8 ms·

Manufactured housing: the Ugly Duckling of affordable housing

47 points by jseliger 4y ago

koboll 4y ago
>Why do communities exclude manufactured homes? It is the same class-based discrimination that causes local regulators to exclude apartment buildings, and their residents. Manufactured housing bans do the most damage in exurban and rural areas, where they persist far from media scrutiny, certainly compared to recent scrutiny of apartment bans in big cities. This leaves out a very important piece of the equation. Perhaps the most important piece. Even in places like New York and California that are rapidly turning YIMBYer, prefab and manufactured housing is being frozen out. The reason is that the construction industry, and (especially in blue states) construction industry unions, are very very powerful and wage total war on legislation and politicians friendly to prefab housing because it completely cuts them out of the process. The state-level politics are so toxic for this reason that it's unworkable to get stupid bans undone. This dynamic is, frankly, a lot more intractable than the obstacles this article discusses: you can convince regular people that mobile homes are worth it even if they're ugly, but you can't convince construction industry people not to put their own interests first.
- ArchitectAnon 4y ago
  This article is talking about prefabricated single family homes i.e trailers. For environmental reasons you don’t want massive trailer parks because they generate huge transport carbon emissions from intensive vehicle use; cities need denser housing than these can provide. In a trailer park fire safety is achieved by having a space all around each trailer as a fire break. You can’t stack lightweight traileresque pods easily because they don’t contain enough materials with the thermal properties to resist fire spread between apartments because these materials are typically heavy and brittle. The most efficient and cost effective of these materials is drywall which is not well suited to construction where you transport and then lift the finished item into position. Fully welded sheet steel mineral wool sandwich panels could work but they are a lot more expensive than drywall and need to be carefully designed to avoid corrosion issues from condensation. Lightweight fire resistance can be acheived with intumescent coatings but these are expensive and designed for structural fire protection not for preventing fire spread.
  - luckylion 4y ago
    Might be different in the US, but in Germany a prefab house isn't a trailer, and it's not a movable house either. You pour a foundation / base plate, and then place concrete wall elements (which are fabricated in the factory and delivered to the site, that's the pre-fabricated part) and connect them to assemble the structure. You then add insulation and do the electrical work, plumbing and dry-wall etc the same way you would for a newly created brick-building, though they'll also pre-fabricate many of these parts or have a few generic alternatives to choose between (e.g. on stairs).
    - alistairSH 4y ago
      In the US, manufactured housing typically refers to homes built to be towed to location fully complete. Sometimes in two halves (double wide). While these homes have an axle, they typically get installed once - they aren’t campers/RVs. What you describe exists, but is usually called prefab housing. In the US there are two different sets of building codes that apply. Manufactured housing falls under federal rules. Prefab is all local rules - same as traditional built in place housing.
      - luckylion 4y ago
        Ah, thanks for the explainer! Makes sense that manufactured housing is its own special category then. We do have those, but it's super rare (likely because they'd still need to comply with lots of local regulation, and it becomes more complicated, not less).
        alistairSH 4y ago
        No problem, it's pretty different that what's typically done in Europe (and I have no idea how standardized that is - though there are definitely lots of home/building shows in the UK where they by prefab from central Europe, etc). We basically have the following... - RV (camper van and larger bus-based) - true mobile homes, follow a distinct set of federal rules. Generally not allowed permanently anywhere (most parks have a limit on number of weeks/months you can stay), though there are exceptions. Don't have permanent plumbing or electric supply (plug in with extension cord, black water tank that needs dumped periodically). - "Mobile homes" (old name)/manufactured housing - "one piece" homes designed to roll to location, be dropped in place, and generally not moved again. Once on site, permanently plumbed and electrified. Older homes tend to be rotten nasty cheap things. Newer ones can be quite nice, but they still carry a bad reputation. Follow their own federal rules. In theory can be moved again, but rarely happens. - Prefab (sometime also called modular) - factory built homes, but usually not delivered complete. Instead usually delivered as components (sometimes whole rooms, sometimes just walls and roof). Generally must adhere to local building regs. Built on a normal foundation. Truly permanent once installed. - Normal construction on site. Local rules. And because prefab has to follow local rules, which can vary substantially by region (CA with earthquakes/fires vs east coast without much in the way of natural disasters), the cost savings often isn't there.
