- 01100011 4y ago
  There are, or used to be a few decades ago when I last checked, some surprisingly well built factory homes. They're not all mobile home quality. Concerning quality, my sister bought a tract home in WA state a few years ago and the quality was comparable to a mobile home. The appliances were as cheap as possible, cabinets were poor quality, and even the home placement on the non-rectangular lot was very odd. The back fence was about 2' from her rear door, despite having a huge side yard to the right and left.
itcrowd 4y ago
> (One statistic you sometimes see is that at one point mobile homes made up 60% of total new houses - this is incorrect. At one point mobile home units were around 50% of the number of single family homes built.) I understand this is just a footnote in the article, but could somebody explain me what the distinction is that the author is making here? I especially don't understand the italicized "number".
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- ealexhudson 4y ago
  I read it as statement about mobile units being half compared to built units - so a third of the total? But it's incredibly ambiguous what they mean, I agree - number vs total is a weird bit to focus on if the problem is just an apples/oranges comparison.
- giantrobot 4y ago
  I think the emphasis was just too short. I think they're saying manufactured homes were 50% of Single Family Homes. Of all housing constructed some is Single Family Homes, a free standing detached residential building. This is distinct from attached residential housing like duplexes, condos, and apartments. If you build 50 duplexes and 50 SFHs you've got 150 residences. If 50% of the SFHs are manufactured homes then you've got 25 manufactured homes out of 150. If the article is correct there's erroneous claims that manufactured homes are 60% of new "houses" which with my made up numbers would mean there's 90 manufactured homes out of our 150.
  - chrisgarand 4y ago
    This is accurate. Here's an example of multi vs single family construction stats: https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/en/daily-quotidien/220509/dq220509a-eng.pdf?st=klKNARvM https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/en/daily-quotidien/220509/dq... From the values of each, you can tell that multi-family units are a larger portion of residential construction. How much larger would require more research as on a per unit basis, multi-family units are cheaper per family than a single-family unit. Essentially, manufactured home in this case, even if they were 50% of single-family home construction, would be less than 25% of total family units constructed (single-family units + (singe units being construction in multi-family buildings).
Spooky23 4y ago
The issue with trailers is that they are built to a different standard, basically designed to depreciate like a car. The modular houses that get assembled on site are almost indistinguishable from many traditional houses. On the flip, the regular building codes are insane and drive up costs to address risks that aren’t there, while ignoring obvious deficiencies that are both expensive and long term dangerous. It’s ok to glue the exterior of a house on or put a PVC toilet flange on new construction, but you need to install insane numbers of electrical outlet to prevent some nonexistent fire risk.
- ip26 4y ago
  A failing exterior or flange doesn't usually kill you in your sleep.
- edflsafoiewq 4y ago
  What's wrong with a PVC toilet flange?
  - abakker 4y ago
    They are less durable than a bronze one, and, when your toilet flange goes wrong, you have a major problem. Personally, I like PVC for being light, easy to modify, and definitively waterproof.
    - rascul 4y ago
      I've only seen PVC toilet flanges. Not just in mobile homes but in regular homes also. I'm no plumber though, but when I lay flooring in the bathroom I have to pull the toilet. I honestly didn't know there were other choices besides PVC.
      - abakker 4y ago
        Bronze and iron are pretty common. Our house has iron in the basement and pvc in a renovated bathroom upstairs. I expect you’re just luck to have never repaired an iron one. (They are hard to remove)
nimbius 4y ago
in america, I owned a trailer or what's called a mobile home. what killed it for me is the places you can put one (lots of NIMBY) and the lots you can lease for one have exorbitant fees for water/sewage and land. its all the worst parts of renting rolled into a $60k home.
- rootusrootus 4y ago
  IMO the only good option for a manufactured home at this point is to drop it on a nice piece of acreage out in the sticks. No pesky zoning or NIMBY problems, and you can spend your money on the land instead.
  - jamiek88 4y ago
    And those areas are harder to find unless you go waaaaay out there. Even then you need to invest in septic tank generally.
    - antisthenes 4y ago
      There is generally no free lunch when it comes to housing. It's just expensive in developed countries, unless it's in a dangerous/decaying area.
      - marvin 4y ago
        Well, it's "just expensive" because most developed countries happen to develop the same stupid incentives for making housing difficult. Even if you exclude everything that's health, safety and environment.
- gscott 4y ago
  And after awhile you trailer becomes to old to accept into a new park so it is captive in the park you are at and they can increase fees on you forever.
  - 4y ago
jollybean 4y ago
Why are people not talking about social views? 'Mobile Homes' are viewed as for 'White Trash' or 'Poor People'. Funny the decline in sales seems to have started with the 'Trailer Park Boys'? Obviously it's a coincidence, but these things matter quite a lot. I can definitely see an opportunity for such homes that are styled to be hip, with modern designs, tucked away in the forest, that kind of thing. Manufacturers and designers are going to have to create a new perception. If there is a direct economic advantage, they might want to work with city hall / planners etc. as well on this. It also could be related to the fact that regular homes are getting really nice and expectations much higher. Irrespective of the economic issues, 'Mobile Homes' are 'Off Brand' and that's at least 1/2 the problem.
