Manufactured housing: the Ugly Duckling of affordable housing
niskanencenter.org
niskanencenter.org
I was deathly ill, likely due to some of the chemicals used in its construction.
In winter, the hot water heater froze.
In summer, we all slept in the living room where the window AC was located because it was the only room cool enough to sleep in.
It had such a bug problem, one of my small sons nicknamed it "the bug house."
While living there, I swore I would never live in a trailer again and said "I would rather sleep in a tent" which I later did for some years.
This article fails to convey to me whether or not the issues that caused me to emphatically make such a declaration have been resolved.
If people want manufactured housing -- aka trailer homes -- to succeed, they need to prove that the construction quality is there and your hot water heater won't freeze in cold weather, your home will not be sweltering in summer everywhere except directly beneath the AC, etc.
I also became afraid of stormy weather in a way I had never been before. Other than not being wet, it felt like I was out in the storm without shelter. I could hear the rain on the roof loudly. I could feel the wind shake my home. I woke up with nightmares.
You want affordable housing? Cool. So do I.
But if manufactured housing is merely a new term for trailer homes and nothing has really changed, this is not an acceptable answer in my book.
Molds are much more likely the culprit here. Trailers are thin metal boxes with regular insulation and wood-ish paneling, not made out of some exotic extra-high chemicals materials
Edit: also... I grew up in the 90's in a single-wide trailer from 1971. Some of your complaints like "hearing the rain and wind" just seem silly and are things I look back fondly on. Trailers don't have a monopoly on issues with freezing plumbing either, if you're somewhere with cold weather you have to make sure things are properly winterized. Lower cost/quality housing isn't gonna have this but default, but it isn't different to do.
Trailers are closer to customized shipping containers in construction. They’re making something out of a metal shell to act like a fancy camping solution.
Having said that, I’d still be very careful buying or living in a MH today. Older models have a serious drop off in quality and things like how you actually repair them. Plus the local mobile home parks want north of 700/mo just for lot rent! They’ve lost their minds. (Or, worse, are hoping to drive tenants away so they can sell the land to developers.)
Mobile home parks are popular with hedge fund and private equity firms. They realized a ways back that these are captive markets. The tenants usually do not have access to the kinds of capital (ready or structured instruments) to easily move, so these firms incrementally increase monthly lot fees in full knowledge that the tenants would rather scrounge another $50 per month from their income (or add to debt load) than spend a one-time $5,000 to move to another park where there isn’t a guaranteed lot rent anyways.
"Trailer park" and "mobile home park" are interchangeable terms and refer to the exact same thing in the US.
That said, per the article, trailers abd such become a necessary option because government strangles alternatives.
From tiny homes to "double-wides", manufacturered housing should be given a chance. A chance it, and the markets it could serve deserves.
There are bugs everywhere, without proper abatement.
Pipes freeze when homes are not kept warm enough or water dripping from every faucet
You had ONE WINDOW A/C unit. No idea how old or how many BTUs or if it was a heat and A/C which I’m assuming it’s not.
Tbh it appears that the place you moved into was unmaintained and you probably don’t know much about home maintenance or care in general which could have avoided most of these issues.
While I have empathy of your weird situation that doesn’t mean _ALL_ manufactured homes have the SAME issues you had.
So it was freezing and we had no hot water.
It is my understanding that you only see that particular issue in trailer homes.
So either the pilot light or power went out for hours / days without anyone noticing?
It takes a very long time to freeze 20-40 gallons of water inside an insulated container.
I’m empathetic to your situation but it doesn’t make any sense. Unless intentional disregard.
Despite the fact that people often use those terms interchangeably, they are not the same. Things really have changed.
Trailer (or mobile) homes were built to no particular standards, had widely varying (and usually low) quality, and were no longer legal to build after 1976. Manufactured homes, which replaced them, are built to strict HUD standards. (Then there are modular homes, which are also factory-built, but are built to the same building codes as site-built homes.)
Sources: Grew up in a well-built 1980's manufactured home. More recently a family member was a government inspector of manufactured/modular home factories, ensuring code compliance.
This leaves out a very important piece of the equation. Perhaps the most important piece.
Even in places like New York and California that are rapidly turning YIMBYer, prefab and manufactured housing is being frozen out. The reason is that the construction industry, and (especially in blue states) construction industry unions, are very very powerful and wage total war on legislation and politicians friendly to prefab housing because it completely cuts them out of the process.
The state-level politics are so toxic for this reason that it's unworkable to get stupid bans undone. This dynamic is, frankly, a lot more intractable than the obstacles this article discusses: you can convince regular people that mobile homes are worth it even if they're ugly, but you can't convince construction industry people not to put their own interests first.
