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Anonymous10/30/25, 21:13No.2954235What is THE cheapest form of housing?
Is it better to buy the trashiest used mobile home I can find, buy a shipping container and DIY, or buy a prefab "tiny home", cuckshed, etc.? I want to do the bare minimum, the only real requirement is having a roof over my head.
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Anon10/30/25, 21:46No.2954248
Tiny home 100%, it's like a trailer but more durable and better insulated for harsh weather. Hire a pickup truck bro from craigslist to move it when you get tired of your renter. "Mobile" homes always fuck you with the space rent and you can't really move them.
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Anon10/30/25, 22:09No.2954253
the actual home usually isn't the valuable part of real estate. anyway a quonset hut probably fits your needs.
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Anon10/31/25, 04:43No.2954310
yurt
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Anon10/31/25, 13:20No.2954347
>Aboslute minimum for roof
Tents. Just hanged fabrics held up with rods and wires.
Then you can have wood framed sheds covered by fabric.
Then the shed can be covered by roof and wall panels that can't be torn by sharp objects or heavy weight
Anything sturdier and bigger needs foundation first so not ready on day one. Anything nicer are more about utilities and appliances.
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Anon10/31/25, 14:04No.2954350
where are you do you have access to cash?get your hands on land. banks dont lend against land itself, gotta have other assets
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Anon11/08/25, 13:54No.2956172
Pallet wood house made from stolen pallet wood.
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Anon11/09/25, 04:23No.2956308
squat in someone's house
when they evict you, go squat in someone else's house
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Anon11/09/25, 05:54No.2956318
4 unit housing complex, loan terms are some of the best often one unit is small. live like shit for a few years until the bank has checked all the boxes for the creditors then move in. throw regular bbq gives you a built in community and responsibilities. you will become a better man providing for others and other in turn will want to provide for you. towel heads figured this shit out and it is promoted in their dirt hovels for multiple wives but you can use the same language with western design and move whole families.
tldr: use the rent seekers norms to capitalize on intentionally bad math.
rent seekers read parasites
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Anon11/09/25, 15:55No.2956371
A simple tent.
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Anon11/09/25, 16:14No.2956379
>What is THE cheapest form of housing?
1000% it's squatting
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Anon11/09/25, 21:45No.2956480
You used to be able to find used FEMA trailers on eBay for very cheap. Usually not very old buildings. Sometimes the interior is pristine, and sometimes trashed out.
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Anon11/18/25, 02:09No.2958423
Do what i did. Get a free POS RV, the roof will leak. Do a temp fix with a tarp. Live in it while making a basic off grid cabin and once the basic shell is done strip everything out of the RV and use it for all the houses systems:
>Water storage tank
>On demand water heater with pump and pressure tank
>12v inverter with AC, battery charger and 12v power supply
>All the wiring and lights you need
>Propane heater
>Shower
>Stove with oven
>Gas/electric powered refrigerator
>Kitchen cabinets
>Furniture
>Bed
>Sink
>Windows
>DoorsAfterwards strip the trailer down and put a floor on it and use it haul stuff.
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Anon11/19/25, 02:49No.2958682
A cave. It's completely free, you just need to find a suitable one.
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Anon11/19/25, 08:20No.2958740
>tiny home
At that point you might as well buy a tool shed from home depot.
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Anon11/19/25, 08:39No.2958742
used travel trailer (with bathroom) and a "camper cover" metal roof thing to park it under
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Anon11/20/25, 06:51No.2958958
Literally just a decent house in a less desirable part of town
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Anon11/20/25, 07:23No.2958964
Cheap used RV if you want a roof over your head with basic amenities, i.e. hot water, stove, microwave, sink, toilet, shower, and basic furniture.
t. lived in an RV for years between houses
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Anon11/23/25, 21:59No.2959730
Living in a van or buying a really cheap, shitty apartment in a terrible neighborhood
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Anon11/27/25, 02:54No.2960394
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Anon11/30/25, 20:10No.2961142
motorcycle and a sleeping bag
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Anon12/01/25, 20:26No.2961370
Living in a van would be really comfy. I have a house but I want to do it for a few months while road tripping through Europe some day.
