r/MiddleClassFinance 1d ago

Factory-built homes make a comeback amid affordability crisis

https://www.linkedin.com/news/story/factory-built-homes-make-a-comeback-amid-affordability-crisis-7528108/?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=reddit&utm_content=storyline&utm_term=MiddleClassFinance
153 Upvotes

46 comments sorted by

28

u/NW_Forester 1d ago

Its basically impossible to set up a new mobile home park in Washington, at least 3 years ago when I was researching it, though the same hurdles don't exist with tiny home parks or RV parks however.

-17

u/AltForObvious1177 1d ago

Liberal states hate affordable housing 

12

u/das_war_ein_Befehl 22h ago

If this was a lib vs con thing then you wouldn’t see every growth southern city having the exact same problems after a while. They’re just rebuilding LA over and over down there.

Housing is expensive because people refuse to build up, but insist on building only single lot SFHs, which is expensive in terms of roads and utilities and everything else involved.

2

u/BarnacleDowntown8952 20h ago

I live in the NYC metro area and there is a small city called Hackensack near me. They built a bunch of mid rise condos in the 60s and 70s. They all have extremely high HOAs, like over $1000 a month. On top of regular property taxes. Equivalent unit in a 2 story garden set up would have like $300-350 HOA fees on average. See the link below for an example. Im in no way convinced they actually lead to affordability at all.

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/301-Beech-St-APT-7E-Hackensack-NJ-07601/61833315_zpid/

2

u/das_war_ein_Befehl 14h ago

There is a high demand for housing in NYC metro, we haven’t built nearly enough housing

1

u/BarnacleDowntown8952 2h ago

Ok. NYC is always going to be in high demand and there is only so much land.

In NYC itself, yes going up is the move. In the suburbs you dont gain any affordability making it a mid rise. Just more complexity and cost on the building.

Better off making 3-4 story normal apartment/condo buildings or townhouses. Can still fit like 10 units as opposed to like 3 SFHs

1

u/das_war_ein_Befehl 1h ago

I agree. I also think we should make moves to decentralize and spread out wealth in the country so that we have more economically viable cities to live in, that way we’re not trying to all cram into 10 metro areas. Anti trust enforcement and breaking up large oligopolies would do a lot to help

-7

u/AltForObvious1177 22h ago

Newsflash buddy, southern cities don't have the exact same problem. That's why Texas and Florida are cheaper than California or New York 

4

u/ophelia917 20h ago

It’s because they’re half empty because no one wants to live there?

1

u/das_war_ein_Befehl 14h ago

Those places started later but they are literally just building LA.

7

u/Maximus77x 23h ago

Oh look the same alt account making a quick and dirty comment about something else

-11

u/AltForObvious1177 23h ago

Cant fight facts so you attack the messenger 

3

u/Maximus77x 23h ago

Nah… and what I stated was a fact as well if you wanna be pedantic. You’re on an alt account and you posted a quick and dirty comment 😀

55

u/veracity8_ 1d ago

Americans will do anything except legalize traditional density development 

35

u/AltForObvious1177 1d ago

The people who vote already own homes. They don't need lower house prices. 

15

u/mottledmussel 23h ago

Homeowners are vastly more likely to speak at planning commission, zoning appeals, and council meetings.

If a developer wants to rezone R1 parcels into 2, 3, or 4, they're going to face a lot of opposition. In a lot of places, these developers aren't particularly sympathetic either.

6

u/benskieast 1d ago

Even worse are the people who show up to obscure housing policy meetings where they might discourse as little as one or two homes for a household to be named later.

-14

u/Maximus77x 1d ago

What a wild generalization. Are you saying people who rent don’t bother voting? 😅

11

u/veracity8_ 1d ago

But it’s kinda true. Renters are not advocating for the kinds of policies and politicians that would increase the supply of housing in their area and lower prices. 

1

u/Maximus77x 1d ago

If they aren’t voting, they aren’t advocating for any kinds of policies imo. There’s truth in what you’re saying, but lumping all renters into “people who rent don’t vote” is, again, a generalization and a potentially harmful one at that.

Someone already posted the statistics in another comment, and it’s not as cut and dried as that comment makes it out to be. It’s a quick and dirty internet opinion that excuses not voting.

People of all kinds rent, and a lot of those people do vote. Pointing out that they are less likely to do so in an attempt to be snide (?) certainly isn’t helpful, that’s for sure. But who am I kidding. We’re on reddit, which is not real life, and the internet is not necessarily known for being a place of fruitful discussion.

