According to left-leaning CBS News: “These days you can have almost anything shipped to your door from websites like Amazon and Walmart — including a house. Walmart is now selling a tiny house online for $15,900. The 19-by-20 feet “expandable prefab house” is delivered by flatbed truck and requires a forklift for unloading, according to the online listing. For starters, one would require land on which to install it, as well as building a foundation. The item’s description also recommends pouring concrete on its legs to increase its stability. Then there are also costs for everything from hiring a forklift for unloading the home to installing appliances. Made by Chery Industrial, a New York-based storage solutions company, the tiny home has space for a bedroom, living room, bathroom, dining room and kitchen. It comes unfurnished and without appliances.” Restated, there are numerous add-ons needed to make this house livable. That’s not to mention the need for utilities, HVAC, possible permitting, inspections, and how to insure or finance the structure, which according to their own statements is built for only a 20-year lifespan vs. a HUD Code manufactured home which with proper maintenance will perform like a conventional housing for decades to come. While the superficial evidence would make such Walmart – or similar Amazon – ‘tiny houses’ seem ‘cheaper’ than scores of HUD Code manufactured homes on the market, they are also apparently cheaper in the sense of quality, durability, livability, the need to spend much more money on an array of items to make it truly housing and other costs required before moving in.
MHProNews and our MHLivingNews sister site have been reporting for years about the push by housing providers for a ‘single section’ manufactured home alternative. For example, the screen grab of the first report linked below is dated from 2017. Many of those options are more expensive than comparable HUD Code homes, such as container houses. While the early news about 3D printed houses, for example, seemed to indicate that they would be similar in price to a HUD Code home, later and more recent data suggests that is not the case.
The “Top Ten” Container Home Designs in the U.S., 2017 – Video
Survey Top 2017 PreFab, Modular, Tiny and 3D Printed Housing News Stories
U.S., Brit Media Hyped About Italian Flat Packed PreFab, Video, Stills – From $33K
Yurts – Americans Hunt for an Affordable, Single-Sectional Manufactured Home Alternative
“No Nails, No Glue,” Architect Creates ‘IMBY’ Flat Pack PreFab
Modular Container Housing to House At Risk Women and Families in Vancouver
So, this so-called ‘tiny housing’ being sold by Walmart, Amazon, and others is hardly new. But from time to time, mainstream media features it. Interest in such options thus rises in the wake of such reports.
For those MHVille operations/businesses that have salespeople that may encounter consumers with questions about such products from the public, they should be carefully trained to ask the right questions and make the proper responses to properly help potentially desperate affordable housing shoppers. While some consumers might successfully make this into a true housing option, others will doubtlessly try and fail. A look at consumer ratings on Amazon for such prefab flat packed structures often have serious consumer complaints from those who supposedly have bought them.
That said, that doesn’t mean that the availability of these homes won’t cost manufactured housing retailers possible sales. It is all but guaranteed that such tiny housing already has and will cost manufactured home sellers business. Thus, it merits attention from this platform and from industry pros.
Before we dive into the concerns that should raise about yet another reason why the Manufactured Housing Institute is apparently failing the manufactured home industry due to a lack of their proper response to this kind of competition, let’s look at what the Zero Hedge financial-news site had to say about this Walmart Tiny House phenomena.
As the quotes that follow reveal, Zero Hedge squarely lays the matter at the feet of the Biden-Harris (D) regime due to the economic and housing woes related to the lack of affordable housing in the U.S. in the past 3.5 years.
Part I
Escape Biden-flation Storm With A Walmart Tiny Home
by Tyler Durden
Tuesday, Oct 22, 2024 – 10:10 PM
Housing affordability in the United States under the Biden-Harris administration has hit a generational low. After all, WEF’s slogan of ‘owning nothing and being happy’ has become an alarming reality for millions of Americans in the last 3.5 years.”
MHProNews has previously reported on that very point, using the World Economic Forum (WEF) own tweet, video, and remarks.
The ZeroHedge article continued as follows.
MHLivingNews and MHProNews have also reported on Tiny House Nation.
Our platforms have also reported on the fact that unlike the Manufactured Housing Institute’s years of failure to get enhanced preemption enforced, tiny house backers – without the benefit of federal preemption – have repeatedly gone to court and sued to get their rights enforced.
The ZeroHedge report showed a larger version of the screen grab from the Walmart website of the $15,900 based priced flat packed structure being billed as a tiny house. But because such units are often not equipped with plumbing, heating, cooling, appliances, or other basics of modern living, it is revealed to be more like a storage shed than housing. But again, as MHProNews has been periodically reporting for years, that doesn’t mean that this development isn’t impacting our industry. Pros would be foolish to ignore the reports and existence of such ‘housing’ options.
Again, as seasoned MHVille pros know, land without utilities is just a starting point, not an end point. An array of utilities must be paid for to make a bare piece of property livable. Furthermore, decent all-weather travel access to the lots can often a question too. In fairness to ZeroHedge further down they allude to those added costs needs.
Power hookups and wells are extra costs. Plus, for remote workers, connecting to the internet is as easy as using a Starlink terminal.
That said, quoting from ZeroHedge.
According to data compiled by the National Association of Realtors, the average household income to buy a home now requires over $100k.
Quite so. Again, MHProNews has been reporting on that troubling reality for years, with increasing urgency in the Harris-Biden economic malaise.
