The Rise and Fall of the Manufactured Home – Part I

https://constructionphysics.substack.com/p/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-mobile-home

by samclemens • 4 years ago

158 174 4 years ago

constructionphysics.substack.com

bombcar• 4 years ago

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

rascul11• 4 years 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.

011000112• 4 years 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.

topkai22• 4 years 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.

alistairSH• 4 years 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-system3• 4 years 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.

galaktus• 4 years ago

absolute unresalability

That is not true. There absolutely is a market for resale.

JKCalhoun• 4 years ago

In some regions, you can purchase a lot and drop a mobile home down.

800xl• 4 years 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• 4 years 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?

rascul11• 4 years 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• 4 years 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.

gumby4• 4 years 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• 4 years 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.

gumby4• 4 years ago

Thanks!

sillysaurusx• 4 years 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.

mbreese• 4 years ago

I took it to mean transporting the pre made houses by airship instead of over existing roads.

Less traveling public, more heavy transport.

By removing the “must ship by road” requirement, you could have many more shapes and sizes for the prefabricated home components. Transport of the components by airship would be one way to avoid roads.

(It brings a whole host of other issues too, so it’s not something I find all that practical, but I’m not the parent)

benoliver999• 4 years ago

Airship to transport the house, not airship as a house

KennyBlanken2• 4 years ago

....I think they mean delivery and transport by airship, versus delivery by road.

I don't see how that would work, given mobile homes weigh roughly 50 pounds per square foot, and that probably doesn't account for personal belongings and furniture. Even very large cargo helicopters seem to top out around 20 tons.

dqpb• 4 years ago

Lol. Next time someone criticizes an idea of mine, I'll try responding with: "Easy, we'll just use airships."

gumby4• 4 years ago

A fair and amusing point. But we may finally be reaching the viability point of a return of airships (cf for example, last month’s https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31592448#31593040 ).

For large objects the road constraints are more significant so when the constraint space opens up new opportunities emerge. And a lot of housing is needed!

monkeydust• 4 years 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

_jayhack_• 4 years 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/) 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-system3• 4 years 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.

StillBored4• 4 years 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• 4 years 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.

cudgy3• 4 years 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.

moistly2• 4 years 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• 4 years ago

Something like this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJJ75IBV1hU

robocat• 4 years 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.

moistly2• 4 years 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.

seanmcdirmid4• 4 years ago

There is a clear distinction between manufactured and mobile homes in the USA also. Also, what you are talking about is not called a manufactured home in the states, but a modular or prefab home.

antupis2• 4 years ago

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

betaby• 4 years ago

That's unattainable quality for USA/Canada. Here are such home here as well, but they are not referred as 'manufactured' normally.

acchow• 4 years ago

Why don't they try to make this quality in California? There's certainly money for it.

Ma8ee2• 4 years ago

We mean something quite different when we talk about prefab homes in the Nordic countries that they mean in the US.

juhanakristian• 4 years 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

crooked-v• 4 years ago

The article is about homes built as essentially a giant camping trailer. The entire home (sometimes in two pieces, as a "double-wide") is delivered to the property and semi-permanently installed, but can still (theoretically) be moved somewhere else after that.

throwaway675309• 4 years ago

Those Honka houses do look really impressive, but the national average cost per square meter to build a home in the US is approximately €400 which is 4x less expensive than the stated costs on honka's site.

wrycoder2• 4 years ago

$36/sq ft? Where can you build for that?

kolbe• 4 years ago

Umm, it's $600 per square foot in Boulder, CO.

antupis2• 4 years ago

It can get regulary -25c at winter so insulation needs to be whole different ballpark than average California house.

spoonjim2• 4 years ago

Holy shit! That looks fucking gorgeous. Probably >$250 a square foot which people would rather just pay 2x as much for stickbuilt in CA.

helsinkiandrew• 4 years ago

It's not just more expensive one off homes that are prebuilt in Finland - Over 50% of Finnish homes are now built offsite (or more accurately constructed from 'parts' built off site). This includes both single family wooden homes and concrete apartment buildings.

Precast concrete has been used since the 1950s: https://www.elematic.com/learn/what-is-precast-concrete/

This is probably a result of: 1) Construction companies are larger and are building on multiple plots with the same concrete apartment building or 10-20 identical or similar wooden buildings 2) The Finnish love affair with family lakeside summer cottages has got people used to ordering a building 'off the shelf'

baxuz2• 4 years ago

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

fnordpiglet• 4 years ago

What’s a passive house?

bjelkeman-again• 4 years 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_re...

klodolph• 4 years 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

nocubicles• 4 years 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• 4 years 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

PontifexMinimus• 4 years ago

How easy is it for a prefab to be a passive house?

hgomersall• 4 years ago

Much easier. I assume the GP means something like SIPs, which are machined, insulated panels which fit together super tightly, with precise holes for windows etc. Typically, once the groundwork is done, they can be easily assembled in a few days. They then make then look like normal houses with a suitable external facade.

