Land / mobile homes / suggestions please

Ive been saving money where i can in hopes of buying some land and setting up a tiny house/cabin for a weekend getaway and somewhere to go if things get bad.

My ol ladies best friend who they have been close like sisters since they were kids has inherited 6 acres in indiana with a single wide trailor, large metal barn a small wooded area and a large beautiful pond with an island. Ive checked it out on google earth and it looks like a piece of dream property!
I curentlly live in illinois and indiana would be a better state to live in. She was going to sell the property but said she would live there if me and my ol lady lived there. We cant all live in one trailor obviously as i have 2 kids and the ol ladys friend has 2 kids.
I only have about 10k saved up and trying to pioneer a way to make this work.
Any ideas or suggesstions or is this just a dream?
I thought about buying a second mobile home and having it moved onto the property but dont know what kind of regulations there are and what it would cost to tie second home into septic and well. Also not sure if id have to have a slab poured for a foundation?

Also thought about buying a large camper trailer and that would cover all the above issues as id just have to park it but not sure what Id do about human waste etc. And the ol ladys friend wont stay in the trailor her dad died in and doubt she would want to live in a camper.

Just trying to figure out if theres any possible way to make this work on a 10k budget. Im a welder and see some welding jobs posted online in the town 15min away.

I would love to live there and work on building a couple tiny houses but havnt quite sold the idea to my wife since we have 2 kids but i love the idea of having land and being free without mortgage and barely making it by paying bills in my current urban lifestyle.

So.... am i dreaming or could this happen?

Hi Dan, welcome to Permies!

As I see it, your move is definitely possible.

The question you need to answer is, "Am I willing to pay what it costs?"

You mentioned money. That's a part of it.

- You'll end up spending some money to get there. For a moving truck, and gas, and pizzas for your friends who are going to help you load and unload.

- And then you'll spend a bunch of money arriving. Turning on utilities. Correcting problems like leaking water heaters and missing porch steps. Maybe acquiring a second trailer and having it delivered.

- And then you've got to spend your normal money (groceries, lights and heat, gas to go places) for a little while before any new money from welding jobs starts rolling in.

So then money's going to sting.



But on top of that, if I were in your shoes, the cost of the pressure of the move would probably kill me.

Leaving all my friends and church? Arriving at a place where I don't know a single person (including anybody to help me unload the dang moving truck? That's hard.

Kids' routines are all broken, they don't know to do with themselves, they need all kinds of extra attention and comforting so they don't melt down? That's hard. I don't have all kinds of extra attention for them when I'm moving.

(My wife and I have moved 8 times in the last 11 years, by the way. With little kids.)

Wife's all frazzled and grumpy because her house is in boxes, she feels like she has to cook, there's no damn spatula anywhere and where's the trash can to throw away the wrapper of this fast food that she feels guilty for having to buy? AND she has to keep the kids from melting down, which is four times as hard as usual? Now you've got to comfort her, too! Unlike the kids, she's not going to LET you, because this whole thing was your idea.

So, the move itself, that's going to sting too.



And quitting a job and finding a new job, that's no big deal. Not stressful at all. Piece of cake.

I'm being facetious, obviously. Landing a job and starting a job are tough! You'd probably like to lean on your wife a little bit for compassion, support, and encouragement... good luck with that. She's at the end of her rope because her domestic domain is a disaster and her kids are draining her dry. She's expecting to receive a whole lot more compassion and encouragement than she gives for the next few months.

So changing jobs, that stings too.



Overall, as I picture it, I think that would kill me. I couldn't handle it. Not with MY wife and MY kids. Maybe you guys are different. Different people have different strengths, and maybe yall's is patiently, peacefully enduring inconvenience. If so, you might be alright.





All that above, that's about whether to go or not go.
As far as HOW, here are a couple things:

- A typical mobile home doesn't need a concrete pad. It can be set on piers.

- It's about $1,000 around here to have a mobile home delivered. Depending on distance, obviously.

