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Comment by binarray2000 | Hacker News Reader

binarray2000

What a perversion! The richest country in the world celebrates trailer parks. Even "upscale trailer parks". OK, one has to admit, it is an improvement over tent cities. No wonder these exist. When you're giving hundreds of billions to gamblers and nothing for social housing you get "ghetto" areas which even police avoids. You officially live in a free country and you surely can go into those areas but it's questionable if you'll come back with your life and your possesions.

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As a clarification, I just want to make sure that by "gamblers" you were referring to the various Wall-Street one-percenters who repeatedly rape our economy. I don't mind millionaires (or billionaires) who actually produce something but it's aggravating that someone can take such a large percentage of the profit by simply shuffling money around.

I don't buy the "it creates market liquidity" argument for one minute ... we'd find the liquidity the market needs elsewhere.

Upvoted. Yes. And I agree: As long someone is producing value she is contributing to the society.

honestly speaking, I lived in both and I'd rather walk through a trailer park any day than an area of 'social housing'.

there was no 'giving hundreds of billions to gamblers' going on that I am aware of. The financial bailout was necessary, though not implemented terrifically, but the US/tax payers did make a healthy profit off the whole thing.

trailer parks aren't as profitable as made out to be in the article. sure, a few success stories. a high % of people in them do not pay their rent, and its very hard to make them leave when they do not - especially since you'd have to kick out half the park.

don't believe me? the number of people living in trailer parks is down significantly from the 1970s, when the rates were over 10%. In fact, had their 'financial crisis' story held up, there would be more people living in trailer parks today than in 2000, that's not true.

lots of trailer parks began drying up with access to FHA loans and low inflation. There's really not a good reason to own a trailer @350/month + paying real estate taxes (yeah, cities tax them AND the land under them) when you can buy a home and pay around 300-500/month in mortgage.

> The richest country in the world celebrates trailer parks.

So what? The only difference between a trailer home and a traditional home is one is built on a frame that can be moved and the other has a fixed location with a foundation. What's wrong with that?

No, the real difference is that trailers depreciate over time, while houses (and property) appreciate.

Mobile homes--when purchased--are not an investment in the same way real estate is. Think of them more like automobiles that wear out and eventually have to be replaced.

Actual homes depreciate too - it's just the land that may go up in value.

Houses are a capital asset, they get maintained and you can borrow against them to improve. Newer houses may be different, as the standard of construction in many cases is pretty awful these days.

Trailers are cars with beds. They only go down.

Are you European? American houses simply aren't as well-built as houses you might be used to, and they never have been. Sure, history is the reason why we don't have any 500yo houses. One might wonder, however, why we don't have any 100yo houses. Any that do exist are on a historical register, because they are rare. The reason is stick-and-mud quick construction methods.

This is actually a perfectly reasonable practice, as Americans move around quite a bit. Some of the crappiest 80yo houses I've seen were in Toledo OH and Detroit MI, two cities that don't actually need much century-old housing. But that sort of thing exists everywhere, and in many places is regularly torn down and replaced with new buildings that will also be torn down within the lifetimes of many people living today.

No 100 year old houses?! My first house was 220 years old in NH and the house I own now is ~95 years old in a city with hundreds, if not thousands of 100 year old homes. Yes, a few are on a registry (Colonial era houses near Harvard Sq and a few along the river) but the vast majority are not.

Nope, I live in upstate NY.

Structurally, and in my opinion, good homes built before the mid 1950s are way better than anything today. The lumber was better, finishing work is better and materials are better. Keep a food roof on them and they will be around in 200 years.

The new stuff is built cheap with lots of glue and questionable durability.

In my area (upstate ny) you can find houses built in the 1850s easily. A few can be found back to the 300+ age range. There aren't many because we had few people back then and city growth over the years razed many.

> One might wonder, however, why we don't have any 100yo houses. Any that do exist are on a historical register, because they are rare.

That's frankly a ludicrous house. The house I grew up in is nearly 200 years old, and it's certainly nothing special and not on any historical registries. Many houses in the Northeast are of a similar age.

Haha, I should stipulate that I don't mean to diminish how special anyone's particular 15th-century greek-revival saltbox bungalow is. That was kind of my point.

If you own a rent house, you can fully depreciate the actual house over a span of time.

http://www.irs.gov/publications/p527/ch02.html

It is land that gains in value, unless the house is unusual in some way.

"No, the real difference is that trailers depreciate over time, while houses (and property) appreciate."

It is a myth that houses always appreciate. Real estate bubbles have occurred over and over again, dating back to ancient times.

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