My younger sister’s husband grew up in Jackson, Wyoming. His parents got divorced when he was fairly young and, even though home prices in Jackson hadn’t taken off into the stratosphere at that point, the most she could afford post-divorce was a mobile home, in a trailer park a bit south of town. It was a double-wide so it felt more like a regular house than being in a trailer. And, while the park itself was nothing special, the setting was gorgeous.

She passed away many years ago so I don’t know if that trailer park still exists. But I wouldn’t be surprised if it was gobbled up by a ravenous developer for luxury condos or McMansions.

Just wait until Apple invents a car that doubles as housing. Then they will tout it as a paradigm-shifting revolution.

How about no.

Trailer parks are common across the US. Those that are viewed with scorn are for very valid reasons.

As for housing being expensive in LA, there are other places to live. You make your choices and you have to live with the consequences of those choices.

It's not the mobile homes that are subjects of such scorn. After all, Tiny Houses are all the rage now, aren't they? And for all practical purposes, those are mobile homes, but more cramped.

So, what are people really sneering at? Oh, I think we all know.

Low income neighborhoods, be they trailer parks or other, are always going to carry the stigma of being the bottom rung of the ladder.

That doesn't mean they shouldn't exist. Poor people have to live somewhere.

Mobile homes have some tricky quirks when it comes to housing financing.

Mobile homes don't quality for mortgage loans, only higher-interest personal loans. That is, unless you knock the wheels off, mount it on a permanent foundation, and de-register it with the DMV.

Either way the trailer counts as collateral for the loan. However, when permanently affixed to the land, the land value can be included with the trailer value for collateral purposes.

Mobile homes should not be confused with manufactured housing either. Manufactured houses, like mobile homes are assembled in a factory and transported to a site. The manufactured house is then mounted on its permanent foundation as a fixture on the land.

The mere mention of a trailer park conjures images of criminals in wifebeaters, moldy mattresses thrown awry, and Confederate flags.

The thing about stereotypes is that there's always enough examples to justify them. There are trailer parks that are designed for drug-addicted criminals in wifebeaters and confederate flags.

On the other hand, there are nice trailer parks here in Florida provided for seniors. Double and triple wides, with plenty of activities and social events to keep the residents happy.

They can no longer make them exclusively for seniors, as the courts in Florida called this discrimination. So, they have just enough residents who are under 55 to satisfy the law.

Keep in mind: anything that has wheels will generally depreciate in value with time.

Collector cars are an exception. I've never heard of a collector's mobile home.

Keep in mind: anything that has wheels will generally depreciate in value with time. ~ IRA Darth Aggie at January 11, 2021 7:22 AM

The traditional site-built house depreciates in value with time, too, IRA. The land is what appreciates. Land is in limited supply and near-constant demand, especially with an expanding population.

I hate to turn over a new leaf for a new year, but Ben is right. Anyone making less than a half-million a year who's driven by that beach has thought "maybe a mobile home wouldn't be that bad!" …Because it's some of the most desirable real estate on the planet.

I lived in a MH for the first semester of the junior year. When it got cold, the place couldn't be kept comfortable.

The ugliness of those "parks" can wear on your soul. And in the Midwest, we notice that tornadoes and other storms seem to single out the mobile home lots for devastation... It almost seems personal.

Houses depreciate until they become historical. Like furniture.

The traditional site-built house depreciates in value with time, too, IRA. The land is what appreciates. Land is in limited supply and near-constant demand, especially with an expanding population.

Conan the Grammarian at January 11, 2021 7:57 AM

Once you account for the real estate taxes, and mortgage interest, appreciation, in the long term, almost never exceeds the rate of inflation.

Do a few people, especially those with cash to invest, make a killing, timing the market? Of course, but those are the exceptions to the rule.

By the way Conan, I can tell you have been to real estate school, and drunk the kool-aid.

If land really was in short supply in the US, most places here would look like the inner areas of Tokyo. Real estate goes in and out of the tulip craze stage, but any transcontinental flight will show you that land is not in short supply. Not short enough to make multi family units the norm.... Even near San Fran where zoning creates artificial shortages of housing. Jackson Hole is the same way.