- Adding a second mobile home to a well and septic is unlikely to meet building code of wherever this place is, but supposing it does, I'd budget $2,000 for the materials and equipment, and $2,000 for labor. Hard to be any more specific than that without some details.

- If your Mrs's friend won't live in a camper, how about a cabin? Could you buy, borrow, or build a little two-room trapper's cabin for her?

- Think you can line up a job before you get there?

- Wait, hang on a dang second.
You said

"said she would live there if me and my ol lady lived there"

And also

" the ol ladys friend wont stay in the trailor her dad died in"

Doesn't that mean that where SHE lives is HER problem? You're not responsible for that, are you? She won't live with you, she won't live in the home that's already there, but she wants to live on the same parcel. She needs to get herself a shelter, doesn't she?

Ya thats the thing. My wifes friend is the owner of the land and wants to move there but says she cant live in the trailor her dad died in (he was murdered)

She has to go to indiana for the trial in a couple weeks so they got the guy at least.

I guess me buying her a trailor to add onto the property would be my ticket in to live on the property.

My wife and her friend (property owner are all for moving there and doing this)

But they are both niave and think its just as easy as buying a second mobile home and having it moved there. They dont realize about regulations,foundation,water,septic,electrical.... and everything else.

Im a person who sticks to myself and hates city life so friends etc isnt a problem for me. And my wife and her friend are really close and dont have alot of other friends.

The major problem is I only have around 8-10k of disposable funds to make it all happen.

I could move the friend into my current home and help with bills here while I moved into the property and found job, second mobile home etc.... i have about 3mo of storage food I could survive on.

I dont know. It sounds crazy but i see 2016-early 2017 as my last chance window to get out of the city.
With the elections on the horizon I see 3 outcomes and all three lead to civil unrest and dont want to be in an urban environment when that poo hits the oscillating blades

Mike Cantrell wrote:Adding a second mobile home to a well and septic is unlikely to meet building code of wherever this place is

It required a separate septic [perhaps only because the original septic was sized for the mobile home, or perhaps because shared septics are indeed forbidden, I don't know the details] but my family put an additional apartment on the same well with no problem here in unincorporated pierce county [and as unincorporated counties go, most of those in Western Washington are fairly bad. Not as bad as many in the northeast, but not great either.]

Dan Cunningham wrote:With the elections on the horizon I see 3 outcomes and all three lead to civil unrest and dont want to be in an urban environment when that poo hits the oscillating blades

For what it's worth, I Think you're probably blowing this suspicion a bit out of proportion. When has the US had any serious civil unrest on a national level regardless the circumstances?

You have to remember no matter how 'bad' these politicians may be, they're only a small step beyond what came before. People won't like it, they may protest a bit, but in the long run nobody cares.

My suggestion is to take your time and do it right man, rushing is only going to complicate things.

EDIT: whups, accidentally replied to the same thread and caused a double-post, if a mod wanted to merge these two posts and delete my edit line here that'd be cool. [If not, no big deal.]

Another septic would take my whole budget probablly. Doubt I could talk any of them into a composting toilet lol.

I would actually prefer just to find a couple acres close by my current area and then build a tiny house/cabin on a trailor and move it out onto said land but I have no clue how to find a couple acres of land. Been looking on craigslist and a few sites but no luck

Dan Cunningham wrote:Another septic would take my whole budget probablly. Doubt I could talk any of them into a composting toilet lol.

I would actually prefer just to find a couple acres close by my current area and then build a tiny house/cabin on a trailor and move it out onto said land but I have no clue how to find a couple acres of land. Been looking on craigslist and a few sites but no luck

Good luck getting permission to site a home of any type on that land long-term without a septic. Seems plausible only in the locations with absolute zero building codes. Even the super lax counties seem to have their eye on 'waste' for good reason. Too many oldschool outhouses in a watershed is bad news. It's too bad the system doesn't understand simple composting toilets and tends to only approves the formally approved super expensive ones.