Ma8ee2• 4 years ago

Prefabs in Europe is something completely different than what they are talking about in the US.

baxuz2• 4 years ago

I wasn't aware of that!

ssharp3• 4 years 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.

KennyBlanken2• 4 years 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...

011000112• 4 years 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.

iancmceachern3• 4 years ago

I was told the following by a guy in central California who built his own little subdivision and put a bunch of double wide manufactured homes on 1 acre plots. This was a pretty rural area.

He said that he effectively couldn't find the labor to build even a semi high quality home in that rural of an area. He said anything they'd stick build in that area would be of lesser quality than a decent manufactured home due to lack of good contractor availability.

He also said, and my understanding agrees, that once you bolt it to a foundation, all done per code, there isn't really a clean way to say it's anything other than a house. If the while thing is made to code, meets the national and local building codes, is mounted to a code meeting foundation and utilities, it's a house.

This applies to manufactured homes built as such, not things like travel trailers or destination trailers which people often conflate with true manufactured homes. Rvs amd destination trailers, things that never go off their wheels and often have lattice or other wood skirting around their base to hide the wheels and frame are regulated by RVIA amd meet their codes, not the national building codes. True manufactured homes meet the national and local building codes, it's just the assembly location is different.

coding1233• 4 years ago

If you have an actual foundation. Most MF homes in CA require the XI2 tie down system. Some of the manufactured home installers don't even pour a drop of concrete when they place your home. Most of the time it's gravel with some stamped concrete plates about 4" thick placed vertically as your "foundation".

newsclues• 4 years ago

Lots of traditionally manufactured homes have the same issues you mentioned, it’s just people cutting corners for cost.

wincy• 4 years ago

Some of the things I wanted in a manufactured home are ILLEGAL. I thought it was extremely strange that I would have to get a ducted HVAC system. Under floor heating is for some reason literally illegal (unless you retrofit it) and I am still scratching my head as to why.

danans4• 4 years ago

Under floor heating is for some reason literally illegal (unless you retrofit it) and I am still scratching my head as to why.

Mobile homes generally have little no insulation of any kind underneath, and their subfloors are exposed to exterior air, so the heat would be quickly lost to the outside environment.

You could in theory make a highly insulated subfloor on a mobile home (i.e. 2" of polyiso foam board) on which you could install electric or hydronic heating, but you would then lose a significant amount of already limited ceiling height.

cudgy3• 4 years ago

An inspection is required for most home purchases that are financed. The inspection report would clearly indicate the construction type. If buyers aren’t reading their inspection reports, what can you do?

zippergz• 4 years ago

I don't think this is accurate in the US. Yes, FHA loans require inspections, but they are WELL under half of all mortgages, and I am not aware of any other major lenders or loan programs that require inspections (there probably are some, but I have never encountered one in many home purchases and sales). Most do require appraisals, but an appraisal is very different than an inspection, and usually the buyer does not see the appraisal report (as the actual customer is the lender, not the buyer).

analog31• 4 years ago

I've had home inspections done. It's a scam. The inspector finds one or two token things, and creates a fancy looking report.

amluto2• 4 years ago

the electric wires are 3-in-1 wires that snap directly into the outlets

I’m curious what these are. I’ve seen these, and they’re quite nice and more expensive than normal outlets:

https://www.legrand.us/pass-and-seymour/plugtail

They’re convenient if you have a large electrical box and you need a pigtail anyway (e.g. you’re jumping off the box to feed another outlet), but not really a win otherwise. If you buy them, get the stranded version for an extra dollar or so and consider using lever nuts to make installing it even more pleasant.

ssharp3• 4 years ago

That looks more sophisticated than what I’m talking about. This is more along the lines of what I’ve seen:

https://mobilehomepartsstore.com/parts/230215.html

These are “self-conainted” and don’t go into electric boxes. They’ll a hole gets cut in the drywall and the outlets have ears that push out to attach it to the wall. The wire goes through the back and then the back cover gets tightened and the pressure cuts into the wires to juice the outlets.

itcrowd• 4 years 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".

ealexhudson• 4 years 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• 4 years 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• 4 years 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/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).

Spooky232• 4 years 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.

edflsafoiewq• 4 years ago

What's wrong with a PVC toilet flange?

abakker2• 4 years 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.

ip26• 4 years ago

A failing exterior or flange doesn't usually kill you in your sleep.

wrycoder2• 4 years ago

My outlet spacing is to code, but I’ve got plug strips all over the place holding chargers.

Johnny555• 4 years ago

you need to install insane numbers of electrical outlet to prevent some nonexistent fire risk

I used to live in a 1940's home and was frustrated with the lack of outlets - I used extension cords (some under carpets) so I could put things where I wanted them instead of near one of the 2 outlets in the living room, neither one located in a convenient place. And it had a single outlet for 15 feet of counter space... if you want to plug in a toaster at the far end of the counter, you'd have to run an extension cord all along the counter (and behind the sink).

