Getting out from under rent on limited $$$

2handband · Post by **2handband** » Tue May 22, 2012 3:32 pm

K, here's the situation:
My wife cannot work, for various reasons that I shall not go into in a first post.
For those same reasons, I have to be home more often than not. We have a four-year old daughter that needs an active parent. I make my living playing guitar in bars on weekends and doing occasional odd jobs. As you can imagine, it's not a lot of money. But it allows me to be at home most of the time which is fine... I don't like working much anyway!
The reason this works is that our expenses are exquisitely low. We have no debt except for student loans which are forever buried in Income Based Repayment (we make so little money that our payments are $0 a month), I grow most of our food, and we own our mobile home free and clear. Our only significant expense is trailer park lot rent, which is highway robbery at $250 a month. There are less expensive parks in town, but oddly they're all quite a bit more upscale and won't let a 1974 trailer near the place.
I'd like to get out from under the lot rent. Part of it is that true freedom is owning your home and the land it sits on (we've got the first but not the second), and the other part is that my wife hates bitterly living in what is indisputably the crummiest neighborhood in our small city of 12,000 ppl. Unfortunately my wife's condition also precludes us going very far, and the cheapest house in town is 40,000. I could buy a vacant lot with cash on hand, but the nazis on the town council have decreed that mobile homes must be confined to mobile home parks (some horseshit about propping up property values), so I'd have a lot with no house. I could probably build a house, but with building codes being what they are I'd stand an excellent chance of running out of dough before the project was completed.
Bottom line: I don't have a lot of money, and am not likely to get a bunch of it in the immediate future. We are trying rather desperately to get out of the trailer park we are in, but are not willing to increase our living expenses in order to do so; in fact we want to reduce our living expenses by owning a place free and clear! I have some money saved up, but it will not buy a pre-existing home in this city and I can't put my trailer on a vacant lot. We've considered a lot in one of the small towns in the immediate surrounding area (where I could put the trailer), but that brings up the nasty subject of car dependency.
Any badass ideas? I've been trying to think outside the box and come up with something completely wild to do, but all I can think of is the mundane. If it wasn't for my wife I'd pack up and move out to one of the rust belt cities where houses are being sold for like a dollar, but that simply isn't an option at this point.

Christopherjart · Post by **Christopherjart** » Tue May 22, 2012 3:37 pm

Do your city codes allow building a tiny house?

2handband · Post by **2handband** » Tue May 22, 2012 4:23 pm

@Chris: No. 1200 SF minimum for a single-story dwelling.
@bigato: I don't have the $40,000 that a pre-existing home would cost in this town.

Christopherjart · Post by **Christopherjart** » Tue May 22, 2012 4:34 pm

Could you "camp" on your lot while building the mimimal sized home on the lot?
Could you have plans drawn up to build a minimal house and separate garage (with bathroom) and live in the garage and very slowly build the house?

2handband · Post by **2handband** » Tue May 22, 2012 4:38 pm

The garage idea has occurred to me, as has the camping. Camping is an option limited to the summer months... I live in Minnesota.

Christopherjart · Post by **Christopherjart** » Tue May 22, 2012 4:47 pm

ok, well if you could get away with building the garage with bath and perhaps a "storage loft", you could move in and gut the trailer and sell the rest for parts/sell the trailer and get inexpensive appliances and basically garage camp while using the $250 you save each month to get the frame of the house up.
Once the frame is up, you could probably take your time to actually get it livable. You'll have to see what kind of inspection is required there and if the building codes have any required deadlines for building houses, garages, and storage sheds.

riparian · Post by **riparian** » Tue May 22, 2012 5:41 pm

Is there a national forest around you? No electricity/water, livings free, move at least 1 mile every 14 days. Also see freecampgrounds.com.

jennypenny · Post by **jennypenny** » Tue May 22, 2012 5:46 pm

Didn't someone post a link recently to a guy who got his town to approve building a house and garage, but then he only built the garage? I think he lived in SF but moved to Hawaii. I can't find the thread. Does anyone remember? It was the thread with the woman who built her place out of a shipping container in the desert.
You could try buying commercial land in a nicer neighborhood and getting approval to open your own RV park. It would be up to you whether you wanted to be the only ones who lived in it, or open it up to other campers for income.

2handband · Post by **2handband** » Tue May 22, 2012 5:59 pm

Yes, I've3 seen the video about the dude in hawaii, and have been considering emulating him

J_ · Post by J_ » Tue May 22, 2012 7:05 pm

"There are less expensive parks but they don't let a 1974 trailer come in"

With some clever cladding, styling and paint you can change the look of your trailer more up to date.

Scott 2 · Post by **Scott 2** » Wed May 23, 2012 5:24 am

With a child and low income, can you qualify for any sort of government help?

DutchGirl · Post by **DutchGirl** » Wed May 23, 2012 10:44 am

Minimum 1200 SF: can you build four walls with some windows and a cheap roof, making one area of 120x100 feet, and park your trailer inside?

dot_com_vet · Post by **dot_com_vet** » Thu May 31, 2012 3:33 am

Do you have any friends with land in the country that would rent you a space on the cheap?

Phineas · Post by **Phineas** » Sat Jun 02, 2012 4:37 am

A mobile home has an axle, a trailer hitch and no foundation. By building a foundation and bolting the mobile home to it (and removing the trailer hitch) you now have real estate instead of a mobile home.

With real estate you will now have property taxes, but this may be the way to overcome the no mobile homes laws. Consult with a local attorney well-versed with real estate law.

Dezdura · Post by **Dezdura** » Sun Jul 08, 2012 3:40 pm

The only idea I can come up with is to try to get a job as an apartment manager, which provides you with housing.