How expensive are the land taxes and upkeep? If it is worth your while then maybe you could try and do small improvements when you can and have her hold on to the land for a year or two until you can get things a bit more established. You could perhaps work out a deal and take on the burden of some of the tax and upkeep costs. It would also allow you to 'test the waters' with a much smaller investment, as opposed to spending all of you money and finding out it isn't the dream situation you had hoped for.

You also would want some things in writing. Family and friends who have known each other for decades are also known for getting into irreconcilable differences over money situations or living arrangements. Put the two together and you have all your eggs in a basket that you don't own. It would honestly be a lot better if you spent a smaller amount of time and money looking into it and perhaps buying the land for yourself and renting it out to her. If she was laying out the cash to build or buy her own house then it would be a different story. I wouldn't put too much money into a house on another person's land. I don't know if the laws there would allow that size parcel to be divided, but that is another option.

There are a lot of places to look for land. You can go to landandfarm.com, landwatch.com, or one I found out about recently, trulia.com. The last one you can just punch in a zip code and sort by price and find land lots available in the area. I ran across this by mistake while searching for things in a specific zip code recently. Obviously it will vary in price depending on the area, but you can also see how long it and other properties in the area have been up for sale. If many places have been up for a long time then they aren't selling. This is good for negotiating a better price and bad because there is probably an issue with finding jobs or some other aspect that makes it less desirable to live there. This can certainly work in favor of some permies if their living situation allows it.

The circumstances described of how your wife's friend got the land seems questionable. If people in the area are hostile for whatever reason, then it may be better to just pass on the offer. It only takes one individual to ruin the lives of many people. You might want to find out the circumstances before investing your money there. If people in the area feel you are stepping on their toes then you may be forced to abandon your efforts before you have serious problems.

i think you should do it, figure out a good way to do it =).

i say this because i get the feels that it is what you want, only you are caught up in what ifs, and concerns...which is ok too.

of course it's huge! moving and building, or buying something big like that...so theres obviously a lot of details to work out.

if it is truly what you want, commit to it and then see how that feels, and one step at a time see about making it happen. when i dont know what to do, especially about big things like this, i try to go with what i feel about something, with -first thought, best thought.

if i want to do it i see if i can, then take it from there. you dont have to know all the steps at once, just the first few. maybe taking the first few steps actually lands you there, maybe it takes you elsewhere, and thats ok too.

for some suggestions -->

i would probably look into mickey mousing into the existing septic! well i suppose mickey mouse building isnt for the faint of heart =) but this is what i think i would do.
act like its totally legit, not tell anyone, better to ask forgiveness than permission, and quite possibly (heavily depending on where you are at in rural area) this could be ok.

perhaps do an outdoor bathroom, a small shed, or just screened off somehow, bathroom/ shower area, which could be shared by all of you. perhaps dismantle the old bathroom in the trailer and move it out to a central area. that way you are only having one bathroom on the same septic system, but all of you could use it. much much later if it flows you could set up simpler, closer composters, pits, etc, in area closer to your actual separate places.



also maybe you could buy a shed kit. i have been looking into these a lot over the last few years, there are some companies that make some very excellent large shed/tiny house kits, that are pre cut and ready to assemble, for quite cheap (well considering...). there are a couple here that will deliver a fully assembled tiny house/large shed, on monthly payments, very low payments for a few years.

heres a couple from my book marks that make some cute tiny house shed kits :

west coast -->
http://cedarshed.com/

northeast -->
http://jamaicacottageshop.com/

theres certainly others, but those are the best i have found since looking all over the internet for them...those last ones in particular are my favorites, those people seem to be milling their own hemlock? i think.

theres a local company that will plop one of these things down here, fully assembled, on monthly payments which are ridiculously low, even though i am way out in the middle of nowhere. there are probably a number of them closer to you.

