Does anyone here live in a trailer? (1 Viewer)

[Jared_B]

I've seen them advertise them here for as little as $30,000.

Yes, the homes themselves are in that range, but I think Colin was referring to home + land, and land is very expensive. When my wife and I looking into it, the homes were anywhere from $20k to 80k, and even very small plots of land were going for $30k+. Once you buy the home and the land, you still have to pay all the setup fees for installing the home. We were told these fees can go up to $15,000.

 

[Leroy]

If you pay $15,000 for a set-up fee, well, you deserve it!!
Set-up fees are included in the price. You do have to have you electricity/sewer/water set up your self. If you live in a rural area it can be expensive if you have to install your own septic system. The new mechanical set-ups can run up to $5000, but in a way you get a sprinkler system too. But basic set-up: transport of the trailer, installation to your site, leveling and placing hurricane ties, is included.

 

[AjayM]

I rented one for awhile, because it was really cheap for what I was getting, but I would never consider buying one unless it was to be put on my own land.

Financially it just doesn't make sense, you still have to rent the lot, and if you buy a new unit or a close to new unit it's not going to appreciate in value, so when it comes time to sell it, you are going to take a loss on it. Now I think it's silly compared to renting because of some of the stories above, if you finance the thing and then 2-3 years later you want to sell it, you are probably going to owe money to the bank to settle the debt on top of the sale price. At least with a rental, you just walk away from it. The costs of renting vs buying a mobile home are pretty close.

Now if you can pay all cash for it then things change a little, you will still take a loss, but the quality of your home is much higher. For instance down here in S. FLorida about $50k or so will buy you a very nice HUGE (2000+ sq/ft) mobile home, that same $50k will buy you around a 1200sq/ft condo....the condo won't go down in value (but it won't go up much either), the mobile home will go down in value, but during that time you get to live more comfortably in a large house.

As to the stereotype's of trailer parks and such, I've seen bad ones that certainly wrote the definition, I've also seen some that were VERY nice and looked like any other middle-class community. The units themselves are much different than in years past (as another poster mentioned), it's not that much different than living in a regular wood house for the most part.

Andrew

 

[Eric Kahn]

I have never lived in a mobile home, I considered buying one here in the Cincinnati Area as a Land/home package but it would have cost more than I paid for my 2 family house (I get rent also) I would have had more room inside the mobile home but no garage and a 25 mile drive to work instead of a 7 mile drive
as an aside, I used to deliver steel for a living and delivered to a Mobile home factory in KY along with delivering to building sites for stick built houses.
mobile homes are built to the same standards as stick built houses and better than alot of the house's I looked at while delivering structual steel for the next house over.
in some parts of the country, A mobile or modular home would make economic sense if you owned the land it was on, the problem with this is that houseing contrators do not want you to be able to buy a mobile and put it on land you own because they would not be able to overcharge you for a stick built house on that land so they always bring up the stereotypical "trailer trash" arguement to the city council or whatever to have mobiles zoned out and they usually manage to include modular homes also.