I have never seen such a spot on article about the war on low income housing. 30 yrs ago Chicago had SRO (single room occupancy) hotels. You got a room and a bathroom down the hall. Because this was where drunks and crazy and hookers would hang out, the city got them torn down. But those people had nowhere to go so they ended on the street. The idea that you can outlaw poverty is stupid and cruel. What you CAN do is increase opportunities but cities don't like that either. For example, there was a street flea market next to UIC (U Ill in Chicago) in chicago for decades but some of the goods were previously stolen which gave a good excuse for UIC to get it condemned and buy the land. Cities restrict hairdressers and tradespeople. Chicago has choked out news stands and souvenir stands and hot dog stands and they don't like food trucks either. All the ways to get a leg up are unpopular with elites.

It ain't "kool-aid" to acknowledge that there's never enough land so suppress prices in the places where people want to live, in America or anywhere else.

To, not so.

By the way Conan, I can tell you have been to real estate school, and drunk the kool-aid. ~ Isab at January 11, 2021 9:41 AM

Been to real estate school, but never drank the Kool-Aid.

As Crid aptly put it, the price of land where lots of people want to live is going to be high. Land in a specific location is a limited resource. We do, in fact, have plenty of land in the US - in 2015, we could fit the entire US population into Texas with about an acre per family. So, who gets stuck in the panhandle?

You can work in SF, but if you want a reasonably-price house, you're gonna live in the East Bay. You can have a large house in Brentwood where there's plenty of land, but your commute is gonna be 3 hours one-way. Stockton's gonna be worse.

Now you've said it right. The land ~in some highly desirable places~ is finite and thus more valuable. But Isab is right that there is plenty of land here in the US and around the world too. In general it just trends with inflation.

LA and SF are not the world. Though people who live there like to say otherwise.

"And in the Midwest, we notice that tornadoes and other storms seem to single out the mobile home lots for devastation... It almost seems personal." ~Crid

They are no more likely to be hit than anywhere else. They are just not that sturdy. It doesn't take much of a storm to wipe out a trailer park. As for flooding, that is different. Land that floods regularly isn't worth much. People looking to build trailer parks are looking for very cheap land. Hence trailer parks flood more often than most other places.

Also don't discount the TV angle. I've seen news footage of the 'storm devastated trailer park' and noticed it looked no different after the storm than before. It was just poor people porn to sell adds.

Now if you want a real 'singled out by god' kinda place look up Tinker Airforce Base in Oklahoma. There is some trick of the land that forces tornados right at and over the base. At least five have hopped over it that I can remember. So probably a lot more I never heard of as I don't live in the area anymore.

It ain't "kool-aid" to acknowledge that there's never enough land so suppress prices in the places where people want to live, in America or anywhere else.

Crid at January 11, 2021 2:43 PM

It is when you use it like a platitude. I can show you tracts of land that were once worth a fortune, and some government policy, or some other quirk of the environment or business climate made it worthless less than fifty years later.

Some outlying areas of Tokyo are rife with abandoned homes. Their houses are crap over there and I hear the government will give you the land if you will spend the bucks to tear them down.

It remains to be seen, in fifty years whether San Fran, which had initial value as a deep water port, easy access to trade in Asia plus access to the gold fields, retains any value as a place to live when the tech sector exits California, leaving the junkies and crumbling infrastructure behind.

Ever realtor I have ever known starts his spiel with “there not making anymore land” to induce you to immediately buy some overpriced piece of crap with a thirty year mortgage and sky high real estate taxes.
The assumption is that it will go up in value faster than the rate of inflation.

A house isn’t an investment unless you are renting it out in a decent rental market with a small manageable mortgage or none at all. There are times it will out perform the stock market but usually not.

At best it is a place holder in the market to allow you to become a homeowner someplace else if you have to move, or retire. Some people moving out of inflated markets win that bet, but on the flip side, a lot of people lose it.

By the way, one of the best ever investments in real estate is a mobile home park. One where you own only the land and the hookups, but not the trailers. Guess why?

The come-ons from shysters shouldn't weigh too heavily on any genuine truth: The snake-oil salesman hawking willow bark was on the side of the angels, even if his feathers were smudged. The Malibu coast of Southern California is as agreeable an Earthly locale as I have ever known. When a woman was especially pretty, I'd take her for a picnic on this peak, known throughout Socal as [Crid] Mountain. You have to switch to 3D to appreciate the view. Or be taken there on a picnic.

If you like cooler weather and I do and thanks for asking, the San Francisco Bay area is even more alluring.