well i dont neccessarily know how your standards are, or how comfortable you would want to be..you know to me 150-250 sq ft is very livable, but i know i am weird bird with a tolerance for roughing it/camping out....

or maybe you have good building knowledge or what...but these i think are really neat, quick options, and quite possibly even your wife and her friend could assemble something like this by themselves. the ideas i have around them is to modify them, just get the basic deal for the roof and the post and beams and then do earth building/add on to them/change them up, use earthen insulation. most of these companies will modify them, like you could add on extra roof, and then plan an additional side pod....with them having made the roof for it already. ...and you doing the bottom and walls of whatever you wanted....

but yeah even as is it could be a nice place in summer, to put up quick and then have somewhere to start.

several loopholes to building codes in different places -- smaller than 200 feet, on wheels is always a different deal, and agricultural buildings. make a garden shed and then set up half of it with a day bed/loft...or create a greenhouse, then put a tiny pod room off to the side to blend in.


possibly convert the existing barn to a living space only skip the bathroom, with just a small almost a kitchen... and make a bigger outdoor kitchen...so it didnt completely look like a house proper.

well those are some thoughts anyway...

Dan if you got the want to I'd look into just getting certified as a septic tank installer. Here in AL it's a rinky dinky test and $100 fee.

That alone could save you about $2500.

Or another way is to be friendly with a septic tank installer and ask him if he would let you do the work and him just "supervise" for a fee.

Another option is to do an addition to the trailer BUT build a covered porch between the "addition" and the trailer.
It's basically called a dog trot house. that way you can say they are one house on paper. But in actuality they are two.

All good advice guys! I appreciate it and it gives me alot to think about.

Ive put a "wanted" add on local CL for 2-5 acres offering 1k per acre. Its a long shot but would be better if i could keep my current job and find something close by.

In the meantime Im going to look into the other land and may go take a drive there to check it out.

Thanks again guys

Dan Cunningham wrote:All good advice guys! I appreciate it and it gives me alot to think about.

Ive put a "wanted" add on local CL for 2-5 acres offering 1k per acre. Its a long shot but would be better if i could keep my current job and find something close by.

In the meantime Im going to look into the other land and may go take a drive there to check it out.

Thanks again guys

I don't know the Real Estate Market in Indiana, but at that size of plot I highly suspect 1k per acre isn't going to cut it.

Not sure if you're up for a fixer-upper but here's a cheap house with unknown amount of acreage $6k. Or a flipper on a river $15k, 1.5 lots, on river. It's very hard to find anything in your area that cheap. Unless someone wants to let you live on their land for free...

Not sure if you're up for a fixer-upper but here's a cheap house with unknown amount of acreage $6k. Or a flipper on a river $15k, 1.5 lots, on river. It's very hard to find anything in your area that cheap.

That $15k flipper property is about 15 miles from me, in the town we go to church at. I've been over in that neighborhood a lot helping elderly folks in my church with this and that. Let me give you my impression about the good and bad news of the area (I know nothing about the particular house). The town (Mt Vernon IN) seems to be experiencing a slow revitalization as more and more large employers move into the area. There is definitely a fair amount of non-minimum wage work to be found in the town. The neighborhood itself is older with small lots and houses and lower middle class/ blue collar. Mostly white, maybe 15-20% black (that's my guestimate, based on nothing more than who I see walking around). Not a rough area, but a lot of poor families in the neighborhood. I don't believe any of the neighborhood flooded in the 1939 (?) flood which is the local standard for how bad it can get .

The river front was more industrial, but they've been fixing it up and now it's pretty nice. A lot of meth around, but that seems to be universal now. The drug problem got better a couple of years ago when we got a new county prosecutor. He's cracked down on it and a lot of the production moved to other counties to avoid the pressure. There are a couple of full sized grocery stores, a few restaurants a fairly nice library and a couple of hardware stores in Mt Vernon. As far as the people go, it seems to me that there are angels and idiots/assholes everywhere and Mount Vernon isn't any different. Most of the people I've met there are decent folks. If you have Jr High or High School aged kids, I would get them into band. I think it keeps them busy and their associating with a nicer set of kids.

