Living in Static Caravan/Mobile Home as an alternative to house buying

glerwill

There have been a number of posts about cutting housing costs by living in a static caravan/mobile home/park home.

I decided to gather some information and wish to hear comments from other MSErs.

My housing requirement is 2 bedroom accommodation in Pembrokeshire, with a double garage. We currently live in an approximately £150K house elsewhere in UK. There is approximately £7.5K equity. We owe £25K apart from the mortgage. We have less than 10 years before making a permanent housing choice. If we are lucky, we will have paid off the £25K, have £10K cash and basic private pensions providing £15K per year (prior to state pensions kicking in some 5-10 years later).

Current figures for a static caravan are:
• All annual fees and costs £4500 (fees, rates, gas/electric/water, insurance) - cost growth is less than £100/year based on historical information over the last 5 years.
• Cost of a van 35 x 10, 2006 vintage, sited, first years fees included – subject to negotiation down - £19K.
• No limit on age of van – but must be kept in good repair.
• Unavailable for 6 weeks of the year –jan/mar – take a foreign holiday! (£2000)
• Need to purchase a double garage/generator separately (£20K) – or land to build one on – cheaper.
• Laundry costs - £10/week?

From another thread came the information that if you wish to site your own caravan on a holiday park, the site refuse to do it or charge you an ‘extra’ years fees as a compensation for their loss of commission on a caravan sale. This is a shame as a ‘self build’ well insulated van seems a good MSE option! (SIPs, waterproof OSB3, metal low gradient tiling, etc).

The alternative is buy a rundown 2 bed house with space for a garage and slowly improve it – hoping that the mortgage is affordable, within pensions.... which feels debatable?

I found this a useful site for ‘relative housing prices’ hnm.org.uk/maps.html# house prices 2009, which allows you to find ‘cheap areas’ in expensive locations.

Please can I ask that you focus your comments on the benefits/disadvantages of a caravan vs house buying.

Rgds

Graham

Emmzi

Graham, no other alternatives? When the obvious thing in our position is to rent? Excluding that from the discussion seems somewhat pointless to me as it is what you can afford!

glerwill

Hi Emmzi,
perfectly true and a static caravan is effectively 'renting'. However, most landlords refuse dogs - those that don't charge higher prices/offer poor quality properties. Rents at the moment appear to be going up, for well known reasons - appreciate that is unlikely to be forever.

Some sites offer nice locations/countryside around etc - possibly unachievable for me?

My gut reaction at the moment is that the figures don't add up - but I would welcome the views of MSErs that may be better with numbers than me.

The ideal situation would be someone selling a caravan and land that has been used for residential for a number of years - you can replace/self build on a nearby farm and transport to site - which gets you good quality/cheap price....

I dont see any such situations advertised....

thanks

Graham

lincroft1710

So you want a double garage and a dogs allowed site? Did you factor cost of kennelling of dog(s) for 6 weeks whilst on holiday, or will a friend/relative look after it /them.

Van costs £19K, you have £7.5K equity, less fees will give you £5K if you get the price you want, so you have to find £14K finance, thus your debt is £39K. Will you have storage fees for any furniture/belongings you want to keep, but won't fit in the van?

Double garage?? Not on the site surely? Land to put a D/G on, would have to be in an urban/semi urban environment because of planning. The chances of finding something suitable are probably minimal and land cost will be at least £20K, then cost of garage. You might find a farmer with an unused barn prepared to rent it out, or a small vacant unit on a farm where pp exists for industrial/storage/workshop.

Land with caravan in Pembrokeshire? If you found such an animal what would it cost? £50K? £100K?

Sorry but because of your requirements, I don't see this working

puddy

so you're hoping that in 10 years you will have equity in your current house and/or savings meaning that you can afford to buy the caravan and then will pay for ongoing costs out of your pensions?

the problem is that not only will you have no control over site fees and conditions, you are stuck with going away for 6 weeks every year whether you like it or not, ill or not, dogs or not

you have no say in the ownership of the site, it could be owned by a really nice reasonable owner one minute and then sold off to someone who insists that you buy their new style caravan, changes the situations re dogs, says no visitors, you have to have the same utilities as they do, all sorts of conditions are attached

then they take a % of the sale of your caravan and have to vet the new owners so if you need to sell up its not easy

i wouldnt pick it to be honest