samtho 4y ago
It’s hard to shake that feeling of a “trailer park” with the current status of these dwellings. I think the connotations associated here are the blockers. What happened to sears-catalog-style kit homes where they just drop a huge pile of lumber off? Yes you need permits (as does manufactured housing) but I’m willing to bet municipalities would treat common designs the same similar to housing developments where there are like 5 floor plans with only minor variations between each structure. It’s not close to the same but you already have land and a flat surface, I would greatly prefer this option.
- bolangi 4y ago
  There are a huge variety of these homes. I've seen two which were excellent, looking more like a wood framed drywall home than a trailer. One in Oregon, one in California. Great if we could develop alternatives to using the most known irritant chemicals in premanufactured homes. Last I heard formaldehyde is present in many pressed wood products. Plastic products outgas, especially exposed to sunlight. I hope our "greener" future will mean manufacturing more of our common goods with more bio-friendly formulations of what have turned out, over plastics' life cycle, to be rather bio-unfriendly substances.
khazhoux 4y ago
So ugly, this article couldn't even show a picture of one to know what we're talking about!
treelovinhippie 4y ago
[dead]
anovikov 4y ago
I think the very problem about these is affordability. "With these cheap homes, we will have the kind of people in our village we'd hate to see living here". Expensive housing makes other housing more expensive too, because it moves expensive people in and forces cheap ones out and that's what everyone wants.
gigatexal 4y ago
the problem being you often don't own the land the home is on. there's also very little if any appreciation of the whole thing like there is in free-standing single family housing.
- thaumasiotes 4y ago
  Free-standing single family housing doesn't appreciate either. Like any other manufactured good, it starts out new and deteriorates over time. The land is what appreciates.
  - lotsofpulp 4y ago
    With skilled manual labor supply trending the way it is, I can see this changing.
  - gigatexal 4y ago
    are you saying a single family house on a plot of land doesn't appreciate? that's an interesting take making the home worthless but an empty lot in a subdivision is worth less than one with a home on it -- from what I've seen, anyway.
    - thaumasiotes 4y ago
      > that's an interesting take making the home worthless but an empty lot in a subdivision is worth less than one with a home on it -- from what I've seen, anyway The value of the home declines over time as the home deteriorates. No one said the home is worthless, although that is indeed sometimes the case. An empty lot should be worth less than a lot with a functional home on it (if your goal is to put a home on your lot), but the lot with an old house on it is worth less than the one with a new house. Houses don't appreciate, no.
- rascul 4y ago
  > the problem being you often don't own the land the home is on. That's typical for trailer parks. I understand mobile home parks to actually be in the minority here. Most mobile homes are either rented out like a typical house, or the homeowner owns both the mobile home and the land.
DoreenMichele 4y ago
About thirty years ago, I spent a few months living in a rented trailer. It was a terrible experience. I was deathly ill, likely due to some of the chemicals used in its construction. In winter, the hot water heater froze. In summer, we all slept in the living room where the window AC was located because it was the only room cool enough to sleep in. It had such a bug problem, one of my small sons nicknamed it "the bug house." While living there, I swore I would never live in a trailer again and said "I would rather sleep in a tent" which I later did for some years. This article fails to convey to me whether or not the issues that caused me to emphatically make such a declaration have been resolved. If people want manufactured housing -- aka trailer homes -- to succeed, they need to prove that the construction quality is there and your hot water heater won't freeze in cold weather, your home will not be sweltering in summer everywhere except directly beneath the AC, etc. I also became afraid of stormy weather in a way I had never been before. Other than not being wet, it felt like I was out in the storm without shelter. I could hear the rain on the roof loudly. I could feel the wind shake my home. I woke up with nightmares. You want affordable housing? Cool. So do I. But if manufactured housing is merely a new term for trailer homes and nothing has really changed, this is not an acceptable answer in my book.
- nightfly 4y ago
  > I was deathly ill, likely due to some of the chemicals used in its construction Molds are much more likely the culprit here. Trailers are thin metal boxes with regular insulation and wood-ish paneling, not made out of some exotic extra-high chemicals materials Edit: also... I grew up in the 90's in a single-wide trailer from 1971. Some of your complaints like "hearing the rain and wind" just seem silly and are things I look back fondly on. Trailers don't have a monopoly on issues with freezing plumbing either, if you're somewhere with cold weather you have to make sure things are properly winterized. Lower cost/quality housing isn't gonna have this but default, but it isn't different to do.
