Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Modular Homes for Under $50k

boxabl.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

311–320 of 343 posts

Re: Modular Homes for Under $50k

#311

Post by scotuswroteus »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #248
thatfrenchguy wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please, in California, that “old elderly couple” pays no property taxes and can spend their life blocking housing for new middle class families (and they do, all the time).

>Please, in California, that “old elderly couple” pays no property taxes That's why they want them out. To replace them with someone who pays big $$$$. What's so hard to get about this? They don't want them moving their caregiver into an ADU. They don't want them renting their ADU to supplement a fixed income. They want them gone. Since they can't tax them out they just prevent them from making money on their land va…

You know the council doesn't directly receive the tax dollars, right? This is a conspiracy theory.

Re: Modular Homes for Under $50k

#312

Post by vit05 »

qayxc wrote: post #128
vit05 wrote: 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...

> I guess it's also a study to understand the dynamics of living in a small space How out of touch must one be to even consider this? News flash: the vast majority of mankind lives in what a North American would consider "small places" [0]. Same goes for population density - North American and Australian urban sprawl is largely unknown in most areas of the world. If you want to "study the dynamics" of living closely…

I'm talking about him. I didn't say it was a scientific study about the world. He, one of the richest men in the world, is experiencing living in a small space with houses from this company. This company has also demo videos about houses on mars.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvtJPDpAY7c

Re: Modular Homes for Under $50k

#313

Post by cma »

mlindner wrote: post #201
UncleMeat wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SpaceX sent a self landing rocket to the ISS. CEOs matter, but Musk seems to consistently get more credit for his company's successes than other leaders. His reality distortion field that enables him to hire very strong engineers is his biggest boon.

Musk is a lot more involved in day to day operations at SpaceX than a lot of people seem to understand. Shotwell on division of labor with Musk: > The way Elon and I share the load, he focuses on development. He's still very highly engaged in the day-to-day operations, but his focus is on development. He was the lead on Starlink, and I started shifting my focus to Starlink around late spring, early summer of last yea…

It would not be surprising if there were similar stories from Ramesh Balwani about the division of labor with Elizabeth Holmes at Theranos. SpaceX is no Theranos, but you shouldn't reach that conclusion from stories from the C-suite.

Re: Modular Homes for Under $50k

#314

Post by DVassallo »

bluGill wrote: post #194
DVassallo wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s a big difference between spec houses and custom houses. I’m building a custom home in King County, WA right now, and it’s almost impossible to build under $300/sqft. And no, doesn’t include cost of land or land preparation costs.

You can build a custom home for the price of a spec home. However it means sticking to the budget instead of upgrading. You can put a $15 light fixture in the bedroom, or a $50 one - spec homes do the former, custom homes all later - it doesn't seem like much but these all add up. The cost to build a custom home and a spec home is nearly the same if you are careful not to do any upgrades. Those upgrades cost money th…

In my region, the material costs are just ~15% of the total cost to build. It's almost all labor costs.

Re: Modular Homes for Under $50k

#316

Post by toss1 »

hogFeast wrote: post #252
toss1 wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first idea that strikes me (aside form the obvious in-law apt addition) is to use this approach for the homeless. It's been shown that the best solution for many (non-mentally-ill) homeless is to literally provide a home. E.g., merely the fact of falling on enough hardships to lose a home and having no fixed address is a major impediment to getting a new job and becoming a homed, taxpaying resident. Yet I've read…

In London, they used shipping container homes to house homeless people on unused local government-owned land. Pretty much instantly stories were in the media about how the conditions were "inhuman" (bizarrely, from people who had chosen to illegally immigrate to the UK from France, and complained that they had a nice house in Sudan or wherever). So I think the reality of these schemes is often...difficult because the…

Indeed! there are all kinds of advances being made in everything from container homes, modular homes, "tiny homes", yurts, and more.

Although they are obviously not spacious mansions, they can be highly functional and comfortable, and obviously WAAAY better than nothing.

If I were in a situation where it was that or nothing, I'd be grateful for a small spot to call home (but then I decided to live for one summer job in a tent in a secluded spot outside of town instead of getting an apartment, and it was very enjoyable and functional).

Re: Modular Homes for Under $50k

#318

Post by unethical_ban »

bluGill wrote: post #205
bigthymer wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's infeasible for a person to construct their own house anymore, given building codes and such What has changed that this is no longer possible any more?

You need to be a licensed plumber to touch anything that connects to the public water supply. While there is nothing hard about plumbing, doing something stupid could poison the whole town and so towns are paranoid. For everything else, you can do all the work yourself if you have time. I've done framing as a job so I have the experience to build a wall about as fast as any professional crew. I do my own electrical w…

>doing something stupid could poison the whole town and so towns are paranoid.

Why not have a backflow preventer at the mains and call it a day? I get electricians in a way, but plumbing... eh.

Re: Modular Homes for Under $50k

#319

Post by mleonhard »

amelius wrote: post #129
eddy_chan wrote: post #45

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.

We need a better way to distribute land than the one we use now (=based on money and inheritance). This is the problem which smart people should be working on, not some prefab home.

I have worked on this problem but stopped because I need to build an app. I wish to continue.

Re: Modular Homes for Under $50k

#320

Post by ctdonath »

lovich wrote: post #270
ctdonath wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is part of an ongoing attempt to create quality affordable housing - just as other products have done over time. If the product weren’t there, the option wouldn’t be there - and your reasoning functionally favors driving down lower classes by denying them steps up. No, there is not some grand capitalist conspiracy to subjugate multitudes into poverty to seize their paltry holdings. Capitalism raises the poor by…

I feel like no one responding to me in this thread is capable of understanding how the tone of your wording changes how it is received by others. I understand how capitalism works and that this provides an option that wasn’t available before. Telling people who have next to nothing that they can simply choose another house if they think this one is sub standard, while factually accurate, makes you sound like a comple…

Yes, X may be their only option. X sucks, and it’s not what anyone with options would choose. Well, except for Y, which is even worse.

You’re arguing that X shouldn’t exist, leaving only Y. This, in your words, “makes you sound like a complete asshole who doesn’t understand that” this is a step up.

Post reply on HN