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A house that costs $20k

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Re: A house that costs $20k

#151

Post by timwaagh »

majewsky wrote: post #133
timwaagh wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

well here (netherlands) you have zoning. they are the only ones allowed to do anything in 'social housing' zones. the government asks higher prices (for land) in other zones. i needed to pay off the government for 30000 when i bought my place because it used to be in the social housing zone too. that 30k/unit needs to be factored in when comparing coops and others. i believe legally others are not even allowed to charge under 800.

But you kinda prove my point about artificially high prices. there is no reason for the prices here to be a lot higher than next door. I lived in a similarly sized 1 person appartment for years. it cost me 480 euros/mo. and that was the best deal anyone could ever get here (because in my case too, it was from the student's coop). here the 200 euro/month would get you absolutely nothing (not even a room).

Re: A house that costs $20k

#152

Post by JoblessWonder »

derekp7 wrote: post #135
sageabilly wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They are starting to do this with commercial buildings. They pre-fab the apartments off-site and then "place" then in the building shell. Not sure how popular it will be but it is something people are considering.

Re: A house that costs $20k

#154

Post by strgrd »

rubidium wrote: post #148
ACow_Adonis wrote: post #27

It's kind of hard for me to tell whether the house is nicer than mine when there's so little detail in the article on the actual house. Look, i'm more than supportive of innovative design and doing things cheaply, but for an article that was heavy on "the house is so cheap", and "its built kinda more like a airplane", and "it uses all this innovative stuff", there's a startling dearth of information. Sqm, plans, insu…

Here's what looks like more info from the designers. It's a really cool program. Each year they come up with a house design and BUILD it for http://www.ruralstudio.org/projects/20k-v8-daves-house search the projects tab to see all of them back to 2005

Where can I buy one though?

Re: A house that costs $20k

#155

Post by stinkytaco »

imgabe wrote: post #95
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…

Codes are largely reactionary. Sometime, somewhere, doing a certain thing caused a problem and somebody got injured or killed. Maybe the corrugated roof that got nailed down blew off under certain conditions and the investigation revealed that it wouldn't have happened if they used certain screws instead of nails. Hence, the code gets updated to require those screws. It's mostly driven by the insurance industry. They…

It's also hard for me to see a serious problem with this. I mean, it can be annoying, but it seems I often wish decisions could be made by professionals (doctors, engineers, etc.) instead of politics and caprice and the IBC (and it's siblings for plumbing and electrical) is an example of laws that are actually thought out by someone who knows, rather than someone who thinks they know better. I imagine they are not perfect, but it still seems like an achievement.

Re: A house that costs $20k

#157

Post by apurvadave »

It seems like there are lot of comments about how this kind of house wouldn't work (yes, this won't work in downtown NYC). But it also seems like there are lots of communities - poor, displaced - that would benefit massively. I'm a big fan of projects like this, even if they only serve to push the innovation of affordable housing further.

Re: A house that costs $20k

#158

Post by delbel »

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…

Roof looks good to me. If its the same delta rib panels I installed, I had a choice of a 83 year warranty or a 100 year warranty. Snow load angle looks good also. They are off the ground and the roof extends out a bit so that the water stays off the side. I think they are built fine.

Re: A house that costs $20k

#160

Post by kedean »

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.

It's also worth noting that the resale value of a mobile home is next to nothing, due to that stigma. Nobody wants a mobile home if they can avoid it, and even fewer want a used mobile home. One of the main benefits of owning your home is acquiring a valuable asset, but without the hope of resale, it's nothing but a money drain.
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