Saturday, October 15, 2011

Affordable Housing in California-Manufactured Homes?

It’s clear that more education is needed for an understanding of the term Affordable Housing.
The term “Affordable Housing”, what is it and what does it mean to us?

Can Warren Buffet be wrong? He purchased ‘Clayton Homes’ Manufacturing.
Manufactured housing, or so-called mobile homes, are less expensive by far in the past, now, and probably long into the future, per the construction and appraisal experts. Here is a sample of manufactured housing building costs compared to stick-built homes, 2 bdrm./2bath:

Manufactured Homes ----approximately $25-$45 per square foot to build.
Stick-built Homes --------approximately $75-$200 per square foot to build.

Housing Cost Comparison
Manufactured: Approximately $300/mo. to $1200/mo. space rent
Apartment: Approximately $900/mo. to $2200/mo.+
Condo: Approximately $900/mo. to $2200/mo. - plus HOA fees
Residential: Approximately $1200/mo. to $3000/mo.+

Value in Marketplace
Manufactured: Approximately $50,000 to $100,000
Apartment: Approximately $90,000 to $220,000
Condo: Approximately $100,000 to $300,000
Residential: Approximately $150,000 to $400,000

These numbers will vary from City to City, Park to Park, etc. The next area is where “who you work for” provides a different viewpoint, depending on who is asked. According to HCD people in Sacramento, when asked the question “Is an existing manufactured home counted as affordable housing as part of the 5-yr. housing plan?” Answer, “Yes, but.......” (Don’t you just hate “Yes, but” answers!)

What came out was the following:

a) Cities have probably more than one plan, i.e., State, City, County, Re-development.

b) Whichever plan(s) is/are spoken of, there is the referral to ‘Law’ that only new homes to be built are counted toward the purposes of meeting increased demand for affordable housing.

c) The law, contained in more than one publication, is very clear. “Affordable Housing cost is 30% of income.”

d) The law, also has a number of formulas that start with the ‘median income’ of the area. This is where the homeowner, retired, living on Social Security, home paid for, and ‘in-place’ for the duration, could not come within a country mile of that formula -- even the 50% of income, etc. Do the math yourself.

(e) The intrusion of government is seen again here. Although counted as “Affordable Housing” now and in the past, the government views our existing homes as needing re-hab, etc., so that the need for New Affordable Housing can be increased --- justifying construction of higher cost, higher density, higher tax revenue, higher City Re-development activity.

By any measure, our manufactured homes are the epitome of AFFORDABLE HOUSING. Our homes are counted, now, in the past, and for the foreseeable future as Affordable Housing. The use of taxpayers’ money to ‘subsidize’ the over-built government waste called ‘new affordable housing’ is not necessary. In a short time, the subsidy could buy and/or re-hab many of our manufactured homes.

Better yet, build more Parks! Ones where the home and land are one. We all know there is a HUGE STORM coming with Baby Boomers retiring. I just don’t get why the Cities, Counties, and State entities don’t get it. They know we are here!! They don’t seem to even count existing seniors and Veterans. What’s up with that??

1 comment:

  1. Hmmm, the disparity of prices between manufactured homes and stick-built homes is very far. So naturally we prefer manufactured homes.
    I checked washington state manufactured homes. They look good for me.

    ReplyDelete