TaylorAlexander 4y ago
I just want them to start making shipping containers such that at their end of life they can be turned in to housing without a bunch of work. No toxic materials for the floors. Window and door spaces pre cut and bolted over rather than needing to be cut out after the fact, access panels to run electrical and plumbing. A whole system that is designed to be used first as a shipping container and later as a modular home.
- lelandbatey 4y ago
  Shipping containers just structurally aren't that great at being houses, I feel like. They're pretty much cardboard boxes made of steel; very minimal and purpose built. The basic structure isn't that vital to a house being a house, usually it's everything else (insulation, plumbing, flooring, etc.) Not sure pre cut holes would help a lot.
  - spaetzleesser 4y ago
    Steel seems a terrible material for a building shell because it conducts heat so well.
- WheatM 4y ago
- dougmwne 4y ago
  I assume that a shipping container is only at end of life one it starts rusting and loses structural integrity. Not sure anyone would want to live in it at that point.
  - TaylorAlexander 4y ago
    You can buy lightly used containers for like $6k so if it was modular housing you could put a few of them together cheaply.
- towaway15463 4y ago
  You’d never recoup the extra cost
rootusrootus 4y ago
One thing I think they could do to make them more popular would be to ship units as modules without roofs. It would add some complexity to the logistics, but in my opinion one of the big weaknesses of manufactured home design is the limit on roof design resulting from the need to tow them down the road. If the roof was built on-site it would give them a more traditional design that would expand the appeal.
- chasil 4y ago
  Clayton Homes is owned by Berkshire Hathaway, and I've seen them every time that I go to a shareholders' meeting in Omaha. https://www.claytonhomes.com/ https://www.claytonhomes.com/ Clayton Homes has engaged in predatory lending, and this is one of the darker sides of the Berkshire Hathaway conglomerate. https://www.forbes.com/sites/korihale/2019/04/18/warren-buffets-exploitative-mobile-home-investment/?sh=435fbb6b1507 https://www.forbes.com/sites/korihale/2019/04/18/warren-buff...
joe_the_user 4y ago
I'm in Eastern California, Nevada City. I'm pretty sure no new mobile home parks have been approved in this area for many, many years and I think that's true for many areas in California. Heck, even Paradise CA (North of me), which was destroyed by fire entirely and so had many displaced people a year or two after the fire, the city wouldn't approve any area for the siting of trailers to house those who didn't yet have homes. The primarily motivation for this, uh, bullshit, is home valuation. Home owners, not entirely falsely, believe that a trailer park near them will reduce the value of their homes (so they'll oppose a park even they don't personally think there's anything wrong with them). And there you have it, with home values being a gigantic part of the US economy, they wag the dog of other decisions. I mean, bless Construction Physics' heart for earnestly trying to find a technical solution to absurd home prices in the US (and some technical solutions are useful) but naturally they have to ignore or gloss over the basic it's all a racket, they want things this way part of current problems.
- jmspring 4y ago
  Another issue is financing manufactured homes is often much more expensive than tradditional / stick built houses. I'm not sure how that applies to Lindle / other higher end pre-fab homes. A house on a foundation vs wheels/blocks is another factor. I agree the situation in Paradise was pretty messed up. I'm up the hill in Plumas County. Quincy and Portola have multiple trailer parks. Graeagle has lots with manufactured homes on them - but not trailer parks. Outside of a couple of RV parks with a few "full time" residents.
  - kitcar 4y ago
    I believe that is because when you finance a house you're financing the land+house combination, with the land making up the majority of value in most urban areas - when you finance a mobile home you are only financing the home, which depreciates (unlike the land component) - hence its a higher risk loan and therefore more expensive to finance.
    - phpisthebest 4y ago
xchaotic 4y ago
It’s really simple- real estate is the only casino where you are almost guaranteed a leveraged payout in the long run. So as soon as houses became an investment, the way to maximise profit is not to go for the cheapest but for the most expensive house you can afford.
- DwnVoteHoneyPot 4y ago
  I thought people stopped thinking like this after 2008/9. If not, maybe 2023/24 will teach them. When people buy a house and sell for more, they don't include property tax, mortgage interest costs, maintenance costs in their mental calc of profit. Sometimes they include renovations costs, sometimes not. They also don't factor in their next house they buy is inflated too.
  - maccard 4y ago
    > I thought people stopped thinking like this after 2008/9 Why would they? It's not like it stopped in 2008. If you bought at the _peak_ in 2007 and held, in pretty much every area in the UK you're currently _way_ up, particularly if you leveraged yourself. > When people buy a house and sell for more, they don't include property tax, mortgage interest costs, maintenance costs in their mental calc of profit. Sometimes they include renovations costs, sometimes not. And people who make this argument often fail to consider the alternative costs, e.g.renting (which here in the UK is likely to be ~30% greater than the cost of mortgage interested to cover affordability checks), and leverage. You know what beats a 10% return on a 20k investment? A 100% return annually on a 20k investment. For a £200k property in the UK, you could buy it in 2017 with a 20k downpayment, ~£1000 in fees, on a mortgage with 2% interest rates, and it would _very_ likely be worth £240+k right now even without any renevation work. > They also don't factor in their next house they buy is inflated too. You're assuming that people are selling to buy bigger houses, or that the rises are spread equally across all pricing bands. If you take my parents as an example, they bought a family home in late 80s/early 90s, sat on it for 30 years, and then downsized to a smaller home. The "inflation" of their house was far more than the inflation of the house they moved into. Also, the ceilings are loosely capped with earnings (since 2008 here at least) - stress tests for lending mean that in practice for the last few years, banks have been lending a maximum of 4.5-5.5x of borrowers income, so the cap is loosely set based on that.