  - DoreenMichele 4y ago
    I was told formaldehyde might have been the culprit. I have reason to believe it was something chemical, not mold.
Beaver117 4y ago
NOOOOO YOU CAN'T JUST MAKE A PREFAB HOUSE. IT HAS TO GO UP IN VALUE 30% PER YEAR
- jbm 4y ago
  I knew I remembered that number from somewhere. > LOL @ priced out renters! It's a new paradigm, and everybody who doesn't buy, now, will be priced out forever. Anybody who does buy will be rewarded with a lifetime of riches, as their property will continue its 20-30% yearly price appreciation. Renters, and anybody born in a future generation, will not be able to afford a $10,000,000 starter home in 15 years. They will live in tent cities, and Hondas. This asset bubble is different than all of the previous and other asset bubbles - it will never slow down, or pop. The gains are permanent.
  - quickthrower2 4y ago
    Sounds like crypto!
  - preommr 4y ago
    > Renters, and anybody born in a future generation, will not be able to afford a $10,000,000 starter home in 15 years. They will live in tent cities, and Hondas. This asset bubble is different than all of the previous and other asset bubbles - it will never slow down, or pop. The gains are permanent. Genuinely can't tell if this is sarcasm or not.
    - jbm 4y ago
      For what it is worth, this is from 15 years ago. These concerns have been real and around for a long time. Still. I can't believe we have tent cities in places as cold as Calgary. (It's legitimately possible to have snow in July here) Another piece of real estate media that aroused ire at the time; https://youtu.be/odQ7s85bk9s https://youtu.be/odQ7s85bk9s (Thank you for the memories @pud.)
  - CPLX 4y ago
    I think there was a Honda full of silver involved too right.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
ketzu 4y ago
Wikipedia has an article on manufactured housing, including a picutre and description: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufactured_housing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufactured_housing It seems to have a specific meaning, and you might expect something different when thinking about "mobile homes" or "prefab houses" in your region. (e.g., I think of something different for prefabs in germany) There also was an episode on mobile homes of last week tonight which i found interesting back in the day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCC8fPQOaxU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCC8fPQOaxU They often have to rent the land they are on and get stuck there, as they can't transport the houses off.
- klyrs 4y ago
  > They often have to rent the land they are on and get stuck there, as they can't transport the houses off. A few years ago I got interested in a trailer park nearby because homes were selling for less than two years of my income. After some research, I found that the lot itself is a 99 year lease from the city, parcelled by the park's management company. The land is situated in a rapidly developing neighborhood, and the lease expires in the next 2 years. If the land is sold from under you, you own several tons of trash that's not as mobile as it sounds. Even if you can move it, park spaces are hotly contested because all of your neighbors are in the same market at the same time. I ran away and never looked back.
- rascul 4y ago
  Note that the Last Week Tonight video is mostly about mobile home parks. The mobile home parks can be pretty bad (though every now and then there's a good one). From what I understand, most people in living in mobile homes are not in mobile home parks.
chiefalchemist 4y ago
Ultimately, reading between the lines, the housing problem has been created by government. Whether that's stunting the growth of supply or having dangerously and artificially low interest rates. Government - via crony capitalism - has been putting its thumb on the scale, creating bias and favoritism.
totalhack 4y ago
I've always wondered why solutions like modular, "tiny", or even 3d printed homes haven't taken off more when there is such a lack of affordable housing. I know some of it is stigma, some lack of land or cost of land near more densely populated areas...but it's definitely not a quality issue (excluding 3d print, that's too new). It would be a way better use of money than renting for many people. But how do we get around the "trailer park" stigma? Maybe that's a pipe dream.
- cudgy 4y ago
  “But how do we get around the "trailer park" stigma?” Don’t force all of the trailer homes to be in designated trailer parks. Allow for people to place them on their land by removing onerous zoning requirements and minimum housing sizes.
ilamont 4y ago