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Anon12/03/25, 20:27No.2961798
Cuckshed kit, they make pre-cut kits that go together like lincoln logs
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Anon12/04/25, 04:27No.2961897
>I want to do the bare minimum, the only real requirement is having a roof over my head
Gets pretty tiring quickly, you can do this with rammed earth/compressed earth blocks and a tin roof with basic timber/pole framing.
https://wiki.opensourceecology.org/wiki/CEB_Press
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Anon12/04/25, 05:57No.2961909
mud house
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Anon12/05/25, 03:06No.2962182
If you own the land? Sure, a trailer would work out pretty cheap.If you don't, like in the majority of trailer parks? You're at the mercy of land rent and your landlord. And recent trends have been that privately owned ones are getting bought out by Private Equity and treated as a perfect captive money farming source.
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Anon12/06/25, 06:30No.2962523
A wigwam is pretty available and cheap form of housing. A loo is in the yard.
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Anon12/06/25, 06:34No.2962526
>I want to do the bare minimum, the only real requirement is having a roof over my head.Diogenes lived in a barrel. But it is necessary to take into account the correction for the climate, not in every climate this is possible.
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Anon12/06/25, 16:05No.2962596
the kilt
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Anon12/14/25, 00:12No.2964496
>cheapest form of housing
Rent
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Anon12/14/25, 00:31No.2964503
Cheapest form of housing is solid stone construction, it will last forever so cost falls to zero in-the-limit
>Atlanteans knew this.
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Anon12/14/25, 01:56No.2964514
>What is THE cheapest form of housing?
Travel trailer from a salvage auction.
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Anon12/14/25, 11:23No.2964595
The tesla tiny home. Includes Starlink, solar panels so you can generate electricity. Modular so you can hook up a second or third one as the family (if,lol) grows. Totally off grid living you can set it up anywhere...
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Anon12/14/25, 19:20No.2964681
Trailer/RV will be the cheapest with everything you need. It really comes down to prices. There was a 8x27 trailer/RV around for 4K, which is pretty cheap. I didn't get it before the weather turned south here but if it's still available in spring, I'm going to buy it.That's the problem with this kind of thing. Moving is where the cost is. Even if you find a cheap mobile home, the cost of moving can eat up any savings over just building something of the same size.Of course the problem there is permits and inspections. Here, anything of 200sq/ft needs all the bullshit.Of course there isn't anything stopping anyone from just building a complex of 200sq/ft buildings.
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Anon12/26/25, 02:10No.2967087
the cheapest form of housing is buying a house with 3-4 bedrooms and having tenants pay your mortgage for you.
I have a buddy who does this and he's actually turning a profit, as in he has money left over from his tenants after paying his mortgage.
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Anon12/27/25, 02:43No.2967265
So, I bought 3 acres of land in rural shithole oklahoma for $12k, bought an old (1995) RV trailer that was in solid condition for $5k, parked it there and spent another $5k getting public water and electricity hooked up, roof started to leak as I learned the roof is always the first fucking thing to go on these so I spent another $8k on a nice enclosure carport built around it to shelter it. Also a few hundred renting a mini-excavator and building a DIY septic from 55 gal plastic drums. Around $30k to escape rentoid life for me. Could have done it cheaper with a bare bones roof-and-nothing-else carport but I went with a fancy full-enclosed with roll up door so I could double-lock the trailer up when I was away. If a determined methoid figured out I'm gone two weeks at a time trucking, they could just angle grinder in anyway, but a lot of times simple deterrence is enough.
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Anon12/29/25, 08:58No.2967789
Maybe I should ask this in stupid questions general instead, but does anyone have knowledge on steel buildings? Like pic related. A single guy could live in one of it had plumbing, I’m aiming to use it as a workshop/garage and could potentially sleep on a cot. There’s countless companies advertising these, generally 20k-30k for the size I want. I understand the concrete pad is the most cost prohibitive part but I already have a pad with the ability to easily add plumbing. Does anyone know any tricks for these? Things to look for in companies? Ways to find deals? Is it diy-able with a couple guys and a piece of equipment with lifting capabilities?