danans 4y ago
The Palm Canyon Mobile club near Palm Springs, CA is an example of how you can make attractive and desirable mobile/prefab homes: https://www.dwell.com/article/palm-canyon-mobile-club-tiny-homes-19b44dfe https://www.dwell.com/article/palm-canyon-mobile-club-tiny-h... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Z4vz5Ms0rE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Z4vz5Ms0rE
- seanmcdirmid 4y ago
  None of those are mobile homes. They seem to all be manufactured or modular. They look pretty nice.
  - danans 4y ago
    If you watch the video, they explain that they are all designed to be moved if the owner wants to, just like a mobile home. They are in just mobile homes but with more attention paid to aesthetics.
    - seanmcdirmid 4y ago
      They can be movable without being mobile homes (any house is movable, it’s just a matter of how easy they are to move!). Legally, they definitely aren’t classed as mobile homes, they aren’t permanently attached to a chassis. You can probably get a mortgage for them, for example.
deleted 4y ago
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r3trohack3r 4y ago
Tangentially related. TIL Elon Musk is living in a $50,000 prefab on SpaceX property: http://boxabl-homes.com/ http://boxabl-homes.com/
- helloworld97 4y ago
  https://www.wsj.com/articles/elon-musk-says-he-lives-in-a-50-000-house-he-doesnt-talk-about-the-austin-mansion-11640188548 https://www.wsj.com/articles/elon-musk-says-he-lives-in-a-50...
  - r3trohack3r 4y ago
    I’m confused. So he’s not living in a $50,000 prefab made by boxabl on SpaceX property?
    - asdsahfRrt4 4y ago
      No he doesnt. He lives in his private jet or mansion. duh. but he did buy a Casita and have it deployed in his backyard at spacex. He also said it was cool on twitter
cprayingmantis 4y ago
Here in Southwestern VA I’ve seen an interesting trend: people are buying yard barns. Sometimes very large yard barns and are converting them into living quarters. These are folks that don’t have a ton of access to capital or financing but they can scrape together enough for a barn, insulation, a window AC, and plumbing. They’re getting by with them because they’re not sold as livable structures but who knows how safe they are. Mobile/Manufactured homes are too expensive I guess.
towaway15463 4y ago
Has anyone thought to create a portable factory that can be set up near a new housing development to mass produce components for the houses being built? You’d basically just need a big tent with something to do the assembly on like large roller tables like they use for trusses. You wouldn’t need huge cranes for assembly since you could do smaller segments.
- shagie 4y ago
  It is easier to build a factory and build homes with components that are standard sized and them ship that out on to the site. This also makes it much easier to have electrical and plumbing done nearly completely (with the final hookups on site) in a place where you can centralize the tasks to ensure a constant stream of work. https://www.designhomes.com/howitworks/ https://www.designhomes.com/howitworks/ The heavy machinery on site is less of a problem than needing to move all the tradesmen around, down times, and the logistics of sourcing and moving the materials rather than the product.
_8j50 4y ago
They don't look cool that's the problem. They look flimsy and poor quality. I am personally partial to converting shipping containers
- bacchusracine 4y ago
  > I am personally partial to converting shipping containers I recommend watching this video first: https://youtu.be/i7yEDz6bCfU https://youtu.be/i7yEDz6bCfU Shipping container homes are not what people think they are.
  - _8j50 4y ago
    Thank you, that is a really good critique of container homes. My idea was to do a 2x2 stacking, breach the center walls and reenforce them with iron. No need for insulation if you live where the cimate is tolerable year round. No matter what there will be a lot of new iron welded, I didn't know iron was considerably expensive. I think mixing wood with iron is the cause for all this, if not pure iron then brick makes more sense for an insulation layer than wood+foam. You might say the container is useless then, but it really isn't, it provides the frame/beams that hold everything together. With traditional houses you have to use wood at some point which is what I dislike. But overall, the cost of houses is the biggest motivation. Land+construction if it can be done under $100k then why be forever in debt over a $500k (if you are lucky) house.
olivermarks 4y ago
Warren Buffett owns Clayton Homes the largest builder of manufactured housing and modular homes in the United States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clayton_Homes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clayton_Homes California has infrastructure (water, sewer/ waste treatment. power etc for 20m people and a population of 40m, one of the big reasons more 'affordable housing' (including the mobile home rip off) does not get built there, but other parts of the US have large numbers of very lucrative mobile home parks
wrp 4y ago
Why are manufactured homes not more popular in American cities with very inflated housing prices? I read that they are unpopular because the cost per square foot is actually more than stick-built, but that is for the average cost around the country. In an inflated market, I would expect buying a vacant lot and putting a really nice manufactured home on it would be vastly cheaper than buying an existing house, and much quicker than waiting for a contractor to have a schedule opening.

