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Modular Homes for Under $50k

boxabl.com

91–100 of 343 posts

Re: Modular Homes for Under $50k

#91
post #39

Surprised no one here has mentioned that Elon Musk is living in a Boxabl house in Austin, TX. This has totally perplexed the people who follow his every move. https://www.chron.com/news/space/article/elon-musk-texas-hou... I think that he might possibly be doing his homework. Can you imagine a Boxabl house outfitted with a solar roof, a Tesla battery and a Starlink dish? I could see people having a remote cottage not…

There's a video from Boxabl pitching their stuff to Elon https://twitter.com/i/status/1367548452633206789

The pitch kind of makes sense - he's trying to have a lot of people work at Starbase but there isn't much housing there so they could sort it by installing a lot of Boxabl units. Also the things are high tech made in a factory which fits a bit with the Tesla model.

I imagine he's trying one out for a bit before maybe ordering a bunch for the other workers. See also Teslarati https://www.teslarati.com/elon-musk-50k-house-texas-pictures...

Re: Modular Homes for Under $50k

#92

This house is 375 sq ft and uses low end materials, and it doesn't include setup, so it's going to cost ~$100k, or $266 / sq ft. Most new home construction is more like $150 / sq ft. And with this system, you're very limited in what you can build. Who's the target customer for this?

“ Who's the target customer for this?”

People who otherwise could not afford to buy a house, I assume.

Re: Modular Homes for Under $50k

#93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I think that he might possibly be doing his homework." I believe you're dead on, this guy's an absolute baller of a CEO (running 3 totally game-changing startups) and completely immerses himself in his work and research.

“The coronavirus panic is dumb” -Elon Musk (March 6th 2020)

Everyone has the rights to behave as an idiot, including Musk. To his partial defense, he minimized the risks, got Covid, then it seems he changed his stance on the matter. A bit late, but better than never.

"To be clear, I do support vaccines in general & covid vaccines specifically. The science is unequivocal. In very rare cases, there is an allergic reaction, but this is easily addressed with an EpiPen." — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 7, 2021

Re: Modular Homes for Under $50k

#94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment deserves to be higher. People just think you can put these anywhere but you need water connection, sewer connection, electrical, telephone line/cable, permits and red tape, by the time you're done it'll be double. And I don't think these solve any of our housing affordability problems, the land in a desirable area will be far more expensive than what's on top.

So my question is, if you had a piece of land, concrete foundation, electrical, water and sewer connection, is it possible to get something better for 50k?

is it possible to get something better for 50k?

If you are willing to do a lot of work yourself and value your time a $0 and aren't in a hurry, probably. Otherwise, this looks pretty good.

Re: Modular Homes for Under $50k

#95
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the same way a lot of products have become cheaper because of some process optimization (packaged more compactly to reduce transportation costs), I'm excited to see modular homes/home 3d-printing etc. play out and become cheaper over time until they are more affordable than convention home construction or somehow unique and better in ways that conventionally constructed homes cannot be. To answer your question, on…

If you are rich, there are a lot of options that are likely to better cater to your richness. Or why build a 50k shed on a million dollar piece of ground?

In Elon's case so you can have a few hundred on the not very expensive land at Starbase Texas.

Re: Modular Homes for Under $50k

#96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Who's the target customer for this? People who fall for stuff like Hyperloop. The biggest problem with housing is not the building itself, its the land and the scarcity of it. This is yet another tech 'solution' in search of a problem. And that problem is political, not technical. INB4: but we're gonna deploy these on Mars!!

Land is not scarce. We literally make as much of it as we want. What makes it scarce is legislation and zoning. Look at Manhattan or Hong Kong. You just stack the homes and offices and stores on top of each other.

Right, which is exactly why this technology does nothing to solve the problem. The housing shortage in SF isn't because they can't build like Manhattan or Hong Kong there, it's because they choose not to.

Re: Modular Homes for Under $50k

#97
post #25

This house is 375 sq ft and uses low end materials, and it doesn't include setup, so it's going to cost ~$100k, or $266 / sq ft. Most new home construction is more like $150 / sq ft. And with this system, you're very limited in what you can build. Who's the target customer for this?

In the same way a lot of products have become cheaper because of some process optimization (packaged more compactly to reduce transportation costs), I'm excited to see modular homes/home 3d-printing etc. play out and become cheaper over time until they are more affordable than convention home construction or somehow unique and better in ways that conventionally constructed homes cannot be. To answer your question, on…

That's a contrived example. I assume someone rich would hire a construction firm to make a fancy treehouse.

The target audience for these are squeezed between owners of trailer parks and cheap shacks.

Re: Modular Homes for Under $50k

#99
post #29

This company is popular for being the company chosen by Elon Musk[1]. He's supposedly living in one in Starbase, Texas. I guess it's also a study to understand the dynamics of living in a small space as any dream of inhabiting some other planet passes necessarily by the adaptation of a lifetime in a tiny space. [1] https://www.teslarati.com/elon-musk-50k-house-texas-pictures...

There are millions in Tokyo who live in a 15sqm apartment or something like that, you don't need to invent anything new to "study" it.

Re: Modular Homes for Under $50k

#100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But with ‘son’ in the word doesn’t it’s usage continue to promote the patriarchy?

No, “Son” as in “male child” is derived from Porto-Germanic “Sunnus”, “person” as in “human being” is derived from Latin “persona”. It’s just a coincidence that in modern English we write them with the same characters.

There are some (fringe?) groups who'd argue against this, evidenced by variant spellings like "womxn" and "womyn" that are attested since the 70s, in order to remove "man" from the words. Different in that "woman" is etymologically an extension of the word "man", but somewhat absurd because the etymological root was gender neutral, with a separate word attested for "masculine" man.

Point being, perception of a word can be more meaningful to some people than the historical meaning.

Good 'ole prescriptive vs descriptive linguistics...

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