Multiple outlets are cheap to add in new construction but quite expensive to add in later, most people wouldn't add a new outlet unless they were doing remodeling (circuits are more expensive, AFCI/GFCI breakers aren't inexpensive).

CapitalistCartr• 4 years ago

The total cost of wiring a new home is insignificant compared to the overall cost. The cost of all the appliances the electricity feeds is more. The cost of making homes safer, more storm resistant is a lot more.

novok2• 4 years ago

When building a new house, electrical outlets are cheap. That is a strange hill to die on.

coding1233• 4 years ago

His comment may have pointed out electrical outlets - which yes is negligible. But it's not the only thing totally out of control. I'm in CA so my requirements are nuts. My wife and I are building a home ourselves. Ever look into category D (earthquake zone) requirements for footer sizes? Look at the indoor sprinkler requirements? What about when you are on a well? Look at water heater requirements - solar requirements (which are fine for me since not connecting to PG&E anyway) If you ever write your own plans for a house, trust me, there are far more insane things you don't know about that exist that definitely raise the price of the house and certainly the complexity of building one.

I am probably looking at $2000 at least just for Simpson strong tie products.

nimbius• 4 years 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.

rootusrootus2• 4 years 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.

jamiek882• 4 years ago

And those areas are harder to find unless you go waaaaay out there.

Even then you need to invest in septic tank generally.

gscott• 4 years 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.

StillBored4• 4 years ago

Even if you could find a park for them, after about 20-30 years they can't really be transported because the materials/glue/calk/etc they are manufactured with literally cracks, breaks and even disintegrates.

AKA, moving one creates a lot of dynamic stress that breaks the roof seals, flooring, plumbing, etc. Leaving them sitting its possible to maintain them such that they remain waterproof, but as soon as you move it, they need a new roof coating at a minimum.

Its largely why they lose value too. They need to really be treated as prefab, placed on a foundation and built around. Only one ends up replacing much of the thing over the long run as mobile home parts aren't as generic as normal houses, so one gradually has to replace the lightweight fixtures/windows/etc with normal builder grade hardware which weights significantly more before the mobile home specific parts become unavailable.

SyzygistSix3• 4 years ago

Buying up the trailer park/land is becoming an increasingly predatory business model for investors, precisely because it is impractical/impossible and a poor economic decision to move manufactured housing or trailers.

imtringued• 4 years ago

It's the land stupid.

jollybean• 4 years 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.

TaylorAlexander2• 4 years 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• 4 years 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• 4 years ago

Steel seems a terrible material for a building shell because it conducts heat so well.

dougmwne• 4 years 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.

TaylorAlexander2• 4 years 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.

towaway154632• 4 years ago

You’d never recoup the extra cost

rootusrootus2• 4 years 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• 4 years 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/

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-buff...

joe_the_user• 4 years 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.

jmspring2• 4 years 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• 4 years 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.

sircastor• 4 years ago

I worked for at a loan center about 20 years ago. We had strict rules about lending for mobile homes, which essentially meant no one got a loan for a manufactured home. Which meant you weren’t getting competitive rates for home mortgages, and you can imagine that it just goes downhill from there.

OOD• 4 years ago

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).

A long time ago a real estate mogul that I'm related to told me this: "Trailer parks are section eight housing for White people. They are to be fought against as hard as we fight against section eight housing."

That stuck with me. Right or wrong, I'm under the impression that a lot of people agree with that statement.

xchaotic• 4 years 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• 4 years 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.

maccard2• 4 years 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.

bumby• 4 years ago

I never quite understood this, as housing is generally a market you can’t exit. So what’s the long term investment goal, to buy big now and downsize later for a profit?

maccard2• 4 years ago

Or equity release, but yes. Downsize/release equity for a sizable profit, and don't have to continue to pay market rents to continue living.

danans4• 4 years 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-h...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Z4vz5Ms0rE

seanmcdirmid4• 4 years ago

None of those are mobile homes. They seem to all be manufactured or modular. They look pretty nice.

danans4• 4 years 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.

r3trohack3r2• 4 years ago

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

helloworld97• 4 years ago

https://www.wsj.com/articles/elon-musk-says-he-lives-in-a-50...

r3trohack3r2• 4 years ago

I’m confused. So he’s not living in a $50,000 prefab made by boxabl on SpaceX property?

cprayingmantis• 4 years 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.

towaway154632• 4 years 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• 4 years 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/

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.

badrabbit2• 4 years 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• 4 years ago

I am personally partial to converting shipping containers

I recommend watching this video first:

https://youtu.be/i7yEDz6bCfU

Shipping container homes are not what people think they are.

badrabbit2• 4 years 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• 4 years 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

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• 4 years 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.

The Rise and Fall of the Manufactured Home – Part I

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