158 points by samclemens 4y ago

bombcar 4y ago

The biggest problem was and continues to be lot rent combined with the absolute unresalability.

rascul 4y ago
There is a market for buying and selling used mobile homes. I've worked on a few already this year, getting them ready for tenants after they have been bought and moved. Maybe not a large market, I don't know. And I'm sure it's very location dependent. Lot rents are (edit: mostly) only in (some) trailer parks, the vast majority of mobile homes that I see around here (southern Mississippi) are not in trailer parks.
- topkai22 4y ago
  Yeah, I was going to comment the same thing. I’ve lived in multiple regions where there is plenty large, owner occupant lots where the structure is a mobile home. The mobile home park/ground rent model is definitely not the only model in use for these structures.
- 01100011 4y ago
  It's not uncommon to buy a piece of rural land and drop a mobile on it. I've even seen folks do it so they have a place to live while they build a traditional house.
  - rascul 4y ago
    > It's not uncommon to buy a piece of rural land and drop a mobile on it. This is the large majority of mobile homes I see and work on.
  - dylan604 4y ago
    I've even seen people go so far as to brick around the pre-built home to hide what it is or to comply with some sort of code. Sometimes, they'll match the brick on the house that was built, and keep the pre-built for an in-laws suite type of thing. One of those, "we already have this thing and we're not going to get much from selling, so what do we do with it now" scenarios.
    - ncmncm 4y ago
      There are hundreds of thousands of those all over the American West, going back well over a century. Typically, it starts with a shed over the trailer that the house is then built onto. Even after the bedrooms are built, the bathroom and kitchen serve until plumbing and fixtures go into the main house. Once the house is built, there is no value in removing the trailer, and it becomes guest quarters. With a proper roof over, it can last a long time. But enough decades later, it is torn out to make space for a back deck. Many of these can be seen along cross-country Amtrak routes.
- alistairSH 4y ago
  Around here (DC suburbs out to Appalachia), it’s a mix of both. The closer to the city, the more likely the mobile home is in a trailer park. Though there aren’t many left - most that I’m aware of have been bought/closed/redeveloped. In terms of increasing the supple of affordable homes for people who are in suburban or semi-rural areas, mobile homes really are a mixed bag, for the reasons listed (which is then exacerbated by PE firms buying up parks and milking the residents dry).
- kube-system 4y ago
  There’s technically a market, but they experience insane amounts of depreciation. If they’re sold with land, most of the value is in the land.
  - cudgy 4y ago
    For used mobile homes (caveat emptor), this can be an advantage if the structure is usable, since the buyer essentially gets a “free” or very low cost livable structure with a septic field included. Fast depreciation is an advantage to the used market buyer, since prior owners took the hit.
    - kube-system 4y ago
      The depreciation is a result of the value to the buyer, though. They’re a PITA to maintain because everything on them is an odd size and made from the worst possible material. Unlike a permanent home which has mature ecosystems for completely refurbishing them, a better bet with a mobile home is to use it up and throw it away.
      - rascul 4y ago
        > everything on them is an odd size and made from the worst possible material I've found that outside of light switches, electrical outlets, and bath tubs, much of the stuff is the same or similar (2x3 instead of 2x4 or 2x6 walls for example, or 1/4 foam instead of plywood sheathing) than regular houses, and can be purchased from Lowe's or Home Depot at regular prices instead of super high prices from the only mobile home parts store around here.
galaktus 4y ago
> absolute unresalability That is not true. There absolutely is a market for resale.
JKCalhoun 4y ago
In some regions, you can purchase a lot and drop a mobile home down.
- 800xl 4y ago
  This is true in a lot of areas of Texas. The mobile home dealer will even help you find land. You typically have to have a water well and septic system installed on the land. I see these mobile home land packages come up for sale on Redfin all the time. They do appear to appreciate in value if they are clean and taken care of, but not as much as a site built home. I have even seen some successful flips. I guess the main drawback is that they are typically located on less desirable land and the lifespan of the house just isn't going to compare favorably to a site built house, but at least they are affordable.

pram 4y ago

The peaks in popularity are super interesting because they line up exactly with my parents owning a manufactured home. They bought one as newlyweds in the 70s, and then a double-wide in the 90s. These were both on acre sized lots. We lived in regular suburban style houses too so I don’t know what the appeal was. Some kind of weird Boomer romanticism?

rascul 4y ago
From what I understand, the appeal is that it's quick and cheap to get a mobile home compared to having a house built.
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  In the US, tract builders target houses to be built from the ground up in 100 days, assuming supplies and workers are available. If it was more economical to do prefab, DR Horton/Lennar/etc would be doing it.
  - rascul 4y ago
    When I first got into construction a couple decades ago, I was working for a roofing and siding contractor doing a new development. Houses were going up so fast that as soon as we finished one house, the next was one ready for us. My recollection is probably about 12 to 15 weeks start to finish, which is approximately in line with your 100 day number. Although, if you already have the land, you can potentially buy a mobile home, have it delivered and setup, utilities hooked up, and move in within a week, for a lesser overall price. There are a lot of tradeoffs, though.
  - iancmceachern 4y ago
    Yeah but that's for a whole neighborhood, they gaun economy of scale. It entirely different to build one house, in 10 acres 2 hours outside of a major city. It's like building a hot rod vs. A production car.

jmyeet 4y ago

[flagged]

gumby 4y ago

I wonder if some of the quality and reputation issues could be fixed if the road constraint were removed. Then more robust building code rules could be required and enforced. The way to get rid of the road constraint would be airships, as discussed in a HN submission in the last week or so. If that worked, than manufactured housing could change the granularity: subassemblies would be worth building in a factory and moved onsite (imagine a stack of 8’x12’ walls, already drywalled and with code compliant electrical fittings) or, on the other direction, multistory building could be transported the way doublewides are transported and then joimed in situ today.

brudgers 4y ago
Modular buildings tick all your requirements and are ubiquitous in the US. There are technical (aka, legal) differences between “modular building”, “mobile home”, “trailer”, “motor home”, and “recreational vehicle”. “Manufactured home” is a trade association term and useful because a manufacturer might build both modular homes and mobile homes on the same assembly line and they may even be hard to tell apart because most of the difference is in the paperwork. As I said there’s a legal layer.
- gumby 4y ago
  Thanks!
sillysaurusx 4y ago
Airships? I feel like you glossed over that little detail. Even if the safety were better than cars, being physically in the air is terrifying to most people. That’s not a deal breaker, but it’s certainly a hurdle. If you’ve been next to someone on a plane who had to down a whole bottle of xanax (metaphorically) just to get through the flight, you realize how traumatic it can be for some people. And then you’ll get stories like “mother of five perishes with all five due to airship failure”. Tesla has had relatively few such horror stories, and look how much it’s impacted them. (On the other hand, “how little it’s impacted them” might also be accurate.) But I really want to know what you mean by airship. My mind immediately went to FF7 Highwind.

monkeydust 4y ago

I am impressed by the potential of 3D printed housing, great video here of a sizable one developed using concrete printing. https://youtu.be/qWBA-6NgIJg https://youtu.be/qWBA-6NgIJg