Fully welded sheet steel mineral wool sandwich panels could work but they are a lot more expensive than drywall and need to be carefully designed to avoid corrosion issues from condensation. Lightweight fire resistance can be acheived with intumescent coatings but these are expensive and designed for structural fire protection not for preventing fire spread.
You pour a foundation / base plate, and then place concrete wall elements (which are fabricated in the factory and delivered to the site, that's the pre-fabricated part) and connect them to assemble the structure. You then add insulation and do the electrical work, plumbing and dry-wall etc the same way you would for a newly created brick-building, though they'll also pre-fabricate many of these parts or have a few generic alternatives to choose between (e.g. on stairs).
What you describe exists, but is usually called prefab housing.
In the US there are two different sets of building codes that apply. Manufactured housing falls under federal rules. Prefab is all local rules - same as traditional built in place housing.
We basically have the following... - RV (camper van and larger bus-based) - true mobile homes, follow a distinct set of federal rules. Generally not allowed permanently anywhere (most parks have a limit on number of weeks/months you can stay), though there are exceptions. Don't have permanent plumbing or electric supply (plug in with extension cord, black water tank that needs dumped periodically).
- "Mobile homes" (old name)/manufactured housing - "one piece" homes designed to roll to location, be dropped in place, and generally not moved again. Once on site, permanently plumbed and electrified. Older homes tend to be rotten nasty cheap things. Newer ones can be quite nice, but they still carry a bad reputation. Follow their own federal rules. In theory can be moved again, but rarely happens.
- Prefab (sometime also called modular) - factory built homes, but usually not delivered complete. Instead usually delivered as components (sometimes whole rooms, sometimes just walls and roof). Generally must adhere to local building regs. Built on a normal foundation. Truly permanent once installed.
- Normal construction on site. Local rules.
And because prefab has to follow local rules, which can vary substantially by region (CA with earthquakes/fires vs east coast without much in the way of natural disasters), the cost savings often isn't there.
The largest cost in home ownership in high cost of living areas is the land. They aren't making it anymore.
Most manufactured homes are at the lower end of the quality range. You can buy higher quality manufactured homes but they are not cheap. https://www.bluhomes.com/modern-modular-homes ~300 sqft without the land and site prep.
I'm all for making it easier to use manufactured homes, but there isn't a big cost win there.
But aren't populations of most wealthy countries dropping already? EU population is already declining.
We also aren't making efficient use of the land. We could have many more sky scrapers than we do (see Dubai for instance). Biggest obstacles are regulations and zoning laws - not lack of land. Good public transportation is also an issue, there's plenty of cheap land if only we could get to it.
Take Japan for example, a declining population, with areas that have ghost towns of houses with no people. Everybody wants to live in the high density areas.
Is it a case of everyone wanting to live in the same small area, or people wanting to live near the amenities? The former implies a small number of places supporting very high densities of people. The latter can be achieved with moderate densities.
People like to claim that property values are high because we aren't making land anymore. Even though this is true in the literal sense, there is an incredible amount of land that can be recovered. As an example, my city is tearing down an interchange to recover several acres of land for residential and commercial use and to allow for non-car dependent modes of transportation for local residents. Reducing that car dependence is important not just because of space allocated to roads, but to reduce parking needs. More land freed up and development costs are decreased.
Imagine that you built up more moderate density communities where the vast majority of a person's life can be lived in a 30 minute walking radius. Sure, some people will still drive, but it would be over shorter distances and for fewer trips. Would they choose really choose the very high densities and very high cost of a small number of neighbourhoods in a small number of cities over moderate density regions where they may actually have an opportunity to own their own home, even if the house is a bit smaller and the yard is a bit smaller?
This is oversimplified; WHY would they want to live in the same small area?
I'm no social scientist or anything, but from my point of view, people want to live where the well-paying or high-standing jobs are (think FAANG companies in SF), while the jobs move to the cities where the high-performing, skilled and motivated employees are. That's a self-reinforcing problem. Another one is that a percentage of people want to live in cool places, restaurants, culture, nightlife, social life, etc.
Personally I'd rather live in the suburbs (currently doing so) or out in the countryside, away from people. That's the long term goal, but I need to pay off this house and save up first.
Past a certain height going higher doesn't really contribute to population density. You end up needing more room for certain utilities, more space for and around the buildings, etc
New york as a result has a lower population density than Paris, Athens, Barcelona or the like.
This is a little misleading. NYC also includes large regions of SFHs, including Staten Island (density 8K/mi^2) and Queens (22K/mi^2). If you include only Manhattan, its density (73K/mi^2) exceeds all of Paris (52K/mi^2), Athens (44K), and Barcelona (41K).