About 5 years ago we toured the model homes at a northern NY dealership who represented 4 brands of manufactured and modular homes, mostly constructed in Pennsylvania and then driven up via state highways. This is one of the brands of manufactured homes: https://www.commodore-pennsylvania.com/gallery?gallery=78 https://www.commodore-pennsylvania.com/gallery?gallery=78 This is a modular home brand: https://www.neweramodulars.com/photo-galleries https://www.neweramodulars.com/photo-galleries The agent steered us away from the modular homes (built to higher NY state building codes), even though they were more expensive. "I don't know if we can get the crane on that lot, it's pretty windy on those parcels and it's hard to get an operator who will do it," was one of the claims. It became clear their business model was centered around the faster to set up (and close) manufactured homes. These are basically two trailers stitched together down the middle (formerly known as "double wides") and configured in a bunch of different ways mostly based on interior amenities such as type of bathroom, kitchen, HVAC, drywall, flooring, etc. The lowest cost manufactured home was $160k including the foundation but not land, site prep, or connection to local utilities. The 2 story modular homes topped out around $450k.
not_the_fda 4y ago
Manufactured homes aren't less expensive than onsite stick construction per square ft for the same quality. There isn't some big efficiency gain in building offsite and shipping a whole house vs building onsite. The largest cost in home ownership in high cost of living areas is the land. They aren't making it anymore. Most manufactured homes are at the lower end of the quality range. You can buy higher quality manufactured homes but they are not cheap. https://www.bluhomes.com/modern-modular-homes https://www.bluhomes.com/modern-modular-homes ~300 sqft without the land and site prep. I'm all for making it easier to use manufactured homes, but there isn't a big cost win there.
- akrymski 4y ago
  > They aren't making it anymore. But aren't populations of most wealthy countries dropping already? EU population is already declining. We also aren't making efficient use of the land. We could have many more sky scrapers than we do (see Dubai for instance). Biggest obstacles are regulations and zoning laws - not lack of land. Good public transportation is also an issue, there's plenty of cheap land if only we could get to it.
  - not_the_fda 4y ago
    Yes population is declining, but everyone wants to live in the same small area. Take Japan for example, a declining population, with areas that have ghost towns of houses with no people. Everybody wants to live in the high density areas.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - II2II 4y ago
      > Yes population is declining, but everyone wants to live in the same small area. Is it a case of everyone wanting to live in the same small area, or people wanting to live near the amenities? The former implies a small number of places supporting very high densities of people. The latter can be achieved with moderate densities. People like to claim that property values are high because we aren't making land anymore. Even though this is true in the literal sense, there is an incredible amount of land that can be recovered. As an example, my city is tearing down an interchange to recover several acres of land for residential and commercial use and to allow for non-car dependent modes of transportation for local residents. Reducing that car dependence is important not just because of space allocated to roads, but to reduce parking needs. More land freed up and development costs are decreased. Imagine that you built up more moderate density communities where the vast majority of a person's life can be lived in a 30 minute walking radius. Sure, some people will still drive, but it would be over shorter distances and for fewer trips. Would they choose really choose the very high densities and very high cost of a small number of neighbourhoods in a small number of cities over moderate density regions where they may actually have an opportunity to own their own home, even if the house is a bit smaller and the yard is a bit smaller?
FollowingTheDao 4y ago
I know "capitalism" is about making things "better" for our children, butt there needs to be a limit. My grandfather grew up in a one bedroom apartment in Little Italy with a family of nine. First, let's take care of the homeless. Single people make up the majority of the homeless and working homeless population. The main reason studio apartments cost $1500 right now is greed. It is both environmental and cost efficient to build studio apartment buildings as well. These trailers are feeding the delusion that we can all live on "an estate of our own".
watchdogtimer 4y ago
This article--and several of the comments--does not distinguish between "manufactured" and "modular" housing. Both are built off-site in factories, but manufactured houses--homes built on wheeled frames and set up on piers--are built to lower standards than modular homes, which are trucked in one or more sections on flatbed trailers and installed over a basement or crawlspace.
jimnotgym 4y ago
After WW2 in the UK there was a drive to create quick prefab housing to replace bomb damage homes. The project was largely considered a failure, especially when measured against what the next government did, which was to simply get on with building more proper houses! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prefabs_in_the_United_Kingdom https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prefabs_in_the_United_Kingdo...