_jayhack_ 4y ago
3D printing housing is exciting; I'm also optimistic about the future of modular architecture, in which walls (or even room-sized units) are manufactured and transported to the construction site, plumbing/electricity already included, and assembled like Legos. Nexii (https://www.nexii.com/ https://www.nexii.com/) is working on something similar. It seems there are significant construction cost reductions, faster to build, and easier to repair, although the space of possible buildings is more limited than in the 3D-printed approach
kube-system 4y ago
The big advantage of desktop 3d printing is that one machine can print infinite designs with no retooling cost in between design changes. This advantage is lost when the item you’re printing is the too big to be moved, and assembling the machine is a significant construction project by itself. And customizable design is not a hard criteria for low cost housing. It’s a neat demo, but I don’t see how that process could be leveraged for cost savings as is.
- StillBored 4y ago
  It also apparently takes significantly longer than just building with cinder block. So, yah its interesting, and the rounded corner things, along with the hollow walls are "neat" but much of the cost of single story homes isn't the first story walls is it? Its all the finish work/etc that still will need to be done. So, its hard to see where any cost savings can come from if they are optimizing a part of the design that contributes a minority to the total cost.

zabzonk 4y ago

I lived in prefabs twice - both RAF married quarters. Married people were my parents and this was back in the 60s. First was way out beyond the perimeter track at RAF Jever, in West Germany, the second at RAF Hemswell, in Lincolnshire. Both were actually quite cosy, and we got through the dreadful 1963 winter at Hemswell with few problems. In fact I found them warmer than the brick-built married quarters we moved into at RAF Scampton, after Helmswell.

cudgy 4y ago
Prefab is a different animal altogether in the US from manufactured homes. Prefabricated homes are many times built to higher standards than regular homes, and prefab homes are usually permanent with no intention of moving the structure to other sites over their lifetimes. Unfortunately, prefab homes are equal (if not more in some cases) in cost relative to standard “stick-built” homes.

moistly 4y ago

Manufactured homes are going up like gangbusters in BC, but they’re not mobile manufactured homes. IMO it’s a brilliant system. Prefab the wall and truss structures off-site, where you can use CNC and jigs to build precisely. Wiring, plumbing, sheathing, siding, insulation, possibly roofing, all pre-installed. Erect on-site using a boom-arm delivery truck in one or two days. Do finishing work in a few days. Three three-person specialized crews building a new home every week. Many are on lease-hold land with strata expenses for water, area maintenance, plowing, etc. many others on small rural holdings. Sometimes in town, usually in a development with micro-sized lots and ~1000–1200 sq.ft. retirement/starter homes. Mobile homes are common enough on small rural acreages/homesteads. The new ones are quite nice. New mobile home parks are rare: regulations are undoubtedly a burden, and the cost:payoff too low. Old parks continue to go strong.

Invictus0 4y ago
Something like this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJJ75IBV1hU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJJ75IBV1hU
- robocat 4y ago
  Nice 3 story home. It looks to be in an unpopulated area. Building offsite using prefabricated elements would make sense even it it were quite costly, because getting builders and tradies out to a wop-wop location to do an on-site build would be even more expensive.
- moistly 4y ago
  That sort of thing, and one’s where there are standard 2x4xOSB sheathing, flat-panel patterns, and they arrive as a package of walls to be fastened to a foundation or rim joist, and trusses to be placed on top. More or less plug and play. I believe most non-mobile prefab homes have gyproc installed post-construction, not the jointed fibreboard panels used in (older?) mobile homes. A local homeless transitioning apartment block appeared to use a very modular design, a crane lifting frameworks into place. Now that I think of it, I wonder if those were the same units an Albertan motel chain had been using, that were being constructed locally and shipped off on a flatbed. Most home construction is still done on-site, with framing being cut and nailed and clad per the blueprint, and various specialty crews coming through in sequence to housewrap, install siding, wire, plumb, insulate, sheetrock, trim, install windows and doors, lay flooring, roofing, etc. It is astoundingly quick when well-managed and there are no supply chain issues. And then there are ATCO units. I believe the Alberta oilpatch lives in their modular systems.

antupis 4y ago

Prefab homes are very popular at Scandinavia and Finland. Eg Honka https://honka.com/gb/en/dream-plan-build/custom-home-path/ https://honka.com/gb/en/dream-plan-build/custom-home-path/

betaby 4y ago
That's unattainable quality for USA/Canada. Here are such home here as well, but they are not referred as 'manufactured' normally.
- acchow 4y ago
  Why don't they try to make this quality in California? There's certainly money for it.
  - rndmize 4y ago
    They do. https://www.attainablehome.com/the-best-21-modular-prefab-builders-in-california/ https://www.attainablehome.com/the-best-21-modular-prefab-bu...
  - barry-cotter 4y ago
    Almost certainly illegal. Every jurisdiction has its own idiosyncratic building code to better stifle competition. Having separate licensing and subtly different requirements is a jobs programme for locals.
Ma8ee 4y ago
We mean something quite different when we talk about prefab homes in the Nordic countries that they mean in the US.
juhanakristian 4y ago
I think Älvsby houses in the Nordics are closer to what the article is talking about. Their houses are built from large pieces manufactured at a factory and later assembled at the site. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5fIqBGybi4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5fIqBGybi4

baxuz 4y ago

Prefabs are rising in popularity in Europe. Especially as passive houses.

fnordpiglet 4y ago
What’s a passive house?
- bjelkeman-again 4y ago
  Simply said, a house with no or very limited heating system. But it is of course more complicated than that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_house#Space_heating_requirement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_house#Space_heating_re...
- klodolph 4y ago
  As far as I can tell, it's a standard which just means that the building needs very little energy for heating or cooling. It mostly comes down to making the building very insulated (as far as I can tell--not saying that's the complete story, but that's a big factor). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_house https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_house
- nocubicles 4y ago
  Passive house atleast here means a house that generates more energy then it consumes. E.g very well insulated house with solar power, ventilation that gives back energy etc.
- timbit42 4y ago
  They are designed to reduce energy requirements (especially heating and cooling) by at least 75% to 90% compared to regular homes and ideally by 100% by capturing and holding heat in the winter and blocking heat in the summer. They tend to have thick walls, triple paned windows, and be air tight. https://passipedia.org/basics/what_is_a_passive_house https://passipedia.org/basics/what_is_a_passive_house
PontifexMinimus 4y ago

