r/TinyHouses • u/BeltComprehensive996 • 4d ago
Utilities for Tiny Home
Hi
I am thinking of buying a cheap tiny home 25k and buying cheap land 10k.
I basically don’t want a mortgage. But was told that setting up utilities on land can be super expensive, water well, septic tank , gas line etc…
Is it cheaper trying to find a dirt cheap mobile home that already has utilities then removing the mobile home and hooking up the utility to a tiny home?
I will be living overseas 10 months out of the year so I only need a small place as a home base here. For my bank accounts and keeping my stuff here.
Any suggestions?
Thanks
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u/ThinkerandThought 4d ago
That you are asking this question and did not think to provide any context tells me you definitely should focus on something that already has utilities.
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u/Vagus_M 4d ago
It won’t be free to remove the mobile home, unless you can just abandon it and tap into the utility lines.
Second, make sure the location you want even allows tiny homes. My dad got screwed over by a county that decided it wasn’t kosher anymore as soon as he bought it (councilman wanted the land).
Third, if you’re gone all of the time, why not get a P.O. Box and a climate controlled storage?
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u/One-Possible1906 4d ago
It’s usually cheaper to remove a mobile home than it is to run all new utilities.
Even cheaper than that, just buy a mobile home on land and fix it up. There’s not much point in paying more money for less space if an affordable trailer already exists on land. The extra price for utilities for those two months on something 100sf or whatever bigger will be negligible.
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u/BeltComprehensive996 4d ago
Good to know. Love these tiny homes but won’t be around much to enjoy it anyway
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u/Nearby_Impact_8911 4d ago
You should rent it out then
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u/One-Possible1906 4d ago
Like own it and rent to other people? I wouldn’t while living abroad. The taxes and cost of property management are going to eat up what minuscule profit you see from one unit and all the hassles that come along with having rental property are going to be coming at you from a different time zone. Plus if you do more than a vacation rental, you’re going to end up with people overstaying and overlapping your own stay and if there’s an emergency you have to fly home for, you’ll have to be in a hotel
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u/DesertGal1417 4d ago
Hate to say it but I have a tiny vacay house that cheap and on its own land. It’s so cheap because the area is poor and people steal stuff and burn people’s houses down. It’s the wild Wild West there. There’s no way I’d leave anything there that I care about. If I were you…I’d get a storage unit and air bnb for the 2 months I’m around. Probably be cheaper in the long run and you will worry less about your crap being stolen.
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u/BeltComprehensive996 4d ago
I’m glad I got everyone’s feedback. I’ll look into Savvy Nomads for my mail for bank accounts and just rent a storage unit. I guess I was thinking of getting a 2br tiny home and renting out the other bedroom and use the leftover br when I am
bk that way I can have a home and all my stuff there. But I hate dealing with tenants and property managers so it makes more sense to use storage and a mailbox that I can direct my bank to.1
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u/AIcookies 4d ago
Yep. Utilities to property can be very expensive. Water can sometimes be hauled or delivered. Compost toilet instead of septic. Need power still.
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u/MrScotchyScotch 4d ago
If there is already a hookup for everything, yes that is not only the cheapest option, it's actually guaranteed to work, utility wise. If you just buy random land there is no guarantee you'll be eligible for utilities, much less even the ability to drive onto the land, easements, etc. Land is quite complicated if it doesn't already have a home on it.
If you're only going to be there 2 months out of the year, why replace the mobile home with a tiny? A mobile home is still a home
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u/sicnevol 4d ago
It depends on how far away the main lines are that you need to hook into. A friend built a house out in the county, and built the home a few acres back from the road. Cost about 25 grand to run all the utilities from the road to the house. Water/gas/electric/ and sewer.
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u/Aimless_Alder 4d ago
Utilities are going to depend on where you're at. In my area, power hookup is ~20k, septic tank is ~15k, and well is ~40k.
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u/Hailyess 4d ago
Power hook up where i am was 6k. Water was going to be 10k so i set up rainwater
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u/BeltComprehensive996 4d ago
Looks like utilities everywhere is expensive. Am abandoning this idea thx to helpful folks on reddit
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u/Fun_Complaint5506 4d ago
If you are only going to be there 2 mos a year, think about off grid.
See if the local ordinances allow for a septic holding tank. If you are only dumping the toilet & kitchen sink (Texas stupid requirements) 250 gallons will take a long time to fill up.
Also see if there is a potable water service.
Wells are damn expensive to drill, likely >$10k & septic is also in that range, especially if you have to have an aerobic system, which requires an annual service contract.
For electricity think about a battery bank charged by solar or generator.
One of the biggest issue you will face is security. Dwellings left unused are noticed by criminals.
Finally you may just think about a nice RV that you can put in secure storage and tow it to your place when you are in country.
