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Mobile Homes Are So Expensive Now, Hurricane Victims Can't Afford Them (bloomberg.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: Hurricane victims emerging from ravaged trailer parks are discovering that the U.S. mobile-home market has left them behind. In Florida and Texas, dealerships are swarmed by buyers looking to rebuild their lives after hurricanes Harvey and Irma, but many leave disappointed. The industry, led by Warren Buffett's Clayton Homes, is peddling such pricey interior-designer touches as breakfast bars and his-and-her bathroom sinks. These extras, plus manufacturers' increased costs for labor and materials, have pushed average prices for new double-wides up more than 20 percent in five years, putting them out of reach for many of the newly homeless.
Late-stage capitalism is when you can't afford the rope to hang yourself, but your #MAGA hat is subsidized.
That's not Capitalism.
Capitalism would be someone finding a way to make the ropes cheaper and selling them to you, and including a #MAGA hat for free in order to bolster the sale.
Just as with this mobile homes situation. Communism just means the state is stuck buying "His and Hers sinks" for everyone and thus overpaying, lining the pockets of some friend of the party. Capitalism means a business opportunity for someone to make a 20% cheaper model to serve the increased demand and thus carve himself a new niche.
Of course, it helps to put "Trump Derangement Syndrome" aside, since this has nothing to do with Trump.
"Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
New mobile homes are for idiots. A house should not depreciate like a car. Rent for a 1000 square foot 'lot' should not run to hundreds/month.
Anybody thinking of going there, should buy bare land and shed to live in until they can afford to build a house. Mobile homes are built like sheds anyhow.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Welcome to capitalism, companies make the products they think they can sell (i.e. expensive trailers) and price them at what they think they can get. The people that want something else are screwed. If enough people are not able to get what they want it creates a market opportunity to start a business to cater to them.
"Grab them by the pussy" -- President of the United States of America
I live an hour north of Houston. Daily on the way to and from work, I pass 4 or 5 mobile home dealerships. About 6 months ago, my wife and I went and looked at a couple of dealerships and priced several mobile homes, as we are thinking about downsizing, buying our own land and living in a mobile home to save money.
What we learned:
- A non-luxury single wide with 3 bedrooms is about $30,000.
- A non-luxury double wide with 3 bedrooms is about $45,000.
- A luxury double wide with 3-4 bedrooms runs from $65-120,000.
I can understand people wanting to have a nice place to live, but there is no shame in living in a starter mobile home until you can get back on your feet. For far less than a house these days, one can guy 3 acres for $60,000 and the mobile home for $30,000. That's $90,000. Ad $10,000 for connecting to electricity and sewer, and another $10,000 for a septic system. $110,000 gets you land and a place to live for far, far less than a house. If you choose to buy a mobile home without land, here in this area, the land rental with hookups will run you about $300-400 a month. A cheaper mobile home runs about $300 a month mortgage and $300-400 a month for land rental and in your in for $700. Add $300 for all utilities and you're in for $1000 a month.
I ran all the above numbers with the sales people at the mobile home dealership. I also know someone living in one and I asked them to verify.
When I get closer to retirement, I'm considering it because why have to always work on a house and a perfect lawn. I'll get a mobile home and just live with less and less maintenance.
There is a stigma associated with living in a mobile home, but those who would judge you for living in one are not worthy of your friendship.
Anybody who regularly uses the phrase 'late stage capitalism' has drunk the koolaid and isn't open to reason.
It's a tell. Save the effort. Your time is better spent arguing with brick walls.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
saying this implies the cost of Mobile homes has gone up. Manufacturing costs are way, way down. The actual problem is that 30 years of wage stagnation has reduced the buying power of working class people. They can't afford basic shelter.
This is a classic example of an anti-worker wing narrative at work. The breakfast bar adds $200 to the cost of the home. The his and her sinks $500. The cost of the home goes up $10,000. Nobody talks about the $9,200 gap or why people can't afford it. The implication is that poor people are being frivolous with their money, which in turn implies they have low moral character which in turn gives the middle class and rich a reason to abandon them to their poverty because, after all, it's their fault for having low moral character. It's prosperity gospel without the tinge of religion.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
If you live on the gulf coast or tornado alley, maybe a mobile home isn't your best bet. The main reason the price or new units is so high is because the supply of used units suddenly dropped, forcing people who would have bought a used unit to buy a new one.
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
Good few people have made homes out of shipping containers. Of course, they cut holes for windows, add hinges so the steel can be shuttered, and many add wood or brick panels to the outside to give it a more architectural look.
https://www.containerhomeplans...
There was that guy who built his own nuclear bomb shelter out of old school buses, That's pretty cool idea to build a tornado shelter on the cheap - just excavate a ramp plus hole, lower down a container/old bus, then build on top of it.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
> Why would communism mean that?
Human nature. Government control actually means less accountability and a greater opportunity for corruption. Efficiency is not required. Effectiveness isn't even required. You have no recourse if something sucks. You can't sue or take your business some place else.
All monopolies are bad for pretty much the same reasons.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
The low-end models are still there, as always. More expensive models are also available, which increases the AVERAGE price.
The manufacturers haven't abandoned their primary market, people who are broke because they have don't think long-term, so they do things like spend a ton of money on something that falls apart in a few years rather than putting 10% down on a house which will go up in value.
...pushed average prices for new double-wides up more than 20 percent in five years, putting them out of reach...
I'm having trouble with the math here. Over five years, you'd expect about a 10 percent increase due to inflation. So the "average" double-wide is only up about 10% over inflation. And that's looking at the average--are all mobile homes more expensive, or did the distribution of motor home sales just shift? Remember, the average goes up if the share of sales of high-end homes goes up, even if the low-end homes remain the same price. We're not told what the liveable-but-not-fancy homes cost, or how (or if!) that has changed with time.
Really, though, the more important statistic is buried in the linked article.
...pay for the bottom fifth of earners is stagnating. Even after a modest pickup over the past two years, those households have seen their income fall by 9 percent since 2000, to $12,943 in 2016, based on inflation-adjusted Census Bureau data.
(At least they inflation-adjusted that figure.) The real problem is that the poor - including the working poor and retirees - are getting poorer. Even if housing weren't getting more expensive, they still wouldn't be able to afford to keep up.
~Idarubicin
Insulin is cheap to make. You can do it with less than $100k of equipment bought new or slightly used. Insulin can be produced using bacteria grown in bioreactors â" and they have a good yield. Iâ(TM)ve seen it being made, and understand the entire process. The problem really is the market entry requirements.
The microprocessors being used in computers today are much more advanced and require far more capital intensive manufacturing equipment than what was used 2 decades ago â" yet the cost has reduced. There is even a DIY Open Insulin project of people making their own insulin. The insulin we have today has changed only slightly over the years (donâ(TM)t buy any BS that itâ(TM)s dramatically better), but the cost has skyrocketed. Obviously some nefarious force other than laissez faire competition is at work.