The lesson is more that uniform 4-story buildings across a large area are more dense than an urban core of skyscrapers surrounded by suburbs of SFHs, but we knew that already. An urban core of skyscrapers surrounded by suburbs of 4-story apartment buildings would be even more dense (see Brooklyn, density 38K/mi^2, comparable to many of those European cities).
Sort of. I laugh whenever I read this because my current house sits on land that was "made", it's a waterfront area in FL created from fill dirt. Same with the Dubai Palm island thing, and really lots of other places. But proportionally, these areas represent a tiny fraction of habitable land, so I get it.
This is one of the brands of manufactured homes: https://www.commodore-pennsylvania.com/gallery?gallery=78
This is a modular home brand: https://www.neweramodulars.com/photo-galleries
The agent steered us away from the modular homes (built to higher NY state building codes), even though they were more expensive. "I don't know if we can get the crane on that lot, it's pretty windy on those parcels and it's hard to get an operator who will do it," was one of the claims.
It became clear their business model was centered around the faster to set up (and close) manufactured homes. These are basically two trailers stitched together down the middle (formerly known as "double wides") and configured in a bunch of different ways mostly based on interior amenities such as type of bathroom, kitchen, HVAC, drywall, flooring, etc.
The lowest cost manufactured home was $160k including the foundation but not land, site prep, or connection to local utilities. The 2 story modular homes topped out around $450k.
There also was an episode on mobile homes of last week tonight which i found interesting back in the day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCC8fPQOaxU
They often have to rent the land they are on and get stuck there, as they can't transport the houses off.
A few years ago I got interested in a trailer park nearby because homes were selling for less than two years of my income. After some research, I found that the lot itself is a 99 year lease from the city, parcelled by the park's management company. The land is situated in a rapidly developing neighborhood, and the lease expires in the next 2 years. If the land is sold from under you, you own several tons of trash that's not as mobile as it sounds. Even if you can move it, park spaces are hotly contested because all of your neighbors are in the same market at the same time. I ran away and never looked back.
> LOL @ priced out renters!
It's a new paradigm, and everybody who doesn't buy, now, will be priced out forever. Anybody who does buy will be rewarded with a lifetime of riches, as their property will continue its 20-30% yearly price appreciation.
Renters, and anybody born in a future generation, will not be able to afford a $10,000,000 starter home in 15 years. They will live in tent cities, and Hondas. This asset bubble is different than all of the previous and other asset bubbles - it will never slow down, or pop. The gains are permanent.
Genuinely can't tell if this is sarcasm or not.
Still. I can't believe we have tent cities in places as cold as Calgary. (It's legitimately possible to have snow in July here)
Another piece of real estate media that aroused ire at the time;
(Thank you for the memories @pud.)
What happened to sears-catalog-style kit homes where they just drop a huge pile of lumber off? Yes you need permits (as does manufactured housing) but I’m willing to bet municipalities would treat common designs the same similar to housing developments where there are like 5 floor plans with only minor variations between each structure. It’s not close to the same but you already have land and a flat surface, I would greatly prefer this option.
Great if we could develop alternatives to using the most known irritant chemicals in premanufactured homes. Last I heard formaldehyde is present in many pressed wood products. Plastic products outgas, especially exposed to sunlight. I hope our "greener" future will mean manufacturing more of our common goods with more bio-friendly formulations of what have turned out, over plastics' life cycle, to be rather bio-unfriendly substances.
The value of the home declines over time as the home deteriorates. No one said the home is worthless, although that is indeed sometimes the case. An empty lot should be worth less than a lot with a functional home on it (if your goal is to put a home on your lot), but the lot with an old house on it is worth less than the one with a new house.
Houses don't appreciate, no.
That's typical for trailer parks. I understand mobile home parks to actually be in the minority here. Most mobile homes are either rented out like a typical house, or the homeowner owns both the mobile home and the land.
It would be a way better use of money than renting for many people. But how do we get around the "trailer park" stigma? Maybe that's a pipe dream.
Don’t force all of the trailer homes to be in designated trailer parks. Allow for people to place them on their land by removing onerous zoning requirements and minimum housing sizes.
The project was largely considered a failure, especially when measured against what the next government did, which was to simply get on with building more proper houses!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prefabs_in_the_United_Kingdo...
Both are built off-site in factories, but manufactured houses--homes built on wheeled frames and set up on piers--are built to lower standards than modular homes, which are trucked in one or more sections on flatbed trailers and installed over a basement or crawlspace.
First, let's take care of the homeless. Single people make up the majority of the homeless and working homeless population. The main reason studio apartments cost $1500 right now is greed. It is both environmental and cost efficient to build studio apartment buildings as well.
These trailers are feeding the delusion that we can all live on "an estate of our own".