ssharp 4y ago

In my area, I see a fair number of manufactured homes placed on permanent foundations on private lots come up for sale. For whatever reason, they almost never mention the fact that they are manufactured, which I guess must not be a legal requirement. They are pretty easy to tell apart -- vaulted ceilings that end up being very close to door height, strips that cover seams in the drywall, a very clear split down the center where the house was shipped in two parts, etc. I cannot believe people are either naively buying these homes for the price of a normal house or don't even realize it's a manufactured home. There is a lot you can do to make these homes nicer but coming from the factory, so much of the materials are sub-par. Most of the "cabinets" are just fronts placed onto thin particle board "frames" that are sloppily stapled together. The plastic plumbing fittings are very prone to wearing down quickly. A lot of the times the bathroom plumbing isn't vented. The windows are absolute garbage. The furnace and water heater are squeezed into a tiny cubby that would probably have to access from a small access door in one of the closets, or maybe two closets, where each side can access a certain portion of it. Sinks are made of thin, cheap plastic. Lots of things can also be built to a code that wouldn't be allowed in other construction -- the electric wires are 3-in-1 wires that snap directly into the outlets, the house's frame is thinner than normally allowed, drywall is thinner, etc. etc. I think all that is fine if you know what you're getting but I suspect a lot of people don't realize what they're actually buying.

KennyBlanken 4y ago
> I think all that is fine if you know what you're getting but I suspect a lot of people don't realize what they're actually buying. They realize. They can't afford anything else. From the article: > Almost as soon as trailers appeared, they began to be used for year-round living rather than camping trips, typically by traveling salesman or other itinerant workers. In the 1920s and 30s it was estimated that between 10 and 25% of trailers were used for year-round accommodation. And as unemployment soared and housing starts collapsed during the Great Depression, trailer living became more common. By 1937, it was estimated that 50% of new trailers were purchased as permanent shelter. The "van life" trend should have been a huge warning sign...
01100011 4y ago
There are, or used to be a few decades ago when I last checked, some surprisingly well built factory homes. They're not all mobile home quality. Concerning quality, my sister bought a tract home in WA state a few years ago and the quality was comparable to a mobile home. The appliances were as cheap as possible, cabinets were poor quality, and even the home placement on the non-rectangular lot was very odd. The back fence was about 2' from her rear door, despite having a huge side yard to the right and left.

itcrowd 4y ago

> (One statistic you sometimes see is that at one point mobile homes made up 60% of total new houses - this is incorrect. At one point mobile home units were around 50% of the number of single family homes built.) I understand this is just a footnote in the article, but could somebody explain me what the distinction is that the author is making here? I especially don't understand the italicized "number".

deleted 4y ago
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ealexhudson 4y ago
I read it as statement about mobile units being half compared to built units - so a third of the total? But it's incredibly ambiguous what they mean, I agree - number vs total is a weird bit to focus on if the problem is just an apples/oranges comparison.
giantrobot 4y ago
I think the emphasis was just too short. I think they're saying manufactured homes were 50% of Single Family Homes. Of all housing constructed some is Single Family Homes, a free standing detached residential building. This is distinct from attached residential housing like duplexes, condos, and apartments. If you build 50 duplexes and 50 SFHs you've got 150 residences. If 50% of the SFHs are manufactured homes then you've got 25 manufactured homes out of 150. If the article is correct there's erroneous claims that manufactured homes are 60% of new "houses" which with my made up numbers would mean there's 90 manufactured homes out of our 150.
- chrisgarand 4y ago
  This is accurate. Here's an example of multi vs single family construction stats: https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/en/daily-quotidien/220509/dq220509a-eng.pdf?st=klKNARvM https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/en/daily-quotidien/220509/dq... From the values of each, you can tell that multi-family units are a larger portion of residential construction. How much larger would require more research as on a per unit basis, multi-family units are cheaper per family than a single-family unit. Essentially, manufactured home in this case, even if they were 50% of single-family home construction, would be less than 25% of total family units constructed (single-family units + (singe units being construction in multi-family buildings).

Spooky23 4y ago

The issue with trailers is that they are built to a different standard, basically designed to depreciate like a car. The modular houses that get assembled on site are almost indistinguishable from many traditional houses. On the flip, the regular building codes are insane and drive up costs to address risks that aren’t there, while ignoring obvious deficiencies that are both expensive and long term dangerous. It’s ok to glue the exterior of a house on or put a PVC toilet flange on new construction, but you need to install insane numbers of electrical outlet to prevent some nonexistent fire risk.

ip26 4y ago
A failing exterior or flange doesn't usually kill you in your sleep.
edflsafoiewq 4y ago
What's wrong with a PVC toilet flange?
- abakker 4y ago
  They are less durable than a bronze one, and, when your toilet flange goes wrong, you have a major problem. Personally, I like PVC for being light, easy to modify, and definitively waterproof.
  - rascul 4y ago
    I've only seen PVC toilet flanges. Not just in mobile homes but in regular homes also. I'm no plumber though, but when I lay flooring in the bathroom I have to pull the toilet. I honestly didn't know there were other choices besides PVC.
    - abakker 4y ago
      Bronze and iron are pretty common. Our house has iron in the basement and pvc in a renovated bathroom upstairs. I expect you’re just luck to have never repaired an iron one. (They are hard to remove)

nimbius 4y ago

in america, I owned a trailer or what's called a mobile home. what killed it for me is the places you can put one (lots of NIMBY) and the lots you can lease for one have exorbitant fees for water/sewage and land. its all the worst parts of renting rolled into a $60k home.