47 points by jseliger 4y ago

>Why do communities exclude manufactured homes? It is the same class-based discrimination that causes local regulators to exclude apartment buildings, and their residents. Manufactured housing bans do the most damage in exurban and rural areas, where they persist far from media scrutiny, certainly compared to recent scrutiny of apartment bans in big cities. This leaves out a very important piece of the equation. Perhaps the most important piece. Even in places like New York and California that are rapidly turning YIMBYer, prefab and manufactured housing is being frozen out. The reason is that the construction industry, and (especially in blue states) construction industry unions, are very very powerful and wage total war on legislation and politicians friendly to prefab housing because it completely cuts them out of the process. The state-level politics are so toxic for this reason that it's unworkable to get stupid bans undone. This dynamic is, frankly, a lot more intractable than the obstacles this article discusses: you can convince regular people that mobile homes are worth it even if they're ugly, but you can't convince construction industry people not to put their own interests first.

ArchitectAnon 4y ago
This article is talking about prefabricated single family homes i.e trailers. For environmental reasons you don’t want massive trailer parks because they generate huge transport carbon emissions from intensive vehicle use; cities need denser housing than these can provide. In a trailer park fire safety is achieved by having a space all around each trailer as a fire break. You can’t stack lightweight traileresque pods easily because they don’t contain enough materials with the thermal properties to resist fire spread between apartments because these materials are typically heavy and brittle. The most efficient and cost effective of these materials is drywall which is not well suited to construction where you transport and then lift the finished item into position. Fully welded sheet steel mineral wool sandwich panels could work but they are a lot more expensive than drywall and need to be carefully designed to avoid corrosion issues from condensation. Lightweight fire resistance can be acheived with intumescent coatings but these are expensive and designed for structural fire protection not for preventing fire spread.
- luckylion 4y ago
  Might be different in the US, but in Germany a prefab house isn't a trailer, and it's not a movable house either. You pour a foundation / base plate, and then place concrete wall elements (which are fabricated in the factory and delivered to the site, that's the pre-fabricated part) and connect them to assemble the structure. You then add insulation and do the electrical work, plumbing and dry-wall etc the same way you would for a newly created brick-building, though they'll also pre-fabricate many of these parts or have a few generic alternatives to choose between (e.g. on stairs).
  - alistairSH 4y ago
    In the US, manufactured housing typically refers to homes built to be towed to location fully complete. Sometimes in two halves (double wide). While these homes have an axle, they typically get installed once - they aren’t campers/RVs. What you describe exists, but is usually called prefab housing. In the US there are two different sets of building codes that apply. Manufactured housing falls under federal rules. Prefab is all local rules - same as traditional built in place housing.
    - luckylion 4y ago
      Ah, thanks for the explainer! Makes sense that manufactured housing is its own special category then. We do have those, but it's super rare (likely because they'd still need to comply with lots of local regulation, and it becomes more complicated, not less).
      - alistairSH 4y ago
        No problem, it's pretty different that what's typically done in Europe (and I have no idea how standardized that is - though there are definitely lots of home/building shows in the UK where they by prefab from central Europe, etc). We basically have the following... - RV (camper van and larger bus-based) - true mobile homes, follow a distinct set of federal rules. Generally not allowed permanently anywhere (most parks have a limit on number of weeks/months you can stay), though there are exceptions. Don't have permanent plumbing or electric supply (plug in with extension cord, black water tank that needs dumped periodically). - "Mobile homes" (old name)/manufactured housing - "one piece" homes designed to roll to location, be dropped in place, and generally not moved again. Once on site, permanently plumbed and electrified. Older homes tend to be rotten nasty cheap things. Newer ones can be quite nice, but they still carry a bad reputation. Follow their own federal rules. In theory can be moved again, but rarely happens. - Prefab (sometime also called modular) - factory built homes, but usually not delivered complete. Instead usually delivered as components (sometimes whole rooms, sometimes just walls and roof). Generally must adhere to local building regs. Built on a normal foundation. Truly permanent once installed. - Normal construction on site. Local rules. And because prefab has to follow local rules, which can vary substantially by region (CA with earthquakes/fires vs east coast without much in the way of natural disasters), the cost savings often isn't there.