Tens of millions live in these regions despite the famous hazards, because they ain't making any more of such beauty.

> They are just not that sturdy

BEN

Tens of millions live in these regions despite the famous hazards, because they ain't making any more of such beauty.

Crid at January 11, 2021 5:30 PM

You need to travel more.

Beauty might attract people, but amenities, rule of law, affordable housing and economic opportunities is why they stay.

When those go, so do the people.

I deliver Meals on Wheels and on my various routes I have maybe seven stops in trailer parks.
Individual units are in good shape, well kept, and clean, or not, depending on the physical abilities of the residents. Or their neighbors.
There is one case where the double wide is kept impeccably outside. Just got hydroseeded. First time I went there, the guy was hosing down the skirting. Said I should take the stuff up the stairs and his wife would take it She has mobility challenges so I got into the place to hand the chow to her. Beautifully decorated, clean as a whistle
Another guy has one arm and smokes like a chimney.
The only stereotypical one--run down-- is inhabited by a very elderly woman who doesn't move particularly well.
As regards the first, I wonder about a reasonably prosperous couple who wanted to downsize and squeeze some cash out of conventional home.
OTOH, a teacher I know said one park needs a pediatric ob/gyn on call.

> You need to travel more.

Scuba meant sampling a lot of paradises… It was always great to come back to L.A. I remember especially driving to the beach in Santa Monica minutes after returning from Fiji, looking out over that same Pacific, and thinking This will do nicely for everyday purposes.

Amy's been blunt about the challenges of her neighborhood, but she's pretty close to Heaven over there.

It is interesting how dated some stuff can look... I was discussing real estate in a nearby ski station with my older cousin, and he was like, "I remember there being some really modern units there".

I laughed and said, "Those are not modern units any more!" because now they look really out-of-date, where as stuff built in the same time period in a more classic style doesn't look out of date, it just still looks like normal vacation house you'd see anywhere in these parts.

"I wonder about a reasonably prosperous couple who wanted to downsize and squeeze some cash out of conventional home." ~Richard Aubrey

There are good ones and there are the stereotypical bad ones. But as for squeezing money out of the home budget, doesn't really work most places. Most of you guys seem to live in areas with really expensive dirt. That isn't true for most of the US. Take my example, ~$250k home, ~$10k dirt. Almost all the value is in the home. That is true for almost all cities in the US. So when most people downsize they just buy a cheaper house. A smaller lot doesn't mean much.

Trailer parks have a bad reputation because that's where James Carville drags his hundred-dollar bill.

I mean, have you seen that guy? Total creeper.

Check out the 2002 young-adult novel, See You Down the Road, by Kim Ablon Whitney.

Told from a 16-year-old's point of view, it's about a whole community of young trailer people (mainly in the Southeastern states), who are, typically, taken out of school at 13, married off soon afterward, and raised to be criminals.

Not exactly deep literature, but it's still WAY different from any other YA novel that a teen will ever read.

Ben: Yes, it's the places with the most people where land becomes scarce. But COVID-19 has temporarily reduced the value of living in a city by a lot, and I'm wondering how much of that effect will last.

If you can work from home, you don't have to live near the office. Or maybe you still have to go in about once a week, but that means you can live 3 hours away more conveniently than 1 hour with a daily commute - and in most areas, 3 hours can be way out in the country, where the competitive buyers for the land are farmers who need hundreds or thousands of acres and don't have much money to pay for it.

Also, how many people are going nuts from being deprived of clubs and restaurants, and how many are finding out they can do just fine without being jammed into a crowded space? How many are noticing that, whether or not this forced isolation protected them from COVID, they rarely caught a cold or (any of the many viruses miscalled) "flu", and will like to continue enjoying a reduced incidence of crowd diseases by staying out of mass transit and cities?

> I'm wondering how much
> of that effect will last.

Outstanding question. Multi-faceted economic upheaval may also change the enthusiasm for city livin'... As will unfettered immigration.

Childless in L.A. has been a sensational way to live. But the fascination with New York is hard to fathom, as it has none of San Francisco's jaw-dropping natural charms.

I've only seen one of this guy's videos, but note that we are literally asked to admire the graffiti.