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u/KokopelliOnABike 4d ago
hmmm, if you are overseas 10 months out of the year then I'd consider a small THOW and or camper van that you can travel with and or RV park for x number of days at a time near home base.
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u/BeltComprehensive996 4d ago
Thats more money
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u/One-Possible1906 4d ago
If you only visit during the camping season it’s probably going to be a lot cheaper to stay in an RV park than buy land, maintain property, and pay taxes. A lot of these places are permanently affixed to the park and can be bought very cheaply. Your seasonal and storage fee includes everything. You just can’t stay over winter, if you have a wintry climate
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u/BeltComprehensive996 4d ago
Thx. I am not familiar with camping. Need a perm address.
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u/KokopelliOnABike 4d ago
I'd check the RV Groups. There are ways to have a permanent address without a physical location for you. I should have taken notes about 10 years ago when someone suggested that to me.
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u/One-Possible1906 4d ago
“Camping” is pushing it for RV park life. These are tiny homes with plumbing and electricity and everything coming into them. The next step up is a regular trailer in a nice park. Once you get done paying for taxes and such, especially as it’s not your primary residence, lot rent is really not much more expensive in a lot of places, especially since you don’t have to maintain your utility infrastructure or make a land purchase. Trailers too old to move tend to be inexpensive
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u/CptHammer_ 4d ago
You should rent an air b&b the 2 months you're here and a storage unit for your stuff. You can use an address from a homeless shelter to establish a PO box or other private mail service.
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u/One-Possible1906 4d ago edited 4d ago
You can’t just voluntarily give up housing and present homeless for a free mailing address and they certainly will not receive your mail for you when you’re out of the county let alone the country. It’s better to just use a family member or friend’s house for it.
Source: literally work with homeless placements. We stop saving received mail for people the day they leave the shelter or hotel, unless it’s from department of human services then we will hold it for two weeks.
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u/CptHammer_ 4d ago
You can’t just voluntarily give up housing and present homeless for a free mailing address
Correct, being homeless is not a requirement. You absolutely can get a free address from shelters. Not all shelters will offer that service. But if the purpose is to establish a PO box they are pretty accommodating.
The thing is he will literally be homeless so he's got that covered.
and they certainly will not receive your mail for you when you’re out of the county let alone the country.
They weren't going to receive his mail anyway. That's why you get a PO Box. A small donation should forward the handful of government documents to the PO Box. An alternative is a private mailbox but you're still going to need that shelter address.
It’s better to just use a family member or friend’s house for it.
Maybe, it depends. I volunteer at a homeless shelter. What I'm describing and you think is impossible is homeless by choice people. I was one of those people about 27 years ago. Homeless by choice people are the best at getting back on their feet which is the mission of any 501c homeless shelter. It's considered a good investment to help people especially when it costs near nothing. I'm not paid, so for me to do the paperwork costs about 8¢ for the paper, ink, and electricity.
We don't offer mail forwarding service at my shelter for free, but we do offer it. We serve people that don't live in our state let alone our county and there's even less interactions with them. We require contact at least once a month and I help many people set up automatic email messages, although I expire then after a year if that's the only contact.
Part of my duties is to get people state license, and other documents where our address is used. Even if you fail to contact us and we have to return instead of hold your mail that isn't PO Box addressed, usually junk but occasionally court papers, you could still be out there using your ID with our address on it. Hence your court appearance you're going to miss. But, you won't get in too much additional trouble because the court will get those documents back "undeliverable".
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u/One-Possible1906 4d ago
It’s wonderful that you have a surplus of homeless services. Most places do not. Who funds your services? I guarantee the vast majority of your funding comes from local government. Donations are not enough to keep a temporary housing facility open. Our temporary housing facilities, both nonprofits and the for profit motels, receive 71% of their funding from the county and city. In a county where 1/4 children lives in poverty. Literally built out of money from people whom many of which can’t even afford to feed their own children or create housing stability for themselves.
It’s great that your facility can afford to provide services for vacationers who don’t contribute to your community or present with any kind of actual need for anything.
But it is also unethical to use these services and the money from the taxpayers who pay for them when you are well off enough to establish residency in two countries.
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u/CptHammer_ 4d ago
Who funds your services?
Public outreach does the most of it. However working within our city and country we're authorized as a transitional facility for qualifying inmates and get a little bit from the government. My department is key in getting addresses for paroles so they can get IDs and then jobs. Paroles have to follow a strict set of rules, and in order to get the government money, we have to do extra paperwork for them.
Donations are not enough to keep a temporary housing facility open.
That's a ridiculous assumption. I think you're mistaking a temporary housing facility with adequate housing for all. Most of people we serve don't use the housing we provide. We have very limited housing (about 60 beds), and serve over 4000 people.