samtho 4y ago

It’s hard to shake that feeling of a “trailer park” with the current status of these dwellings. I think the connotations associated here are the blockers. What happened to sears-catalog-style kit homes where they just drop a huge pile of lumber off? Yes you need permits (as does manufactured housing) but I’m willing to bet municipalities would treat common designs the same similar to housing developments where there are like 5 floor plans with only minor variations between each structure. It’s not close to the same but you already have land and a flat surface, I would greatly prefer this option.

bolangi 4y ago
There are a huge variety of these homes. I've seen two which were excellent, looking more like a wood framed drywall home than a trailer. One in Oregon, one in California. Great if we could develop alternatives to using the most known irritant chemicals in premanufactured homes. Last I heard formaldehyde is present in many pressed wood products. Plastic products outgas, especially exposed to sunlight. I hope our "greener" future will mean manufacturing more of our common goods with more bio-friendly formulations of what have turned out, over plastics' life cycle, to be rather bio-unfriendly substances.

khazhoux 4y ago

So ugly, this article couldn't even show a picture of one to know what we're talking about!

treelovinhippie 4y ago

[dead]

anovikov 4y ago

I think the very problem about these is affordability. "With these cheap homes, we will have the kind of people in our village we'd hate to see living here". Expensive housing makes other housing more expensive too, because it moves expensive people in and forces cheap ones out and that's what everyone wants.

gigatexal 4y ago

the problem being you often don't own the land the home is on. there's also very little if any appreciation of the whole thing like there is in free-standing single family housing.

thaumasiotes 4y ago
Free-standing single family housing doesn't appreciate either. Like any other manufactured good, it starts out new and deteriorates over time. The land is what appreciates.
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  With skilled manual labor supply trending the way it is, I can see this changing.
- gigatexal 4y ago
  are you saying a single family house on a plot of land doesn't appreciate? that's an interesting take making the home worthless but an empty lot in a subdivision is worth less than one with a home on it -- from what I've seen, anyway.
  - thaumasiotes 4y ago
    > that's an interesting take making the home worthless but an empty lot in a subdivision is worth less than one with a home on it -- from what I've seen, anyway The value of the home declines over time as the home deteriorates. No one said the home is worthless, although that is indeed sometimes the case. An empty lot should be worth less than a lot with a functional home on it (if your goal is to put a home on your lot), but the lot with an old house on it is worth less than the one with a new house. Houses don't appreciate, no.
rascul 4y ago
> the problem being you often don't own the land the home is on. That's typical for trailer parks. I understand mobile home parks to actually be in the minority here. Most mobile homes are either rented out like a typical house, or the homeowner owns both the mobile home and the land.

DoreenMichele 4y ago

About thirty years ago, I spent a few months living in a rented trailer. It was a terrible experience. I was deathly ill, likely due to some of the chemicals used in its construction. In winter, the hot water heater froze. In summer, we all slept in the living room where the window AC was located because it was the only room cool enough to sleep in. It had such a bug problem, one of my small sons nicknamed it "the bug house." While living there, I swore I would never live in a trailer again and said "I would rather sleep in a tent" which I later did for some years. This article fails to convey to me whether or not the issues that caused me to emphatically make such a declaration have been resolved. If people want manufactured housing -- aka trailer homes -- to succeed, they need to prove that the construction quality is there and your hot water heater won't freeze in cold weather, your home will not be sweltering in summer everywhere except directly beneath the AC, etc. I also became afraid of stormy weather in a way I had never been before. Other than not being wet, it felt like I was out in the storm without shelter. I could hear the rain on the roof loudly. I could feel the wind shake my home. I woke up with nightmares. You want affordable housing? Cool. So do I. But if manufactured housing is merely a new term for trailer homes and nothing has really changed, this is not an acceptable answer in my book.

nightfly 4y ago
> I was deathly ill, likely due to some of the chemicals used in its construction Molds are much more likely the culprit here. Trailers are thin metal boxes with regular insulation and wood-ish paneling, not made out of some exotic extra-high chemicals materials Edit: also... I grew up in the 90's in a single-wide trailer from 1971. Some of your complaints like "hearing the rain and wind" just seem silly and are things I look back fondly on. Trailers don't have a monopoly on issues with freezing plumbing either, if you're somewhere with cold weather you have to make sure things are properly winterized. Lower cost/quality housing isn't gonna have this but default, but it isn't different to do.
- DoreenMichele 4y ago
  I was told formaldehyde might have been the culprit. I have reason to believe it was something chemical, not mold.