Markm, There may be an effect on New York. But around here in Houston there will be no change. And as for New York (or Seattle, LA, SF, etc) the bigger issue is the one Isab raised. If you are going to have regular riots and your property will be destroyed it isn't worth much. The loss of the rule of law in those places will have a much bigger effect than infectious disease.

Ben

I live in west Michigan. I don't do real estate, or even pay attention to it. But from driving in the area, I'm not sure how expensive dirt is.

Lots of trees. Further out of town, more distance between houses. Agriculture is not as prominent as it further east toward the center of the state except for blueberry farms. I guess the soil is still kind of sandy. So ag isn't a pressure on land prices.

Occasionally a development with homes in the--got some relations who built in the area--$400k and up. Been in a couple. Spacious, lots of amenities, so forth.

The double-wide I referred to is very nice but considerably less spacious than the $400k homes.

I've head Del Webb is where the upscale go to downsize and the couple of folks I know there did come up with extra scratch after leaving the got-it-made house. Nice places, but you won't host the family reunion over night. Still, a lot less to look after, which is a good thing.

markm: COVID-19 has temporarily reduced the value of living in a city by a lot,

Undoubtedly true for some cities. Not in my city.

Seattle Times / October 2020:

In a normal year, September would be when housing prices begin to level off.

But what about 2020 is normal?

Pulled up by unrelenting demand and an inventory drought, King County home prices hit a new all-time high of $753,600 in September, a 14% bump over last year, according to new data from the Northwest Multiple Listing Service.

Potential sellers are hunkering down, choosing to refinance rather than list, reducing the number of homes on the market in all of Western Washington to half as many as last year.

The market for homes priced less than $800,000 is especially intense, brokers said, as first-time homebuyers and former condo-dwellers look for more space as the pandemic drags into its eighth month.

Richard,

If you ever own a house they usually separate out the land value from the house value when they tax you. I don't know why. But it seems pretty common.

As for ag pushing up home prices, I don't think that happens anywhere. I looked up a couple of properties and agricultural land is typically running around 0.75-1.25 $/sq ft. Residential land runs more 20-40 $/sq ft. Industrial zoned land around here runs 10-25 $/sq ft.

Homes and industry typically push agriculture out rather than the other way around. They just generate a lot more money for the land use. It doesn't really matter how good the dirt is.

I looked up Del Webb since you mentioned it. The houses around here they are advertising run 2500 sq ft. So fairly average size. But I haven't looked at any. I wouldn't be surprised if they offer the 500-1000 sq ft ones too.

You've also inspired me to be less sloppy with my numbers. My house is valued around $240k. That is $30k in land and $210k in improvements. So not the 4% I quoted earlier but more 12% for land. Still if you are looking to cut value you cut the house. The lot size doesn't make much difference in price. Where my sister lives it is the exact opposite. Her house is around $125k in improvements (the actual house) and around $1M in land. At that point you don't worry about the house. When you are looking to cut things you cut dirt.

Speaking of cutting dirt. I leave in REAL WEST Michigan. The tax issue changes whether you are east or west of the north-south road nearest the coast.
While it's true that it doesn't cost the fire department any more to turn west than to turn east, the former have massively more value in dirt. There are McMansions on both sides of the road but on the lake side, there are hundred year old family cottages winterized. And they still get taxed to an extent that the capped SALT deduction can be a problem.

Due to rising lake levels and erosion, beach access is going to have to be put in over piles of boulders imported and placed by expensive processes. Not sure what that will do to prices.

Thing about ag here is that it never got started very well. Lots of square miles with mostly trees. Somebody's going to sell when the next developer comes along. Until then...sell hardwood for custom milling, or clear for blueberries which don't seem to mind no top soil to speak of.

Point about my double wide issue is that it must have cost a lot, as these things go, but it's a lot more convenient for an elderly couple one of whom has mobility challenges. And they may have gotten some money out of a larger home on a nice lot. Which is why they kind of stand out. Guy has a nice tool shed and is forever doing projects with his table saw and has some neat stuff put together.

A house for 240K!

*sobs*

I hate everywhere I've ever lived...

Nicole, you live in Switzerland, right?
If you don’t mind sharing, I’m curious what city or town.

I’ve been there twice, both times many years ago. I loved the Lauterbrunnen Valley and also Lugano.

I fantasize about moving to Europe once I retire — I love the Nice/Menton area — but probably won’t do it. It would be tough to leave long-time friends here in Seattle.