A house that costs $20k • Hacker News Board

Re: A house that costs $20k

#131

Post by Someone1234 » Thu, Feb 04, 2016, 3:42 PM UTC

morganvachon wrote: post #94

mathgladiator wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to know too; having somewhat recently bought a house, and I've started to upgrade it. I can see $20,000 going really fast for simple things.

Indeed, I bought a "handyman's delight" (i.e. money pit) for $43k just outside Atlanta during the recession in 2009, and to get it to roughly the same condition as my neighbor's house, I'd have to spend another $40k. It's mostly cosmetic work that it needs, but there are some structural and functional issues that need to be addressed as well. We're still debating whether we should hold onto it and fix it up (it curre…

Might be worth talking to a realtor, or even going to look at a few houses for sale close by. Certain improvements can be literally profitable when you sell the house (e.g. $2K in painting nets you $10K in additional sale price).

If you go look at the comparable homes in the area (similar square footage, no. of bathrooms & bedrooms, etc) and they're nicer but selling for $120K+ than your home can likely be made to turn a huge profit by fixing it up before you sell it.

Just make sure you only fix/improve things which a buyer would care about, and not get bogged down in your own niche requirements.

Re: A house that costs $20k

#132

Post by dsfyu404ed » Thu, Feb 04, 2016, 3:44 PM UTC

rubidium wrote: post #113

This house is not for you. This house is for poor people who live in rural or urban decaying homes. Their roofs leak and collapse, their insulation in non-existent, their plumbing doesn't work. This is a big issue, and having worked with a number of situations like this, being able to get someone a new house for $20K that functions would be huge. $20K (or even $30K) for a functional, well-designed, "tornado-resistant…

Tornado resistance can be accomplished with a trailer home, some design tweaks, a big concrete pad and a lot of big lag bolts.

structural interior walls that act similar to the bulkheads of a ship) to prevent the structure from deforming and folding over/apart

Re: A house that costs $20k

#133

Post by majewsky » Thu, Feb 04, 2016, 3:49 PM UTC

timwaagh wrote: post #103

majewsky wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Rent is, essentially, theft from society itself, it leaves everyone poorer when most people rent. Not necessarily. It depends on whom you're giving the money to. If it's a profit-oriented company or investor or the like, then I'd tend to agree with you. On the other hand, I'm renting my apartment from a housing cooperative that I'm also a member of. The cooperative releases a yearly financial report detailing that…

in my country this is the most common form of renting. the cooperatives benefit from legal protections which prevent for profits from entering the market. however it means there is no competition and prices are artificially high. also a huge amount of corruption scandals involving the higher-ups of housing cooperatives.

Interesting. Over here (Germany) the prices in housing cooperatives are actually ridiculously low, compared to the rest of the apartment market. As a student, I lived in a single-room apartment with separate kitchen and bath, 26 square meters total, for less than 200 euros (including utilities).

Re: A house that costs $20k

#134

Post by protomyth » Thu, Feb 04, 2016, 3:50 PM UTC

I would love to see a bit more of these. I do wonder if they have a version with insulation that would work in a northern climate. This would be a great project for the reservation I work on simply because it is impossible to get a home loan on the reservation. It would be interesting to see mass production.

Re: A house that costs $20k

#135

Post by derekp7 » Thu, Feb 04, 2016, 3:55 PM UTC

sageabilly wrote: post #120

Loughla wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or what's the difference between this and a manufactured trailer? Those are very cheap and mobile, even. It seems like just new marketing for old, low-income housing. I wish someone would address that, at the root, this move to micro-housing is focused always on cost, and lack of available funds for young working people.

Lifespan of a mobile home is estimated at 30-55 years depending on area and on how much upkeep the owner does. There's also a huge stigma around living in a mobile home, and serious logistics involved in hauling the mobile home to its final destination as it has to be delivered in one or two pieces on a long flatbed trailer.

I've also seen something years ago where a house is made from components that come from a manufacturing facility -- each one can be hauled in on a flatbed. But when they are all assembled, the result really looks and functions like a regular house.