Beaver117 4y ago

NOOOOO YOU CAN'T JUST MAKE A PREFAB HOUSE. IT HAS TO GO UP IN VALUE 30% PER YEAR

jbm 4y ago
I knew I remembered that number from somewhere. > LOL @ priced out renters! It's a new paradigm, and everybody who doesn't buy, now, will be priced out forever. Anybody who does buy will be rewarded with a lifetime of riches, as their property will continue its 20-30% yearly price appreciation. Renters, and anybody born in a future generation, will not be able to afford a $10,000,000 starter home in 15 years. They will live in tent cities, and Hondas. This asset bubble is different than all of the previous and other asset bubbles - it will never slow down, or pop. The gains are permanent.
- quickthrower2 4y ago
  Sounds like crypto!
- preommr 4y ago
  > Renters, and anybody born in a future generation, will not be able to afford a $10,000,000 starter home in 15 years. They will live in tent cities, and Hondas. This asset bubble is different than all of the previous and other asset bubbles - it will never slow down, or pop. The gains are permanent. Genuinely can't tell if this is sarcasm or not.
  - jbm 4y ago
    For what it is worth, this is from 15 years ago. These concerns have been real and around for a long time. Still. I can't believe we have tent cities in places as cold as Calgary. (It's legitimately possible to have snow in July here) Another piece of real estate media that aroused ire at the time; https://youtu.be/odQ7s85bk9s https://youtu.be/odQ7s85bk9s (Thank you for the memories @pud.)
- CPLX 4y ago
  I think there was a Honda full of silver involved too right.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

ketzu 4y ago

Wikipedia has an article on manufactured housing, including a picutre and description: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufactured_housing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufactured_housing It seems to have a specific meaning, and you might expect something different when thinking about "mobile homes" or "prefab houses" in your region. (e.g., I think of something different for prefabs in germany) There also was an episode on mobile homes of last week tonight which i found interesting back in the day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCC8fPQOaxU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCC8fPQOaxU They often have to rent the land they are on and get stuck there, as they can't transport the houses off.

klyrs 4y ago
> They often have to rent the land they are on and get stuck there, as they can't transport the houses off. A few years ago I got interested in a trailer park nearby because homes were selling for less than two years of my income. After some research, I found that the lot itself is a 99 year lease from the city, parcelled by the park's management company. The land is situated in a rapidly developing neighborhood, and the lease expires in the next 2 years. If the land is sold from under you, you own several tons of trash that's not as mobile as it sounds. Even if you can move it, park spaces are hotly contested because all of your neighbors are in the same market at the same time. I ran away and never looked back.
rascul 4y ago
Note that the Last Week Tonight video is mostly about mobile home parks. The mobile home parks can be pretty bad (though every now and then there's a good one). From what I understand, most people in living in mobile homes are not in mobile home parks.

chiefalchemist 4y ago

Ultimately, reading between the lines, the housing problem has been created by government. Whether that's stunting the growth of supply or having dangerously and artificially low interest rates. Government - via crony capitalism - has been putting its thumb on the scale, creating bias and favoritism.

totalhack 4y ago

I've always wondered why solutions like modular, "tiny", or even 3d printed homes haven't taken off more when there is such a lack of affordable housing. I know some of it is stigma, some lack of land or cost of land near more densely populated areas...but it's definitely not a quality issue (excluding 3d print, that's too new). It would be a way better use of money than renting for many people. But how do we get around the "trailer park" stigma? Maybe that's a pipe dream.

cudgy 4y ago
“But how do we get around the "trailer park" stigma?” Don’t force all of the trailer homes to be in designated trailer parks. Allow for people to place them on their land by removing onerous zoning requirements and minimum housing sizes.