Mount Vernon itself is about 15-20 miles from Evansville which is the local big town. I think everything you might need is available on the west side of Evansville (closest side to Mt Vernon, barely in town, only two stoplights between you and the west side) except a good oriental food store, which is on the other side of town. There is a refinery in town, which occasionally adds it's own, distinct aroma to area. It's nowhere near west Texas bad for smell, but can sometimes be noticable.

Overall I think it's a pretty nice area. Hovey Lake is about 8 miles out of Mt Vernon and is a big shallow lake with cypress growing out in the middle. I like to take my canoe out there sometimes. I've run a trot line out there and never got skunked and never caught any catfish under 5 pounds and caught some that were probably over 30. I don't do it anymore because my wife decided she didn't care for catfish. The Wabash River is real close also and empties into the Ohio a little west of town.

This is Ohio Valley, with lots of good dirt, lots of farming, and not much rock. Farmland is pretty high here, but I knew a couple who were against the wall and offered me 8 acres of good, flat land with a slight slope for $32,000.

If you're a prepper, this area has some strong selling points. It's relatively remote from major centers, lots of farming, local electricity, coal, oil and gas production and plentiful water.

You won't regret the things you do but you will regret the things you don't do.

Had a friend who moved to Clam Gulch Alaska & lived on the beach in a tent with his wife & 2 kids. Year later he was in a small cabin they built.

RV's, campers are self contained & you could add a Y connection in the present septic line to dump into.

Buy a big wood shed & put up on blocks, wire, insulate & panel, RV toilet/sink/stove from salvage & you got the apartment.

All kinds of ways to do it so just think it through & try something & if that don't work try something else.

Thanks guys. Alot of good suggestions given!

Just to clarify. Im currently in central IL. The property oportunity is in indiana near marion.

Im going to go check the property out if my schedule permits when the owner goes to her dads murder trial.

Ive also been thinking about buying a nice big cargo trailor and insulating/ building a camper/bugout home inside of it.

Problem is...if I dump my money in the cargo trailor...then I wont have land to put it on. Noone can predict the future but im not sure how vital it would be to actually own land versus bugging out in an emergency situation to a nice rural campground area.

Still have alot of options to weigh out. Will report back after I check the indiana property out.

Thanks again guys.... its a tough decision and all the varying feedback helps!

Dan Cunningham wrote:Thanks guys. Alot of good suggestions given!



Problem is...if I dump my money in the cargo trailor...then I wont have land to put it on. !

Gotta stop seeing "problems" & start seeing "Opportunities"

I built a fully self contained RV from frame up for under $3500.00. I already had the vehicle, got it for free but it did need alot of work including ripping the old water logged camper off.

Check around your area for RV salvage companies, go to RV dealers and ask them about their junk. The idea is to network with as many people as you can & sooner or later what you need will show up.

It's also important to be open to the idea of change of all sorts. So you are thinking about converting a cargo trailer & start putting out that vibe but along comes a camper that needs a bit of plumbing.........

What skills do you have & how can you barter them to get what you want?

Work with YOUR assets not sit around waiting & hoping for something to happen.

Definitely don't commit until you have walked the property and gotten a good feel for it. I would also suggest drive around the neighborhood, if possible talk to neighbors, go spend the day in town and get to know the businesses as well as just the general feel of the community.

In general get a feel for if you want to spend a significant time in this area with these people. It can be an amazing property but if the people suck, then your time there will drag and feel horrible.

With your budget it will likely be tight but if there is a will then there is a way. You might have to find some stuff to sell off to gain more budget, or find a way to renovate something to make it livable, but you can find a way if you set your mind to it.

Oh and a possible resource worth looking into if your part of a church, ask there if anyone could help finance a trailer or some sort of option for you. There can be some very helpful people willing to give a hand to others in their community to get them to a better place.