rootusrootus 4y ago
IMO the only good option for a manufactured home at this point is to drop it on a nice piece of acreage out in the sticks. No pesky zoning or NIMBY problems, and you can spend your money on the land instead.
- jamiek88 4y ago
  And those areas are harder to find unless you go waaaaay out there. Even then you need to invest in septic tank generally.
  - antisthenes 4y ago
    There is generally no free lunch when it comes to housing. It's just expensive in developed countries, unless it's in a dangerous/decaying area.
    - marvin 4y ago
      Well, it's "just expensive" because most developed countries happen to develop the same stupid incentives for making housing difficult. Even if you exclude everything that's health, safety and environment.
gscott 4y ago
And after awhile you trailer becomes to old to accept into a new park so it is captive in the park you are at and they can increase fees on you forever.
- 4y ago

jollybean 4y ago

Why are people not talking about social views? 'Mobile Homes' are viewed as for 'White Trash' or 'Poor People'. Funny the decline in sales seems to have started with the 'Trailer Park Boys'? Obviously it's a coincidence, but these things matter quite a lot. I can definitely see an opportunity for such homes that are styled to be hip, with modern designs, tucked away in the forest, that kind of thing. Manufacturers and designers are going to have to create a new perception. If there is a direct economic advantage, they might want to work with city hall / planners etc. as well on this. It also could be related to the fact that regular homes are getting really nice and expectations much higher. Irrespective of the economic issues, 'Mobile Homes' are 'Off Brand' and that's at least 1/2 the problem.

TaylorAlexander 4y ago

I just want them to start making shipping containers such that at their end of life they can be turned in to housing without a bunch of work. No toxic materials for the floors. Window and door spaces pre cut and bolted over rather than needing to be cut out after the fact, access panels to run electrical and plumbing. A whole system that is designed to be used first as a shipping container and later as a modular home.

lelandbatey 4y ago
Shipping containers just structurally aren't that great at being houses, I feel like. They're pretty much cardboard boxes made of steel; very minimal and purpose built. The basic structure isn't that vital to a house being a house, usually it's everything else (insulation, plumbing, flooring, etc.) Not sure pre cut holes would help a lot.
- spaetzleesser 4y ago
  Steel seems a terrible material for a building shell because it conducts heat so well.
WheatM 4y ago
dougmwne 4y ago
I assume that a shipping container is only at end of life one it starts rusting and loses structural integrity. Not sure anyone would want to live in it at that point.
- TaylorAlexander 4y ago
  You can buy lightly used containers for like $6k so if it was modular housing you could put a few of them together cheaply.
towaway15463 4y ago
You’d never recoup the extra cost

rootusrootus 4y ago

One thing I think they could do to make them more popular would be to ship units as modules without roofs. It would add some complexity to the logistics, but in my opinion one of the big weaknesses of manufactured home design is the limit on roof design resulting from the need to tow them down the road. If the roof was built on-site it would give them a more traditional design that would expand the appeal.

chasil 4y ago
Clayton Homes is owned by Berkshire Hathaway, and I've seen them every time that I go to a shareholders' meeting in Omaha. https://www.claytonhomes.com/ https://www.claytonhomes.com/ Clayton Homes has engaged in predatory lending, and this is one of the darker sides of the Berkshire Hathaway conglomerate. https://www.forbes.com/sites/korihale/2019/04/18/warren-buffets-exploitative-mobile-home-investment/?sh=435fbb6b1507 https://www.forbes.com/sites/korihale/2019/04/18/warren-buff...

joe_the_user 4y ago

I'm in Eastern California, Nevada City. I'm pretty sure no new mobile home parks have been approved in this area for many, many years and I think that's true for many areas in California. Heck, even Paradise CA (North of me), which was destroyed by fire entirely and so had many displaced people a year or two after the fire, the city wouldn't approve any area for the siting of trailers to house those who didn't yet have homes. The primarily motivation for this, uh, bullshit, is home valuation. Home owners, not entirely falsely, believe that a trailer park near them will reduce the value of their homes (so they'll oppose a park even they don't personally think there's anything wrong with them). And there you have it, with home values being a gigantic part of the US economy, they wag the dog of other decisions. I mean, bless Construction Physics' heart for earnestly trying to find a technical solution to absurd home prices in the US (and some technical solutions are useful) but naturally they have to ignore or gloss over the basic it's all a racket, they want things this way part of current problems.

jmspring 4y ago
Another issue is financing manufactured homes is often much more expensive than tradditional / stick built houses. I'm not sure how that applies to Lindle / other higher end pre-fab homes. A house on a foundation vs wheels/blocks is another factor. I agree the situation in Paradise was pretty messed up. I'm up the hill in Plumas County. Quincy and Portola have multiple trailer parks. Graeagle has lots with manufactured homes on them - but not trailer parks. Outside of a couple of RV parks with a few "full time" residents.
- kitcar 4y ago
  I believe that is because when you finance a house you're financing the land+house combination, with the land making up the majority of value in most urban areas - when you finance a mobile home you are only financing the home, which depreciates (unlike the land component) - hence its a higher risk loan and therefore more expensive to finance.
  - phpisthebest 4y ago

xchaotic 4y ago

It’s really simple- real estate is the only casino where you are almost guaranteed a leveraged payout in the long run. So as soon as houses became an investment, the way to maximise profit is not to go for the cheapest but for the most expensive house you can afford.