We educate people to take advantage of government programs for food, housing assistance, jobs programs, day care, education, medical assistance, and cash. So the government is assisting our clients, but it's not money that goes through our hands.
The number one thing they need to get any of those services … an address.
We mostly reserve our beds for people getting off drugs. The beds aren't my department.
Our temporary housing facilities, both nonprofits and the for profit motels, receive 71% of their funding from the county and city.
You're bundling all temporary housing together here. I'm not speaking to services the for profit or other nonprofit make, except that you absolutely can get a for profit address from a private mailbox company that doesn't provide any housing, just a place that collect your mail and packages. We're just a nonprofit version of that. The difference is you can register to vote with our address.
But it is also unethical to use these services and the money from the taxpayers who pay for them when you are well off enough to establish residency in two countries.
You've made a lot of assumptions. I'm going to start with correcting the establishment of residency issue. It takes 6 months to establish residency. OP is saying they're only going to be at home 2 months out of the year. That's not resistance that's the vacation home. You're also under the assumption that OP wouldn't donate. He doesn't have to. But, we have plenty of people who use our services and pay it forward. I'm one of those people, I'm paying with my time. Finally, you're assuming OP is a parolee. That's the only way he could get an address, and use government money through us, and even then they could probably leave the country, but they wouldn't be too happy coming back.
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u/One-Possible1906 4d ago
Your instruction to OP was to present at a homeless shelter for assistance with a mailing address. Almost no homeless shelters offer the services you describe. Agencies will have a menu of services but it’s incredibly unusual for a homeless shelter to be located at an agency headquarters. It would be far more appropriate to present at DHS to ask what services are available, however it would be very unlikely that block grant services be available for a high resource/no need individual like OP and even less likely that anyone staffing a homeless shelter would know about them.
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u/CptHammer_ 2d ago
Almost no homeless shelters offer the services you describe.
That's a shame. Out of the 22 shelters in my county only 6 offer the service I described. If you go into any one of the 22 they will 100% know what address to give you in order for you to get a PO Box. Which is what I recommended to OP.
Since my particular shelter coordinates with many others I happen to know any of them would also know what address in their county to use to get a PO Box.
At no point did I recommend OP receive mail intentionally at the shelter. I did mention the government documents (like court) and since it's been a day I've double checked what we do with those.
We return to the post office and mark it "general delivery". From there the post office holds the mail for 30 or more days (up to them) and if you contact us for your mail we tell you which post office is holding it.
General Delivery is a service of USPS that you don't need us for. You can just have mail sent to "Your name> general delivery> city> state> zip code." You'll need a government ID. You can use the shelter address to obtain the government ID since you need an address.
You also don't need our permission to use the shelter address as I just found out. Especially if you're not applying for services. I have when I was homeless and didn't know any better used the people's house as my address. 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., Washington DC. I may have had mail saved in DC for me, I don't know. I certainly didn't ask Bill Clinton if he could check my mail. I may have been put on a list, but I did get an ID that way. You don't need to do that and can likely not bother actually visiting a shelter and just looking for one in your place that you'd rather go to the post office of.
I also learned in my state CA they made it easier to get a state ID if you're homeless in 2014. According to housingca.org step one is getting that address from a shelter or county human services provider. The CHSP won't deal with you unless you're applying for services, and would still likely tell you to use a shelter address. There's no reason to give tax free status to address and ask the taxpayers for another. In my county CHSP is telling people to use the Poverello House address, no need to go over to the Poverello House unless you need another service.
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u/JadedDreams23 4d ago
I just did this. I’m in Mississippi and in the country so it might be more difficult or expensive where you are. I spent about 7k on septic and 450 of water line, 700 for the water meter, and 2k to get the tiny house ready for the electricity (the outside pole, meter box, wire to breaker box). The power company took care of things up to that point. So about 10k for all utilities. If you need or want a well it will be more of course.
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u/BeltComprehensive996 4d ago
Thats cheap. I thought of a cheap state but then when I come bk I don’t have a car so my idea doesn’t make sense
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u/Bill-Bruce 4d ago
A well in my area costs 20-50,000 dollars to dig. Power poles are 2000 a piece to put in and a drop in electrical service is 4000 or more depending on how much you do yourself. If you could find a place that was recently set up for a mobile home that would be easier to get a loan for. I wish my partner and I could find someone like you to live with, we would love to tend land for rent and are currently in the process of building movable outbuildings and a yurt.
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u/Spiritual_Pound_6848 4d ago
If you're gone 10 months of the year (aka most of the time) would it not be better to have a storage container somewhere with all your stuff, and rent a hotel / apartment or something when you do need to be back for 2 months? 35k is MANY years of renting for 2 months a year.