re: Mobile Homes and Housing Affordability

Fully get the depreciation.

I guess the question I am asking is whether the depreciation offsets the reduced costs of a smaller initial investment in a home, or the dead loss of renting?

Still better than renting.





You'll be able to sell it for something later on, but the buyer better be rock-solid or have cash.


I did it in the early 80s when I worked offshore, but today, IDK.

Sold it, and basically lived in it 2 years for free.

Stay out of trailer parks. If you want to save money by buying a mobile home, make sure it sits on a private lot.

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Mobile homes cost over $100 grand now.

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They can easily get over 300k when all is said and done.

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They can easily get over 300k when all is said and done.

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I’d bet you could find a spartan single wide for a hell of a lot less.

As for trailer parks, they are definitely on the trashy side. But when you are young, does that matter all that much? Most people there are working folks.

My first home that was my own was a used single wide trailer I bought when I came home from the army. Almost certain I paid less than $10K for it. But that was going on 40 years ago. I put it on a little 5 acre plot of land and lived there until I saved up enough to afford my first brick & mortar house a few years later.

I think now mobile homes cost a good bit more than they did back then. On top of natural inflation, the way they’re made is far different. Back then they were made of mostly particle board and cheap, thin “wood” paneling. Now they’re made more like actual homes with real wood framing and sheetrock walls. Even things like the plumbing fixtures and lighting is akin to what you’d find in a traditional house. You can even get them placed on top of a real foundation now where back then they were set up on concrete blocks and “tied down”, as though that would help in a tornado. In most regards, modern manufactured houses are really not that much different than conventional houses.

Then there is the issue of zoning. A lot of towns don’t allow them to be placed inside city limits. The only alternative is to buy some land and place it there. Which that means also paying to bring in services like water, sewer (or septic tank), and electricity. Plus there’s the cost of putting down a driveway and the foundation I mentioned. By the time you’ve done all this, you could have just bought a starter home in town.

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Housing Affordability

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‘It is important that everyone buy a house and have a mortgage.’

Sincerely-

Housing construction industry
Banking industry
Realtors

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Is living in a mobile home a viable option as a starter home and better than renting?

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Depending on the details, yes, it absolutely is.

You can get a very nice home for $100K or less - I'm talking slab countertops and the like.

And they do have residual value over time.

You would likely get much greater sq footage to live in vs renting/buying at a much lower cost, which is essentially the same thing as "building equity".

In some part of the country, mobile home parks are extremely nice - paved roads, sidewalks, multiple playground areas, pool, rec center, etc. It's less common in the south, but in the midwest, it's definitely a thing.

250k is a high end condo in Baton Rouge. You can find plenty of decent places for half that.

If you need to bridge a gap when building, and you buy one used, then yes.
For a true starter home I’d say generally no and never new because of the fact that it’s a depreciating asset. With that said, for some people it’s a dream home so….