ilamont 4y ago

About 5 years ago we toured the model homes at a northern NY dealership who represented 4 brands of manufactured and modular homes, mostly constructed in Pennsylvania and then driven up via state highways. This is one of the brands of manufactured homes: https://www.commodore-pennsylvania.com/gallery?gallery=78 https://www.commodore-pennsylvania.com/gallery?gallery=78 This is a modular home brand: https://www.neweramodulars.com/photo-galleries https://www.neweramodulars.com/photo-galleries The agent steered us away from the modular homes (built to higher NY state building codes), even though they were more expensive. "I don't know if we can get the crane on that lot, it's pretty windy on those parcels and it's hard to get an operator who will do it," was one of the claims. It became clear their business model was centered around the faster to set up (and close) manufactured homes. These are basically two trailers stitched together down the middle (formerly known as "double wides") and configured in a bunch of different ways mostly based on interior amenities such as type of bathroom, kitchen, HVAC, drywall, flooring, etc. The lowest cost manufactured home was $160k including the foundation but not land, site prep, or connection to local utilities. The 2 story modular homes topped out around $450k.

not_the_fda 4y ago

Manufactured homes aren't less expensive than onsite stick construction per square ft for the same quality. There isn't some big efficiency gain in building offsite and shipping a whole house vs building onsite. The largest cost in home ownership in high cost of living areas is the land. They aren't making it anymore. Most manufactured homes are at the lower end of the quality range. You can buy higher quality manufactured homes but they are not cheap. https://www.bluhomes.com/modern-modular-homes https://www.bluhomes.com/modern-modular-homes ~300 sqft without the land and site prep. I'm all for making it easier to use manufactured homes, but there isn't a big cost win there.

akrymski 4y ago
> They aren't making it anymore. But aren't populations of most wealthy countries dropping already? EU population is already declining. We also aren't making efficient use of the land. We could have many more sky scrapers than we do (see Dubai for instance). Biggest obstacles are regulations and zoning laws - not lack of land. Good public transportation is also an issue, there's plenty of cheap land if only we could get to it.
- not_the_fda 4y ago
  Yes population is declining, but everyone wants to live in the same small area. Take Japan for example, a declining population, with areas that have ghost towns of houses with no people. Everybody wants to live in the high density areas.
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  - II2II 4y ago
    > Yes population is declining, but everyone wants to live in the same small area. Is it a case of everyone wanting to live in the same small area, or people wanting to live near the amenities? The former implies a small number of places supporting very high densities of people. The latter can be achieved with moderate densities. People like to claim that property values are high because we aren't making land anymore. Even though this is true in the literal sense, there is an incredible amount of land that can be recovered. As an example, my city is tearing down an interchange to recover several acres of land for residential and commercial use and to allow for non-car dependent modes of transportation for local residents. Reducing that car dependence is important not just because of space allocated to roads, but to reduce parking needs. More land freed up and development costs are decreased. Imagine that you built up more moderate density communities where the vast majority of a person's life can be lived in a 30 minute walking radius. Sure, some people will still drive, but it would be over shorter distances and for fewer trips. Would they choose really choose the very high densities and very high cost of a small number of neighbourhoods in a small number of cities over moderate density regions where they may actually have an opportunity to own their own home, even if the house is a bit smaller and the yard is a bit smaller?

FollowingTheDao 4y ago

I know "capitalism" is about making things "better" for our children, butt there needs to be a limit. My grandfather grew up in a one bedroom apartment in Little Italy with a family of nine. First, let's take care of the homeless. Single people make up the majority of the homeless and working homeless population. The main reason studio apartments cost $1500 right now is greed. It is both environmental and cost efficient to build studio apartment buildings as well. These trailers are feeding the delusion that we can all live on "an estate of our own".

watchdogtimer 4y ago

This article--and several of the comments--does not distinguish between "manufactured" and "modular" housing. Both are built off-site in factories, but manufactured houses--homes built on wheeled frames and set up on piers--are built to lower standards than modular homes, which are trucked in one or more sections on flatbed trailers and installed over a basement or crawlspace.

jimnotgym 4y ago

After WW2 in the UK there was a drive to create quick prefab housing to replace bomb damage homes. The project was largely considered a failure, especially when measured against what the next government did, which was to simply get on with building more proper houses! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prefabs_in_the_United_Kingdom https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prefabs_in_the_United_Kingdo...