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Anon12/30/25, 18:32No.2968067
Shipping container homes aren't viable. Good quality used containers are now expensive because people use them in construction, they're narrow and become narrower with the needed insulation and places to run pipes and cables, when you connect two side by side you cut out the side and lose a load of structural integrity so have to spend money re-enforcing it. By that time you're spending a fortune and other methods will be much cheaper.Caravans/trailers don't last. At the 10 year mark it'll have damp issues, all the furniture will be falling apart and the resale value will be 0.The solution to cheap acceptable homes are:Prefabs/SIPs . Bunch of pre-insulated panels put together in a factory that just need joining up and utilities. They can last up to 25 years and be repairable. If you ever watch the series Grand Designs, the only houses that don't go triple over budget and have the happily married couple living in a caravan for 5 years, having 3 kids then divorcing by the time it's finished are the pre-fabs."Novel building materials". Hay insulation, hempcrete, compressed earth, ICF (concrete filled moulds with polystyrene both sides for insulation). Generally building methods that are high on low skilled manual labour costs, low on building material costs but with unknown long term issues. Getting mortgages for these can be a problem and you'll often end up with unusual houses but they're usually good value.Taking on derelict houses. If you're good at all forms of DIY, it's easily the cheapest. Be warned houses stay derelict for a reason and it's usually because it's a shitty area or it's a "historical" house and to do anything you have to consult a specialist who is the only person in the country who knows how replace a window using 1820s methods.
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Anon12/30/25, 19:50No.2968081
You get what you pay for.
Which is why (You), OP, must define 'housing'.
Else the next guy can always come up. with something cheaper which is also a little bit further removed from 'housing'.
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Anon12/31/25, 22:42No.2968297
The cheapest form of housing is a house so fucked you can't get a mortgage, but not fucked enough that you can't get utilities. Unfortunately, you need all the cash to buy one.
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Anon01/01/26, 00:22No.2968316
i bought my house for 50k €, cheap for me im debt free and never will have to worry about housing cost again. this is norway, cabins and cottages go for as low as 15 to 20k here. you can live in one lf you want..
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Anon01/02/26, 18:54No.2968613
If i wanted to build a small structure for work without adding onto my house, why shouldn't I permanently anchor down a yurt?
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Anon01/02/26, 19:39No.2968629
18-20' gutted camper, and you want it gutted because that's half the fucking work done already and they all need the work to fix the rotting ceilings. then buy you a 98-04 expedition, 1 ton transmission and the reliable 2v 5.4 in all configurations and trims not just some, and 16" wheels for LT tires. Should cost you no more than $3k. Shovel for pissing and shitting, weed sprayer full of distilled water with a hole in the floor is your shower, and fucking move before the rangers ask you to
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Anon01/02/26, 20:36No.2968643
>What is THE cheapest form of housing?
sleeping in a dumpster.
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Anon01/08/26, 05:42No.2969723
i hate my fucking grandpa so much
i could have so much money rn like so goddamn fucking much instead i'm about to buy some land in the middle of nowhere and probably still just live in my car I just need an address
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Anon01/13/26, 15:42No.2970608
Depends on the market. Shitty answer but it's true.I can buy a camper van for 10k, park it in a field, build 2k worth of outbuilding live there for 5 years. Job done. The cost over time is actually lower, that's why hillbillies do it. RVs are bought at huge expense because they're mobile, but at the point the vehicle is a liability it just becomes a caravan that's very, very hard to move. A liability. So you you buy one and tow it for peanuts and there's typically nothing wrong with them structurally. Just a distasteful paint job and dated interior furnishings.Demountables are altogether better, designed for resale, they hold their value. But this just sees the commercial demand for them inflated, units held as rental assets and unused units not released to the market in order to inflate their rental cost.The "tiny home" isn't really a thing, either it's an over built demountable, or a vbed portable, or it's a caravan which isn't road legal. Possibly the worst value of all, because they devalue to nothing, are worse value second hand then new, are often poorly built one-offs.
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Anon01/13/26, 15:51No.2970609
Back in the 80s it was popular to buy a kit condo, and that's the peak model.Arrives flat pack, bolt together on site. Built for owner occupants, not really designed to be moved, but can be disassembled rather then demolished, or moved short distances by hire crane.
