Unless you've been living under a rock, I doubt you've missed the fact that housing prices have reached the point where most "regular" folks simply cannot afford to buy and maintain a home any more.
Here in the US, the last resort in affordable housing has historically been the manufactured home (or mobile home) that individuals can own, while most often leasing a plot of land at a so-called "mobile home park" to put it on.
Since Mrs. Denmarkguy and I are planning to leave this place within a couple of years — it has just become too expensive to keep and maintain — we spend more time looking at properties than we typically have in the past.
And there is basically nothing of a modest size and cost out there! It simply doesn't exist, and when an older smaller place comes up, it is bought by a developer, knocked down and replaced with a "luxury home."
Even the so-called "tiny homes" are prohibitively expensive for what you get because builders insist on loading them up with a pile of upscale "features" to where they cost almost as much as a regular house.
As far as I am concerned, that defeats the entire purpose, and I don't need countertops made from exotic salvage wood hand polished by Moroccan virgins.
But I digress.
In looking for affordable houses, inevitably I get bombarded with articles and websites discussing this particular topic.
Most recently, there was an article in our local newspaper about a "crisis" in the form of our two area manufactured home communities having been sold... specifically changing hands from local families to some giant property investment conglomerate.
The problem?
These "investment firms" see mobile home parks as an opportunity to raise the land lease prices to insane levels, knowing that the people in the parks have little choice but to pay because they can ill afford the cost of moving a house.
And so, one final affordable housing option seems to be at risk, and may go away completely... given that this same thing is happening all over the country!
And no, we will not be moving to a mobile home park, but I do find this trend of making housing virtually impossible to access unless you cave in and buy more than you want/need (IF you can afford it!) disturbing and depressing. Where are the builders putting up solid but basic smaller homes for people?
Not happening, folks!
Meanwhile, people stand around and scratch their heads, wondering about the homeless issue.
Walking through the outer edges of the local supermarket parking lots it's pretty easy to recognize the parked cars that are being lived in. As in, this is the owner's home. Or non-home, depending on your perspective.
It bothers me that I see more and more of these...
Well, enough for today! It's blowing a storm out there, and I'm worried the power will go out. Thanks for stopping by, and have a great week ahead!
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Created at 2024.11.04 15:30 PDT
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