There are broad swaths of non-rural residential spaces which are zoned to excluded most mobile homes. These facts are part of what is driving the popularity of "Tiny Houses on Wheels".
I live in an apartment near Silicon Valley and would love to have a house with a garage for hobbies, but buying a house anywhere near the area in a safe location is prohibitively expensive for me; I'd have to go either deep in the Central Valley (think Fresno County and beyond), the Sierra Foothills, or the Mojave Desert to find affordable places.
I.e. what does zoning say if you pour a concrete slab, drop a mobile home on it, and then bolt the home down (for some definition of bolt)?
1. The structure built on top of the permanent foundation must comply with the building codes of the municipality that the permanent foundation is located in. This requires obtaining permit(s) before bolting the structure onto the foundation.
2. The municipal planning department will have some definition for what would be a legally permissible foundation and what constitutes "bolting down."
There are many companies that specialize in the building of mobile and manufactured homes that are compliant with state- and local-level building codes. But it's very important that people do their proverbial homework, making sure that the mobile/manufactured home does truly comply with the regulations of the intended permanent location.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/eastbay/article/Oakland-legalize...
The folks that think it’s wise to spend $70k+ on a trailer are often the same folks who think it’s ok to have multiple broken down cars in the yard and/or multiple unfixed and unrestrained dogs running around and/or the worst of all: people who don’t see the irony of waving a Gadsden flag right next to their thin blue line flag.
One of the benefits of living in a rural area/area without HOA is that you can do many things that you wouldn’t be allowed to elsewhere.
One of the dangers is that your neighbors can do the same.
Is there any data/studies that proves that derelict properties actually drag down adjacent property values? My own anecdata and property valuation suggest otherwise, but I hear the property value line often enough that I would like to know if it’s true.
So if you are in a little subdivision and suddenly a yard sprouts cars and weeds, you may find your property prices affected.
But if half the properties are like that (or big enough you can’t see one from the next) probably won’t affect anything except that property itself.
Shaming people because they don't want to live next to a scrap yard isn't helpful or appropriate.
I don’t want to live next to a junkyard property, but I dislike restrictions on my property even less, so I choose to live in an area where I can do what I want, and my neighbors can do what they want.
If you have a dislike of “unsightly” properties, the solution is to live in a place where that is not allowed, not to try to impose your will on others who are living in a place where that is allowed.
As with all housing, there are good neighbourhoods and bad. Hell, my in-law is in a nice millionaires neighbourhood and his immediate next-door neighbour is a swinging cokehead wife abuser who throws ragers every few months. It’s hell, but the properties are all freehold: short of a lawsuit, ain’t nothing to be done.
The park I grew up in had some rules and regulations, but everything goes whenever you buy a plot of land out in the county.
There were more than a few neighbors that fit the very stereotype you imagine, and they were the ones that lived there full time. Most of the direct neighbors were just weekenders (as were we).
But maybe we shouldn't let private companies decide on things like land usage in the first place...
i guess in the sense that we aren’t the only animals to enforce territory. on the other hand we probably are the only animals to have conceived of “rights”.
For many people, their home and their retirement funds are their two biggest assets. If most of your retirement fund is tied up in real estate next door to your home, then the risk profiles are interlocked. That could be worthwhile for other benefits (avoiding bad neighbours), or because you want to chase the rewards of swinging for the fences (concentration also has the chance to win big), but that needs to be weighed up against the financial downside risks of severely concentrating your asset portfolio (a big loss on both the home property asset and retirement assets would be horrid for many people).
Lots of games to be played that you might be unaware of to keep from slowing the growth of that nest egg.
I grew up in a mobile home so I know firsthand what I’m trying to avoid.
I’m not responsible for your emotions. But if me sharing my opinion about living near a mobile home truly does disgust you, perhaps you’ve had enough internet for the day.
You shouldn’t allow me to have that kind of power over your mind. I’m just a stranger after all.
You are actively seeking out legislation that imposes this "power over your mind".