You build one to escape the rental market, live in it while working for a proper house, keep it as a getaway or for the grandkids, or some random artist or grandma.There were even clubs who built them and communities built exclusively out of them. Many ended up as caravan parks decades later, which is why they have a poor reputation.
Actually, they were fucking great, it's just that people stopped building new ones, and increasingly poorer and poorer people bought up the dilapidated ones.But the part that's often not considered is the massive city planning headache sub prime builds normally cause, leaving whole city quarters falling apart and unserviceable. The prefab slum, decades after being built, was just bulldozed in a single day to make room for government flats. Infinitely preferable to cement shits, heritage slums.
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Anon01/13/26, 22:10No.2970674
Pretty much you have to play the real estate game because you're in it whether you want to be or not. A couple of clever ways, there are probably more:- Buy a duplex or multi-family home as an investment and live in one of the units. I think others have already made this argument more or less- Buy the smallest decent house in the best neighborhood you can afford, because you pay for location and your neighbors, and that's going to make the biggest difference in how much your house appreciatesBasically look at your housing as the one investment or at least store of value that you can take out a long-term loan on at rates that are lower than investment returns.
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Anon01/13/26, 23:00No.2970684
Everyone here is fuckin retarded. Cardboard box, surprised nobody said it.They're built to freight standards so they're a little more solid than the average american new construction house.
Throw a tarp over if you want waterproofing. Need more room? Add more boxes. Want portability? Fold it up or live in similarly priced shelter halves. Want a cozy sleep? Get some air bubble tube and use it as a bed roll. Electricity? Use batteries or solar. Need heating? Run crysis on your mum's old netbook. Refrigeration? Go to the gas station and get ice from the soda fountain.
Get on my level.
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Anon01/14/26, 03:35No.2970724
cobb or polystyrene has to behttps://youtu.be/CWuHQOvNRDw?si=1sC5WboA7ZJrzUbohttps://youtu.be/e4VvvwtvNCQ?si=YR3pU_LIr8cehCGX
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Anon01/14/26, 06:49No.2970754
I liked the Dymaxion Map.
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Anon01/14/26, 07:33No.2970759
My place has no insulation in the walls and a limited amount in the attic. Putting insulation in the walls would have required ripping off the 75 year old wooden siding and tar paper and replacing it with something modern to limit water ingress. Without that the insulation would be fucked the first hard rain we got. I worked the numbers and I could either do that *OR* I could install solar panels and replace the 20 year old HVAC with an all electric heat pump. Guess what!? You don't care about insulation when running your HVAC is free! The house still breathes, I've got zero mold, and yet I'm toasty in the winter and chilling in the summer.
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Anon01/14/26, 09:08No.2970771
Netherlands.
I'll just keep an eye open for opportunities and look for other people with creative solutions. But it's really tempting to just go, fuck it, and break the law by living somewhere that is not allowed. It's just that the housing crisis is taking it's toll on me.Renting is on the menu but honestly, I've been on a waiting list for social housing for almost 10 years and I'm not excited about it.
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Anon01/14/26, 10:36No.2970780
>Dymaxion poster banned
WTF happened here?
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Anon01/15/26, 01:19No.2970895
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Anon01/18/26, 23:20No.2971637
Specifically the reason the tiny trailer is cheaper is because it avoids the most taxes.
A lot of states won’t do property taxes on a trailer, it doesn’t have to be up to code, you don’t have to pay the licensed contractor mafia and the permit mafia.
At least 60% of the cost of a building is licenses, taxes, fees, schemes, unions, codes, and other assorted scams.
Kill all that stuff and let Darwin sort it out.
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Anon01/19/26, 00:50No.2971679
The land is just as expensive as the house honestly.
The further away from the city you go, the cheaper the land you can find.
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Anon01/19/26, 17:59No.2971819
Does anyone know of any websites that have architechtural plan resources? I want to build a cabin or even geodesic dome on my property, but all the resources I can find are $500 priced glamping airbnb stuff.
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Anon01/20/26, 21:51No.2972092
Buying a used RV.
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Anon01/26/26, 05:07No.2972966
Caves.
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Anon01/27/26, 05:19No.2973124
shipping containers aren't cheap, easy, or particularly good at house. Only fuck around with one if you hate free time and money and don't mind living in a shithole