DwnVoteHoneyPot 4y ago
I thought people stopped thinking like this after 2008/9. If not, maybe 2023/24 will teach them. When people buy a house and sell for more, they don't include property tax, mortgage interest costs, maintenance costs in their mental calc of profit. Sometimes they include renovations costs, sometimes not. They also don't factor in their next house they buy is inflated too.
- maccard 4y ago
  > I thought people stopped thinking like this after 2008/9 Why would they? It's not like it stopped in 2008. If you bought at the _peak_ in 2007 and held, in pretty much every area in the UK you're currently _way_ up, particularly if you leveraged yourself. > When people buy a house and sell for more, they don't include property tax, mortgage interest costs, maintenance costs in their mental calc of profit. Sometimes they include renovations costs, sometimes not. And people who make this argument often fail to consider the alternative costs, e.g.renting (which here in the UK is likely to be ~30% greater than the cost of mortgage interested to cover affordability checks), and leverage. You know what beats a 10% return on a 20k investment? A 100% return annually on a 20k investment. For a £200k property in the UK, you could buy it in 2017 with a 20k downpayment, ~£1000 in fees, on a mortgage with 2% interest rates, and it would _very_ likely be worth £240+k right now even without any renevation work. > They also don't factor in their next house they buy is inflated too. You're assuming that people are selling to buy bigger houses, or that the rises are spread equally across all pricing bands. If you take my parents as an example, they bought a family home in late 80s/early 90s, sat on it for 30 years, and then downsized to a smaller home. The "inflation" of their house was far more than the inflation of the house they moved into. Also, the ceilings are loosely capped with earnings (since 2008 here at least) - stress tests for lending mean that in practice for the last few years, banks have been lending a maximum of 4.5-5.5x of borrowers income, so the cap is loosely set based on that.

danans 4y ago

The Palm Canyon Mobile club near Palm Springs, CA is an example of how you can make attractive and desirable mobile/prefab homes: https://www.dwell.com/article/palm-canyon-mobile-club-tiny-homes-19b44dfe https://www.dwell.com/article/palm-canyon-mobile-club-tiny-h... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Z4vz5Ms0rE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Z4vz5Ms0rE

seanmcdirmid 4y ago
None of those are mobile homes. They seem to all be manufactured or modular. They look pretty nice.
- danans 4y ago
  If you watch the video, they explain that they are all designed to be moved if the owner wants to, just like a mobile home. They are in just mobile homes but with more attention paid to aesthetics.
  - seanmcdirmid 4y ago
    They can be movable without being mobile homes (any house is movable, it’s just a matter of how easy they are to move!). Legally, they definitely aren’t classed as mobile homes, they aren’t permanently attached to a chassis. You can probably get a mortgage for them, for example.

deleted 4y ago

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r3trohack3r 4y ago

Tangentially related. TIL Elon Musk is living in a $50,000 prefab on SpaceX property: http://boxabl-homes.com/ http://boxabl-homes.com/

helloworld97 4y ago
https://www.wsj.com/articles/elon-musk-says-he-lives-in-a-50-000-house-he-doesnt-talk-about-the-austin-mansion-11640188548 https://www.wsj.com/articles/elon-musk-says-he-lives-in-a-50...
- r3trohack3r 4y ago
  I’m confused. So he’s not living in a $50,000 prefab made by boxabl on SpaceX property?
  - asdsahfRrt4 4y ago
    No he doesnt. He lives in his private jet or mansion. duh. but he did buy a Casita and have it deployed in his backyard at spacex. He also said it was cool on twitter

cprayingmantis 4y ago

Here in Southwestern VA I’ve seen an interesting trend: people are buying yard barns. Sometimes very large yard barns and are converting them into living quarters. These are folks that don’t have a ton of access to capital or financing but they can scrape together enough for a barn, insulation, a window AC, and plumbing. They’re getting by with them because they’re not sold as livable structures but who knows how safe they are. Mobile/Manufactured homes are too expensive I guess.

towaway15463 4y ago

Has anyone thought to create a portable factory that can be set up near a new housing development to mass produce components for the houses being built? You’d basically just need a big tent with something to do the assembly on like large roller tables like they use for trusses. You wouldn’t need huge cranes for assembly since you could do smaller segments.

shagie 4y ago
It is easier to build a factory and build homes with components that are standard sized and them ship that out on to the site. This also makes it much easier to have electrical and plumbing done nearly completely (with the final hookups on site) in a place where you can centralize the tasks to ensure a constant stream of work. https://www.designhomes.com/howitworks/ https://www.designhomes.com/howitworks/ The heavy machinery on site is less of a problem than needing to move all the tradesmen around, down times, and the logistics of sourcing and moving the materials rather than the product.

_8j50 4y ago

They don't look cool that's the problem. They look flimsy and poor quality. I am personally partial to converting shipping containers

bacchusracine 4y ago
> I am personally partial to converting shipping containers I recommend watching this video first: https://youtu.be/i7yEDz6bCfU https://youtu.be/i7yEDz6bCfU Shipping container homes are not what people think they are.
- _8j50 4y ago
  Thank you, that is a really good critique of container homes. My idea was to do a 2x2 stacking, breach the center walls and reenforce them with iron. No need for insulation if you live where the cimate is tolerable year round. No matter what there will be a lot of new iron welded, I didn't know iron was considerably expensive. I think mixing wood with iron is the cause for all this, if not pure iron then brick makes more sense for an insulation layer than wood+foam. You might say the container is useless then, but it really isn't, it provides the frame/beams that hold everything together. With traditional houses you have to use wood at some point which is what I dislike. But overall, the cost of houses is the biggest motivation. Land+construction if it can be done under $100k then why be forever in debt over a $500k (if you are lucky) house.

olivermarks 4y ago

Warren Buffett owns Clayton Homes the largest builder of manufactured housing and modular homes in the United States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clayton_Homes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clayton_Homes California has infrastructure (water, sewer/ waste treatment. power etc for 20m people and a population of 40m, one of the big reasons more 'affordable housing' (including the mobile home rip off) does not get built there, but other parts of the US have large numbers of very lucrative mobile home parks

wrp 4y ago

Why are manufactured homes not more popular in American cities with very inflated housing prices? I read that they are unpopular because the cost per square foot is actually more than stick-built, but that is for the average cost around the country. In an inflated market, I would expect buying a vacant lot and putting a really nice manufactured home on it would be vastly cheaper than buying an existing house, and much quicker than waiting for a contractor to have a schedule opening.