Comment by joe_the_user | Hacker News Reader

Comment by joe_the_user | Hacker News Reader

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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.

>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.

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.

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.

>>with the land making up the majority of value in most urban areas

I would love to see a source where land value makes up the majority of the value in most urban area's

In my case, my home is worth about 2x the land the shits on, and I am for sure in a urban area. Most of my state is the same

Now maybe for a ultra dense urban area's where single family home would/should be replaced with high density building that would be the case but for the common subdivision in suburbia I doubt the land is the majority of the value

even in the source article of this story, the average Home Price was $370,000 with land cost being $86,000

When a half-burned shell in Walnut Creek, CA sells for a million dollars, the value is clearly having buildable land located near a strong labor market.

In my area (up in Alaska), land is dirt (ha!) cheap, construction is expensive. The house value makes up the vast majority of my property value.

I picked a random house in Austin, TX.

In 2013: Land value $154K, House value: $100K. Total assessed: $254K.

Same house in 2019: Land value: $312K. House value: $117K. Total assessed: $430K.

On the market now for $850K.

https://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/5015-Avenu...

I can play this game to, it does not prove you assertion, provide a data sours that should the majority of urban locations are land value heavy

Random Property in Philadelphia [1]

Assessed Value 2023: 257300 / land: 51460 - Structures: 205840

Assessed Value 2015: 186800 / land: 90300 - structures: 96500

So in Philly land DROPPED in value, Structures increased

In Austin they appear to claim Structures s have not increased in value at all in 10 years (very odd) and the 100% of the increase in the value of the land

I bet if I dig into local tax laws I will find some justifications for both valuations methods (meaning the local taxing authorities are manipulating the values for maximum tax revenue)

[1] https://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/9320-Andov...

Just think a bit deeper about it. If you can get an equivalent sqft house built to similar cost of materials of a similar age and similar condition, why would that house be 1/3rd the price in one spot? The land and the property tax rate is the difference.

I understand that some area have massively increased land prices

That is not the discussion, the claim I was responding to said that the MAJORITY of urban homes the value of the home is made up by the value of the land, not the home

I can see that in some very select regions of the nation, but through not the midwest that for sure should not be the case, and I am suspect that the MAJORITY of the nation is that way

Thus my asking for a SOURCE for the claim that was made as my experience differs

So far all have a gotten was 2 cherry picked anecdotes to prove the claim with no actual data backing it, as such i will simply assume the statement is false

"Urban" is too broad of a term in the US where 80% of the population is defined as urban. Needless to say, Hattiesburg, MS and New York, NY are both defined as "urban" areas but have very different ratios of land value to structure value.

Investors Are Buying Mobile Home Parks. Residents Are Paying a Price: https://us14.proxysite.com/process.php?d=Qtlaz7DsHDGD%2FccPc...

In some areas, as I mentioned, there are prefab/manufactured homes that include land.

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.

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