Monday

O.O

Single wide.
Two bedrooms, 1 bath.
$110,000
For a mobile home!

Last night, while surfing TV for something to kill half an hour or so, I stumbled upon the redneck version of Extreme Home Makeover. Trailer Fabulous. Instead of demolishing an entire house and rebuilding for some deserving family, these people go in and spend 48 hours redoing someone’s mobile home. It was interesting in a Rubberneck While Driving By An Accident sort of way.

I determined that if it had been my domicile, I would have been super pissed to come home to my former white not-so-bad-looking home painted bright green with yellow flames licking up the sides, but what the hell. It was noticeable and different, even if not my taste. And the interior was a subdued shade of Not Half Bad. The living room was a heck of a lot bigger than what we have now.

So in a pique of curiosity, I flipped through the classifieds and sought out local mobile homes for sale. It’s not that I have any burning desire to move into a single wide mobile home with just one bathroom, but I wouldn’t necessarily be opposed to a double wide with a bath and a half. With single family dwellings in this area pushing the $450,000 for a 3 bedroom in a less than desirable area, and better homes over the half million mark, I’m surprised more people don’t think in terms of the affordability of a mobile home (or maybe they do, and they simply don’t consult with me…)

But then I saw the prices on the few listed in the paper, and dang near choked on my Cherry 7Up Plus.

The last time I looked at mobile homes in the paper—not more than 5 years ago, same odd curiosity—a double wide was going for about $35,000.

But then houses were a lot cheaper, too.
Less than $200,000 for a decent sized 3-4 bedroom house.
Makes me wish we’d been in the position to buy back then.

Now we need to win the lottery—which means remembering to buy lottery tickets—or we’re going to be life-long renters. ’Cause I’m not paying $500,000 for something that in 5 years might only be worth $200K, and I’m sure as heck not spending over a hundred thousand on a tornado magnet…

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