Yay, Escrow closed! and a comment on the cost of living in San Diego County.
We went from one rental (1000 sq ft rental house) to another rental (lot rental); our monthly expenses will be cut by 5/8ths (on average) and our living area went up by half!
We just paid cash for a REO 1562 sq. ft double-wide mobile home (as is, interior is rather nasty - owner didn't smoke but owned a medium sized dog, but it's structurally very sound and had been maintained until around 5 years ago) on a 50' x 80' lot (so we have a small yard!) for under $30K in a privately owned 4 star mobile home park in San Diego proper on a 10-year lease; utilities to the trailer are sub-metered, the park handles everything else.
Great thing 1- We don't have to worry about mortgage, our lot rental is $720 a month + sub-metered utilities, we have access to a large pool, Jacuzzi, picnic area, and a club-house with saunas, a commercial kitchen, laundry, game room, and on-site security and 24-hr. emergency maintenance. And we own the trailer so we can do anything we want to the inside, or add on some more structure so long as we don't create an eyesore and it meets manufactured/mobile home code. And we have 75 amps to play with (if we wanted to jack up our utility bill)!
Great thing #2 - our annual tax is $750 a year, and our full insurance (including replacement and set-up of new) is $300 a year. And more importantly, NO MELLO-ROOS. Voluntary HOA (more for club-house maintenance) of $10 a month.
Good thing #1 - We crunched the numbers, this was the most economical way to change and improve our lives after receiving an estate settlement. The settlement was not enough to put down on a house or apartment that suited our needs and get a mortgage less than what we were currently paying in rent - the very minimum we could find was $230K for a fixer-upper - where we'd probably have to drop another $50K in it just to make it livable (cracked foundation, roof was half tarped; it was "a contractor's dream - bring your tools and sweat equity!"
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I've owned a house that had a previous owner before, there's a lot of crap that goes on with a mortgage, even if you have a fixed rate if something happens and you feel you can't afford to repair or maintain the house as well as pay the mortgage and you don't want to get a second to pay bills on the house. With most mortgages around $2K a month on $400K homes, the average San Diegan who buys now may be able to "afford" to pay the bank, but not afford to put aside the $50 or so a month into a rainy day account if the roof needs re-shingling, a major appliance fails, your porch gets dry-rot, your paint is peeling off, or you need to treat for termites, replace the carpet or do some other repairs around the house.
And there are still enough horror stories out there about banks foreclosing because of MERS and other lienholder confusion that I wouldn't want to risk it with a house that might have gone through several flips or a foreclosure before we "bought" it with bank money supplementing the money we put down.
Rents for a house or apartment of reasonable size with ADA amenities are just not affordable to us any more and they keep going up; I make too much for section 8 or assistance (and always will). Even if we considered further downsizing, studio apartments that are ADA accessible start at around $800 a month - and those are without utilities included. So a mobile home is a happy medium, and one we can renovate to suit our needs and tastes with a nice sized kitchen, fairly open floor plan, lots of storage and master suite is an even happier medium.
Good thing #2 - comparable mobile homes in that park that had been "renovated" (i.e., inspected and repaired to meet code compliance, new carpet, new paint, newer appliances) are going for $50 - $70K, and that's up from when we first made the offer at the beginning of January when they were going for $40 - $55K. And it looks like they are still going up. People we know who live at that park (which a lot of technicians, former and current military and the like live) tell us that at the height of the real-estate bubble, some of the older trailers -30 to 40 years old (like ours is now) - were selling for up to $80K "as is", and being sold within days of being listed. And lot rental had not gone up more than 5% over the past 15 years, so it's not expected to go up more than that over the next 15, which is a lot less than can be expected in a standard house or apartment rent.
Working families are still saving up to purchase "cash" or with enough cash and a supplemental personal loan, because you can't get a mortgage on most mobile homes - unless you can guarantee you will remain on that site for the length of the mortgage.
Bad thing 1- we have to renovate it ourselves, and it looks like that's going to cost us two months or so and another $20 to $30K (we had two inspections to verify the condition of the home). I had originally estimated around $15K. Oh well. Just means we can't put $10K in an IRA like we had been planning.
Bad thing 2 - we're going to have to break the lease on the house we're renting now. That's basically a loss of our security deposit and an additional $500 penalty fee.
Bad thing 3 - We have to pay rent on two residences until we finish renovating the home. Hopefully, that will only be 2 months at most. Paying over $3K a month in rent and an additional $700 in utilities is going to be very difficult, even if we do put money aside.
Hey, how about a DU get-together and Demo party?... Our club-house is set up for events as large as 150 people, and I can do a dozen or so home-made pizzas in their ginormous oven and provide the beer...
Actually, I might need to make a "bat call" when it comes to the floors; the non-skill specific work we're doing ourselves, and one of the things we're doing due to sinus issues is putting bamboo and cork throughout and I'd like to knock that out as quickly as possible. My knees and back can barely handle putting down even a "click plank" floating floor over the amount of square footage in the kitchen, let alone the rest of the home, and I'm the primary "sweat equity" worker in the family.
Anyway - Yay! Escrow closed!
Haele
= new reply since forum marked as read
In some areas, brick and meter homes have become too expensive for the average home seeker. You have a plan and are working it to better your life. Good for you and enjoy the amenities of a quality, manufactured home park. 