Re: A house that costs $20k

#136

Post by ljf » Thu, Feb 04, 2016, 4:01 PM UTC

reboog711 wrote: post #124

toomanybeersies wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You really have to wonder how necessary some of these codes are. Houses already last 60 or 70 years, which is plenty, by the time they're at a point where they need rebuilding they're hopelessly outdated. I was helping my father with building a house over Christmas, some of the regulations are ridiculous, we had to build a massive retaining wall with 200 mm posts going 1.5 m down, just because the earth it was retain…

My current residence was built in 1890 and I would not consider it 'hopelessly outdated' or in need of rebuilding.

Similarly, my home is from the early 1800s and my parents house was first built in the 1600s, but most of the current part was built in the early 1700s. Both of these houses are perfectly functional and warm, and barely use that much more energy than most modern houses (we've insulated them well and use efficient lighting etc). And yes they do have inside toilets ;)

I guess housing stock in the UK is just much older.

Re: A house that costs $20k

#137

Post by fweespeech » Thu, Feb 04, 2016, 4:07 PM UTC

http://www.artsatl.com/2016/01/serenbe-rural-studio-artist-r...

> And $20,000 is still an aspiration. These two cottages and the deck between them cost $135,000 to build. Smith is hoping that if a contractor understands process, he can bring it in more cheaply. Smith will be able to test that hypothesis: Nygren is invested in the collaboration and the concept. He intends to build more cottages and will be raising funds to do so. He says,

This title is misleading. It is $67,500 / house and the costs are on par with new construction for a similar structure. :/

Re: A house that costs $20k

#138

Post by beat » Thu, Feb 04, 2016, 4:15 PM UTC

People have been building homes cheaper than that for a long time now. What makes this different?

When I was a kid, I spent a lot of time on my grandfather's farm in southern Kentucky. I didn't realize it, but it was rural poverty. He didn't have electricity or running water (this was the early 1970s). But at least it was a wood house, with glass windows and doors and a decent fireplace and a coal-burning stove.

Back in the far back of the same property, up a dirt trail in the woods, an old black man lived alone in a shack. One room, walls made out of tar paper and corrugated steel. That's a house that can survive in that kind of terrain, and it cost a lot less than $20k. (Interestingly, my father treated that old man with great respect and deference. My father didn't respect anyone, so it boggled me, even as a small child.)

Around the world, entire neighborhoods of "shantytowns" arise around cities, made from the discarded junk of richer people. Shelter is shelter. People build it because they can't make a living wage and pay someone else to build a house for them...

Re: A house that costs $20k

#139

Post by drone » Thu, Feb 04, 2016, 4:15 PM UTC

Ao7bei3s wrote: post #7

> How do you design a home that someone living below the poverty line can afford Why not rent a flat instead? Wouldn't that be much more economical (no property prices, lower heating costs, less maintenance work, less risk, not built on the cheap)? I don't understand the fixation on owning a house / living in a single-family house many americans seem to have.

A lot of the poor, rural, families these low-cost homes are targeted at are living on land owned by the family for generations. They often do small-scale farming or large-scale gardening (depending on your definition) and hunting/gathering on the property for food.

In many cases, there will be multiple generations of the family living in separate houses on the same property. At least, these things were all true when I lived in family property in West Virginia in the 80's. We had four houses on about 200 acres in a valley, nearly an acre of garden, and other relatives would regularly stop by from nearby valleys on hunting trips, sharing what they managed to catch for what we managed to grow.

Re: A house that costs $20k

#140

Post by beat » Thu, Feb 04, 2016, 4:18 PM UTC

ljf wrote: post #136

reboog711 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My current residence was built in 1890 and I would not consider it 'hopelessly outdated' or in need of rebuilding.

Similarly, my home is from the early 1800s and my parents house was first built in the 1600s, but most of the current part was built in the early 1700s. Both of these houses are perfectly functional and warm, and barely use that much more energy than most modern houses (we've insulated them well and use efficient lighting etc). And yes they do have inside toilets ;) I guess housing stock in the UK is just much older.

In America, 100 years is a long time.

In Europe, 100 miles is a long distance.