'Park homes'- why haven't they become The Answer to so much housing issues?

[Miljah]

I mean, seriously, at exhibitions, I've seen some really nice effectively 'mobile homes'. I assume there's a legal definition?

Why aren't there far more, well built, properly insulated, well sited?

Is it because of park home estate owners and weird laws that allow them to hike land rental by 1000% overnight, that sort of thing?

Surely more properly built, properly regulated mobile homes without what amounts to leasehold tenancies would be a good idea?

Don't know why I'm thinking about it tonight!

Definitely a difference between park home & static. Park homes are much sturdier and permanent. They are more like prefabs. Yes they would be a great solution to housing problem. Better than bring homeless or in a dodgy b&b.

My friend's mother lives in one. I think the big problem (for her anyway) is that because they are very cheap, the park can end up being like a ghetto full of undesirable people. Friend's mother can't afford to live anywhere else so she is trapped in a place where the police are regularly knocking on doors because of DV , unsupervised kids roam around making trouble, it's not a nice place to live. Far away from any amenities, a trip to the shops is a major undertaking. She is really trapped in a very unpleasant place.

There is already an American model. They are called trailer parks. As seaeagle said , it is not a desirable way to life.
The ultimate insult is to call someone " trailer trash ".

There are park homes around here that cost as much as a flat. So it's down to preference, but they aren't cheaper.

I don't recognise these descriptions of park homes. Within 10 miles there are a few sites (generally centred round lakes) and the properties are often for sale. The sites have a 'no children' rule and are similar to gated estates. From the ones I've seen driving past, the homes are indistinguishable from very small bungalows - but the plots are also very small.

Park homes are completely different from static caravans. I went to an agricultural show recently and there were a couple of developments promoting their park home estates. You could wander in the park homes on display. They were amazing. One had a conservatory and a utility room, and all the models were very high spec and solidly built. It was twice the size of my flat.

Sites that are only open 10/11 months of the year are holiday sites, not residential sites. You can mortgage park homes but they require a much larger deposit.

They are rip off as a main home, many parks only allow homes under a certain number of years old, so in 10 or 15 years the home will need moving and a new one put in it's place. No mortgages, some open less than 12 months. Near us you can buy a terrace house for less.
The land rent, and park fees can be raised by new park owners any time, parks are sold on for profit.

I think it's a good idea. There are posh park homes on a golf course near me. The council are kicking off about planning permission. It's ridiculous because they have been built quite sympathetically, you cant even really see them from the road or anywhere else (which you would be able to if there were an equivalent number of houses), and they are fairly eco friendly.
They are lovely inside and much bigger than my first studio apartment-plus much cheaper than anything else you could buy in our village. People are always moaning about the lack of affordable housing around here which means the young people move away. There's a solution.
I don't understand the obsession with mortgages really-i wish we we had a more continental system based on renting being the norm (only with better laws around landlords and long term leases and rent not being an insane amount).
Perhaps you should get in quick and pitch it to Boris today OP. He'll probably make you Housing minister-there May not be many more people in line for the job if everyone who says they are going to resign actually does

My parents used to own one for holidays & weekends away (it cost more than my first house in 1999).

Some people lived on site March-January & the park closed for the month of February.

The lady in the home next to my parents spent February visiting her daughter & I remember her telling us that if she stayed all year round she'd have to pay council tax.

Can't get a mortgage. And you might buy your home, but you only are a licencee on the land- so that means you are insecure and can be turfed out at a moment's notice- or less!

They depreciate rather than appreciate in cost and are built with a finite life span. Unless you are continuous saving to buy a new one you’ll eventually find yourself with no home and no capital to buy a new one. There is also the issue that you don’t own the land do are at the mercy of site fee hikes and evictions.
John Oliver did a good program a while back about the crisis mobile home owners in the US face having been told that this was a good cheap way to get onto the housing ladder and then finding out it was an expensive insecure money pit.

The prefabs built during the war Weren't all bad either. I've visited lots of them in my time as a care manager.Lots if the ones I've been in are in good nick, often built on big plots, and are quite Roomy and easy to maintain.

There is an estate of them in Letchworth for example that was built just after the war. Each house has a garden and had a pig or chicken pen ready made. An apple or pear tree was planted on each front garden-the idea was that people could be self sufficient should there be another war/during ongoing rationing. Tons of green space in front.
They are still full of families now and remain lovely. Ok they aren't the nicest to look at from the outside but they also aren't the worst buildings I've ever seen.
Planning just isn't done with the above things in mind anymore and we are the worse for it.
They tried to knock that prefab estate down a few years ago and everyone went mad and refused to leave so they've left it up.

My in laws looked at buy a static mobile home onna residential site near us and while the mobile homes looked lovely and could be built to your spec there were so many site rules. Where you could park, if you could have a shed in your garden or not, the height of fences. And if you were to sell it you had to give a certain % back to the the site owners.
They weren’t allowed kids to stay (retirement site) so that meant could look after grandkids and they had careers coming in who could park near their home

They could be a partial solution but they are not very long lasting especially in a wet climate like ours and our problem is lack of land thus land prices. Apartments can be built denser so are a better solution for most areas. However when a family has enough land for another dwelling they are a solution eg on a farm for the next generation

I imagine the top spec mobile homes are built far better than the shitty housing development near us. The houses look horrendous, badly built and cheap.

Good quality park homes do exist and are nothing like static caravans or mobile homes. However there are some drawbacks. For example they cannot take structural changes even minor ones because they aren't built like houses. So putting up basic aids like grab rails in the bathroom isn't possible.

They're expensive here- a few hundred pounds. There's nowhere you could build any new ones as there just isn't the space. Surely if they were well built enough to be mortgageable, they would be even more expensive?

Trailer parks have very much been done in the US, presumably in less populated areas.

Actually my local council is apparently planning to build something like this in a couple of places near me. Both the sites I am aware of are council-owned car parks. The 'pod' homes they want to build look quite cute now (like one of those George Clarke projects), but I bet they will be run down and tatty within ten years.

You can’t get mortgages on them as they aren’t designed to last for a long period of time like houses. If you build them out of better materials that will last in order to make them mortagageable then they’ll cost a lot more.

They take up an awful lot of space. They’re all one storey with space left all around them so neighbours aren’t right up against the windows. All the new builds round here are tightly packed in terraces - the ground floor being a space for a car so no space is wasted. One of these park homes would take up more space than these 3 bedroom terraced houses do.

The main issue with housing is cost and lack of available land to build new housing on. Sticking people in park homes that they can’t get mortgages on doesn’t solve either of those issues.