Here’s a story from the Associated Press last week that serves as a cautionary tale for prospective trailer-park tenants (and make no mistake, you may own the prefab housing, but you rent the lot it’s on, almost invariably): Mobile home parks move from mom-and-pop to corporate
We have a “double wide” (1,800 sq. ft.) mobile home as our second house.
It’s quite nice, but clearly not as well constructed as our primary home. It’s a bit more “rustic”, too - we have a 2,500 gallon buried water tank, septic system, and propane heat.
But, so far it’s worked out pretty well.
… and then there’s this Last Week Tonight with John Oliver segment from earlier this year [NSFW spoiler tags]:
This is a serious flaw. If the mobile home is not actually mobile after installation, without enormous cost, this sounds like a route for a scam.
If you don’t own the land, don’t park a “mobile” home there.
Singlewides aren’t going to have 900 square feet, but double-wides usually do and some of the higher quality ones are indistinguishable on the surface from a foundation-built house.
I knew someone who stayed in California in a yacht for a few years, which sounds fun, but (1) berthing is expensive, plus parking for your car and other charges; (2) he was really cold in the winter; (3) the kind of square footage you are talking about, the yacht will cost a million dollars, but that may be enough for an actual small apartment.
They’re not as mobile as you’ve been lead to believe. It could be prohibitively expensive to move it and the structure might be damaged by doing so. You can’t get a mortgage on a mobile home and the value tends to depreciate over time. Even if you plan on living there the rest of your life you might change your mind in 10 years and be stuck because you won’t be able to sell it for enough to relocate elsewhere.
All things considered, if what you want is to downsize a bit and reduce your expense and efforts then perhaps a condo would be the better option. More expensive than a mobile home but when you factor in changeable space rent fees it might actually be a push financially and you have clear title to a condo, it’s an appreciating asset in most cases.
Hailstorms are freaky, as are high winds that flutter your curtains when your windows are shut. The heat/air has to run pretty much continuously and it’s always too hot or too cold.
This is scary: I’ve been seeing two-story MHs.
I’ve got no mobile home input to provide.
But wanted to share some food for thought, given your circumstances.
Because you have a place in San Jose, you own a cash cow. Keep it. You will ALWAYS be able to rent it (for likely a very sizeable amount). It may well be the best, most reliable investment you ever have (next to Apple stock).
Then use the rental income to 1) cover your property taxes, and 2) cover rent at your “new” place in the areas you are looking. Instead of selling and buying, rent and rent. This way you can get a sense of whether you really want to settle in those areas you are considering. And if so, you have more luxury to take your time until the “right” place comes up for sale.
Interesting thought. We actually have Apple stock, but not at the level that will make us rich in our retirement years! (Spouse works at Apple.)
We don’t own the place in SJ outright, which means if we rented it out we’d still have to cover the mortgage there in addition to our property taxes. Plus, we’d have to get involved in dealing with tenants, which isn’t something either of us is interested in doing.
Both of us are the type who just like to settle someplace and forget about it. Another possible area for us to move to is the Lodi, CA area, where the spouse has a lot of family, and we could afford a nice house with what we’d cash out of our current place (quite a bit nicer than we have now).
Not interested in renting anymore. We have cats and I don’t want to deal with landlords’ pet policies, nor with having our rent jacked up.
Then you really don’t want to live in a mobile home park, it has all the downsides of home ownership (Repair bills! Upkeep!) along with the downsides of renting (Unreliable rent hikes! Unresponsive landlords who won’t fix shit!) and to add the cherry on top it’s also a depreciating asset, yay!
Yeah, I’m really beginning to get that impression. This thread has been very helpful, pointing out some stuff I either didn’t know or hadn’t thought about. I love the Dope. 
Yeah. I also kind of worry about utility costs in a mobile home. I generally spend less than $100/month on gas and electric even in winter and summer in my apartment. In a mobile home I’m guessing it is several hundred a month to heat and cool.
Eh… I had a long post that I deleted.
I know a bit about MH Parks. My grandfather built a 220 lot park in the mid 60’s. It was a middle of the road park as far as amenities and such. We had a playground, tennis court, laundry facility and paved streets. I worked on that park and the homes there setting them up and fixing them.
Now, I know that my information is old, but, ehh… I doubt that any MH will appreciate in value. It’s like buying a car.
Mobile homes must be better than I remember, or no one would live in one. Maintenance is going to be worse because they aren’t (or were not) built to standard building practices. Interior walls where 2x2’s. Not 2x4. They must be better now. But it was more like a shed than a home.
My father lived in one, my brother lived in one, and my wife lived in one when we met 23 years ago. I would never live in one. Spent too much time around them and know the problems.
And, as others have said, they are mobile in that they are delivered.
There are some areas where the rules and rent are not too bad. My in-laws bought a mobile home in Huntington Beach a few years back. While they do not own the land it is sitting on it is owned by the City. The City code makes it very difficult to sell or remove a mobile home community and the space rent can only increase by a few points per year.
The big downside to a mobile home is the build quality. Unlike a condo or home you are purchasing a depreciating asset.
If you don’t want maintenance I would buy a nice 3 bedroom town home.
Yup. The cheapest thing to heat and cool is something with a greater amount of volume than it does exterior walls. A sphere would be best, but is somewhat… impractical ;).
Mobile homes are typically long and skinny (depending on double wides and such). And, since they don’t typically sit on a foundation, well, your floor is gonna be the same as the outside temperature. That can be overcome to a small degree depending on how it’s skirted, but, you get the idea.
Oh, and as has been mentioned, if it gets to freezing, you will become a heat tape expert. Not just for you water supply, but waste lines too.
One important thing to look at is to compare properties not by the monthly payment, but by what it actually is costing you.
For a mobile home, there are 4 big costs: depreciation of the mobile home itself, rent on the land it sits on, the possibility of the landlord selling the park to a hedge fund and they jack up the rents to force you to leave (and leave them the mobile home, essentially legal theft…), and the high cost of utilities. (cheap HVAC equipment is inefficient, and thin walls is inefficient)
For a traditional property, those costs are: interest (very low percentage-wise), repairs, property taxes. And the usual other costs.
Don’t look at the $X payment on Y mortgage, or the (sometimes) large total price of a house. Look at the actual cost-flow. You will get the (large price) of the house mostly back when you sell it, and statistically you can expect it to appreciate a little.