Let’s get back to the “Mobiles for freedom” topic today. Anyone find it surprising that a small home could be purchased for a very reasonable amount and save you years and years of work? This would ideally allow you to retire earlier? It really shouldn’t have been a surprise though since I’ve broached this subject on several occasions in the past. It’s even possible to find a home that most of you and your spouses will not only agree to live in but might even really enjoy. My hope is to prove to all of you that what is viewed by many as a reduction in standard of living will actually be an advance in quality of life!

 

   I was very hesitant to look into this whole mobile home idea initially, just like many of you still are… Mrs. Prepper isn’t what I would consider high maintenance but I didn’t think I’d be able to sell her on the idea of living in a singlewide mobile home, much less a 12 year old model. There are other options, doublewides or even triplewides but the lowly singlewide is the favorite for me and I’ll share my reasons why in the future as we explore this topic… I was pleasantly surprised that once we got to looking at these homes she was a willing participant in what would prove to be a key element in our financial freedom plan!

 

   Last time we discussed this topic I was attempting an example of what the cost differential was between a 100K stick built home versus a 10K mobile home in what it would equate to in required hours of your life worked. There could certainly be better examples that someone might come up with to illustrate this same point but I hope you all caught what I was going for anyway.

 

   With so many other high expenses required by our modern life, why are mobile homes such a key element in the financial freedom equation? It’s because they can often be purchased outright for cash and or be paid off rapidly. Shelter is one of life’s few basic requirements; everyone has to have a place to stay warm and call home. That home can be found in many different configurations but my approach will be to make the transition from the American housing norms of stick built housing as painless as possible.

 

   Modern mobile homes are constructed very nearly identical to a stick built home with the exception of their foundations. The fact that they are built in a factory someplace in the Midwest and then trucked to their final site destination requires a different approach then would have been used for a solid concrete foundation poured to fit immediately before construction began… Is this deviation from the norm a good enough reason to increase your cost of shelter by close to 900%? Keep in mind that my simplified example in the last post was conservative and the cost differential could easily exceed 900%… I just don’t think the additional costs can be justified, especially when looked at as the number of hours worked! However, this being a “free” country and me being a libertarian leaning sort of guy, feel “free” to choose the expensive route if you must… “It’s your future!”

 

   Besides shelter our daily requirements are only food and water… These 2 will have to be addressed regardless of where you live so they don’t even need to enter into this discussion today, we’ll cover them separately at a later date. Since we all agree that Shelter is required, what additional considerations need to be accounted for in our shelter selection?

 

   First thing I can think of is cost but I think we’ve already established that the sky’s the limit in America for what we could spend on our housing… We’ve touched on this last time but this item will be covered on an ongoing basis from different perspectives as they come up, let’s just agree that the cost is a concern and move on to the next item…

 

   I think we can also all agree that our shelter is seen by most of us as a long term investment, if it isn’t it should be! How do these mobile homes stand up to reasonable scrutiny as a long term investment? This point is a little less cut and dry but I maintain that the shelter we all should be looking at as our long term investment could easily be accomplished with a solid mobile home.

 

   The days of a person buying a house only to sell it again in 3-5 years for drastically more than was paid for it are over and I don’t expect to see them return in my lifetime. Let me make myself clear here, this strategy is still possible but the game has changed. Many of the folks that were successful in executing this plan up until a few years ago were playing by rules that favored this strategy. Our current and near term housing market does not support that game any longer and we’ll need to adjust our own investment strategy to follow the rules as they are written now!

 

   Mortgage loans are much harder to qualify for today than they were only a few short years ago… This doesn’t have to concern us preppers as much as it does the average consumer, we’ll be shopping for a different type of home; our type would generally not qualify for conventional financing anyway! Much like our great grandparents, we will need to shop for a home with the truly long term in mind! Not 3-5 years in the future but possibly 30-40 years. When a long term investment is looked at truly in the “long term” it will require a different set of criteria to properly evaluate…

 

   If we choose our home carefully, the long term investment potential is only limited to the number of years we choose to live in it! Every month that we don’t have to make a house payment is a month of positive return on investment for us. This positive return on investment could even begin as early as the first month, depending on how the investment is structured… We’ll discuss these investment strategies in depth in future posts as well!

 

   Ok, what else do we need to consider in our search for shelter? How about, location? The old quip about “location, location, location” is still true today! Location is an important consideration for sure, so how will mobile homes stack up from this point of view?

 

   Mobile homes can be and are found in just about any locale you might possibly think of! There are mobile homes sitting in some very expensive zip codes, just like they are found in old dirt lots that don’t even have conventional utilities to hook up to… Location, in relation to this discussion on mobile homes is only limited by where your imagination might take you. I feel like this might be a good time to remind everyone that these homes are called “mobile” for a reason; because they can be moved to just about anywhere!

 

   While this short list of things to consider is far from exhaustive, it does cover the basics… We have determined that an affordable shelter alternative does exist. You can locate a home like this in almost any area of the country and the investment will often pay a dividend right from the first month.

 

   This shelter strategy isn’t going to be for everyone but it is available to everyone! I know I have my work cut out for me but by the time I’m finished I think most of you will agree with me that mobile homes are the answer to our largest ongoing financial requirement!

 

 

Stay tuned for more on this subject…

 

 

Prepper

 

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