MHProNews also recently reported on the dramatically smaller, often single-section style look of conventional housing. The achieve price points that are still higher per square foot than a HUD Code manufactured home, but are ‘close enough’ in price that some manufactured home prospects could in markets where such site-built houses are available represent genuine competition for what might otherwise be manufactured home customers.
The beauty of a nominally free market is that it often finds solutions, real as well as imagined, for the kinds of problems that the public faces.
ZeroHedge ended their post with some strong points on just how troubling the housing crisis has become under a regime that Kamala Harris has repeatedly said she played a key role in. She’s right about that claim, because the left-leaning New York Times said she cast a record number of tiebreaker votes in support of Bidenomics.
Depending on your device or browser, the graphic below can be opened to a larger size by clicking here and following the prompts or clicking the image below and following the prompts.
Part II – Additional Information with More MHProNews Analysis and Commentary
The reports linked below directly address the apparent failures of the Manufactured Housing Institute (MHI) and MHI-linked ‘insider’ brands to protect-educate-promote (PEP) on behalf of the manufactured housing industry. The exclusive MHProNews interview with Mark Weiss, J.D., President and CEO of the Manufactured Housing Association for Regulatory Reform (MHARR) makes that point effectively with its stark contrast with the not only lame, but arguably problematic responses MHI CEO Lesli Gooch gave to Multi-Housing News (MHN) in a similar interview previously reported by MHProNews. See those reports with details, facts, and expert analysis to learn more.
The contrast between Weiss (MHARR) and Gooch (MHI) could hardly be clearer when those reports are carefully considered.
Manufactured housing ought to be roaring. Even MHI member Champion Homes (previously Skyline Champion or SKY) has made the point that production could be doubled, just based on historic trends. But years of underperformance is steadily bringing those historic averages down.
The bad news of the past 3.5 years under Biden-Harris could – potentially – become good news for HUD Code manufactured housing if a law-and-order president is returned to the White House along with a supportive U.S. House and Senate.
Prior President Donald J. Trump (R) and his running mate Senator J.D. Vance (OH-R) offer such a possibility. The polling and betting markets have shifted to Trump-Vance over Kamala Harris (D) and Gov. Tim Walz (MN-D).
If MHVille pros continue to turn out and vote early, and those who don’t show up on November 5, Democratic leaning Mark Halprin has said the current trends point to a Trump and GOP victory. But that is a big if. People must continue to turn out and vote in record numbers. People must continue to bring their friends, family, co-workers and others.
The key to more income, a lower cost of living is found in the Trump-Vance-GOP plan, and is clearly not the Harris-Walz plan. Kamala Harris may have started out sounding like the 2008 Obama campaign’s “hope and change” version 2.0 but is being revealed as ‘more super-sized deception,’ misdirection and smear tactics because that is all that they have. See our election series on the Patch linked here.
Vote early. Vote down-ballot for those who will support Trump and Vance, not just the top of the ticket. Vote wisely on ballot initiatives. Pay attention to the numerous smear tactics that will be rolled out by Democrats as the election draws closer, but don’t take them to heart. Because for most adults who have voted in prior presidential races, we’ve all seen these movies before. The leftist Democratic playbook is exhausted. Their economic policies do not work as advertised. So, Democrats have to rely on smears and left-leaning big media and big tech cover and support for keeping things close.
As a closing point on the election, if Democrats were going to help manufactured housing by enforcing existing laws, they would have done so 3 years ago, and we would not have the affordable housing crisis today. But MHProNews clearly reported that prior HUD Secretary Marcia Fudge, the Biden-Harris regime appointee, rejected enforcing “enhanced preemption.”
Rewarding those who have created the housing and inflationary problems is like hiring the arsonist to fight fires. If you ask the arsonist if they are guilty, odds are good they’ll deny it just as Harris, Walz and their surrogates attempts to do. The Democrats themselves have said they have become the party of the wealthy and big corporations.
So, vote wisely. Vote early. If you can’t vote before election day, vote on November 5th. But vote. Urge your circle of influence to do the same. There will be an ongoing blitz of stories designed to make Trump look terrible and Kamala look like a saint, but she is from the far left. Senator Bernie Sanders (VT-Democratic Socialist) has said he doesn’t think she has changed her views, she is only saying what she needs to say to get elected. In short, Harris is lying.
To pull back the veil on what’s behind the curtain, stay tuned for your runaway most read source for manufactured housing “Industry News, Tips, and Views Pros Can Use” © where “We Provide, You Decide.” © ###
Again, our thanks to free email subscribers and all readers like you, as well as our tipsters/sources, sponsors and God for making and keeping us the runaway number one source for authentic “News through the lens of manufactured homes and factory-built housing” © where “We Provide, You Decide.” © ## (Affordable housing, manufactured homes, reports, fact-checks, analysis, and commentary. Third-party images or content are provided under fair use guidelines for media.) See Related Reports, further below. Text/image boxes often are hot-linked to other reports that can be access by clicking on them.)
By L.A. “Tony” Kovach – for MHProNews.com.
Tony earned a journalism scholarship and earned numerous awards in history and in manufactured housing.
For example, he earned the prestigious Lottinville Award in history from the University of Oklahoma, where he studied history and business management. He’s a managing member and co-founder of LifeStyle Factory Homes, LLC, the parent company to MHProNews, and MHLivingNews.com.
This article reflects the LLC’s and/or the writer’s position and may or may not reflect the views of sponsors or supporters.
Connect on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/latonykovach
Related References:
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