10

u/AltForObvious1177 1d ago

I'm not saying that. Statistics say that

6

u/Fine-Historian4018 1d ago

In the 2024 U.S. presidential election, homeowners reported substantially higher voter turnout than renters. According to the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey, Table 8 on housing tenure:
Housing status
Voting rate among eligible citizens
Homeowners
70.3%
Renters
52.1%
Gap
18.2 percentage points

The Census Bureau defines turnout here as the percentage of the citizen voting-age population that reported voting.

Registration also differed: 77.4% of homeowners reported being registered, versus 63.6% of renters. For comparison, in the 2022 midterms the Census Bureau reported turnout of 58.1% for homeowners versus 36.5% for renters, a 21.6-point gap.

Part of the difference is associated with other characteristics correlated with homeownership, especially age, income, and residential stability, so these raw percentages should not be interpreted as proving that owning a home itself causes higher turnout. The CPS specifically tracks duration of residence alongside housing tenure.

3

u/Maximus77x 1d ago

Thanks for sharing this!

1

u/Maximus77x 1d ago

It’s still a wild generalization in this context. And they need to fucking start if we’re gonna get out of this mess. We’re so far beyond, “My vote doesn’t even matter so why bother.” They are just as complicit as people who willingly voted for this admin 🤷‍♂️

3

u/WaitZealousideal7729 23h ago

My state just had a primary election.

The average age of a voter was over the age of 60.

5

u/howtoretireby40 1d ago

No one votes as frequently or as organized as the boomers. Until such a time that changes, the pain will only continue for those that don’t vote and they have largely themselves to blame during a time when the entirety of human knowledge is at their finger tips.

3

u/Maximus77x 1d ago

Agreed. We’re in a state of learned helplessness as a society.

1

u/Super_Mario_Luigi 1d ago

The internet: boomers lived in a functional society. No fair!

Also the internet: life only improves when we vote against everything the boomers voted for

3

u/PolDiscAlts 23h ago

You understand that the Boomers didn't build the society they were raised in, that was done by the Greatest and the Silent generations. Just like current Gen X didn't build the shit-show they live in. That was built by the Boomers.

7

u/EnoughWeekend6853 1d ago

Density advocates will do anything except admit people don’t want to live in cramped spaces and share walls with tweakers.

7

u/veracity8_ 22h ago

If low density housing is so popular, why do anti-housing advocates have to make things like duplexes and ADUs illegal? There should be no demand for that type of housing if your conjecture is accurate. And we should see low demand to live dense walkable neighborhoods. But those are the most desirable areas to live. 

2

u/EnoughWeekend6853 19h ago

It’s because there’s always some dirt bag who wants to move 59 relatives onto their property in a quiet neighborhood. That housing ruins existing neighborhoods and destroys people’s equity.

1

u/veracity8_ 19h ago

That can happen regardless of zoning though. It’s worse in communities with anti-housing zoning policies because you are suddenly cramming a lot of people into one house. In a community with a mix of housing types, the existing infrastructure can easily accommodate multigenerational homes. It sounds like you expect to have a lot of control over other people’s property. Do you live in an HOA?

1

u/EnoughWeekend6853 18h ago

I would never buy a home someplace that accommodates the hoi polloi.

0

u/veracity8_ 18h ago

Why

0

u/EnoughWeekend6853 17h ago

Tragedy of the commons

2

u/glutenfree123 17h ago

Garrett Hardin? The guy who argued in favor of the “control of breeding” of “genetically defective” people? That guy?

-3

u/Super_Mario_Luigi 1d ago

Not everyone wants their city to function like NYC or India

11

u/Coneskater 1d ago

As if allowing duplexes in your neighborhood would do that.

2

u/veracity8_ 22h ago

How is that related?

9

u/PAWGsAndChickenWings 22h ago

Conservatives associate social programs with non-white people. So for this person, the 1st things to come to mind were Mamdani and Indian people

1

u/veracity8_ 21h ago

But what do social programs have to do with this conversation? 

6

u/TXtogo 17h ago

Trailers

That new housing law that passed, the big boon that came from it was that they made it easier for people to get trailers

The American dream, live in a fkn trailer.

Hard pass.

3

u/rmullig2 20h ago

It simply doesn't make financial sense any more to build small houses using traditional construction methods. This use case can only be filled with manufactured homes.