Building house around mobile home (Augusta, Gouldsboro: assessor, square footage, property taxes) - Maine (ME) - City-Data Forum

cdodge04 · 03-12-2009, 12:40 PM

A coworker of mine was telling me about a place in Florida where they have used mobile homes as a base to build houses that are worth upwards of half a million dollars. Apparently he saw something about it on one of those Discovery/Travel channel shows. Anyone know anything about this or other projects that people have done similiar to this that are closer to home? I'm curious to see just what such a building looks like? It's amazing what people can do now-a-days.

dmyankee · 03-12-2009, 01:10 PM

I know about 20 people who have done this. Mainers have been doing this for decades. Haul in a couple of vintage single wides and, in no time you have the double wide of your dreams. Ride the roads around here and bring a camera!

Northern Maine Land Man · 03-12-2009, 01:16 PM

In Maine we "have used mobile homes as a base to build houses that are worth upwards" of $25,000. Such an investment will depreciate forever. They should be regarded as basic shelter while you build a real house and then sell it to the next person that needs temporary housing.

This is not a cheap shot at those good folks who live in mobile homes. I have never met anybody whose long term goal is to live in one. Nearly everybody regards them as a stepping stone to something more permanent.

My wife retired from the educational field last year. There used to be something called the "Detroit Test of Learning Aptitude". It is similar to an IQ test. Kids had to associate drawings with each other. One drawing was a tripod. Among the choices were a camera, automobile, dog and boat. Most Maine kids chose the automobile. The educational functionaries in Augusta wondered why so many kids chose that answer. My wife not only explained the reason; she got the correct answer changed on the test. Most Maine kids have never seen a camera on a tripod, but every Maine kid has seen an automobile engine suspended from a tripod over the old Plymouth in the front yard of the trailer down the road.

cdodge04 · 03-12-2009, 01:28 PM

^Yeah I'm not asking because I plan to take on such an adventure, I plan to build a regular house in the future. I just thought that it was weird to build a house around the mobile home. My co-worker was saying that you can't even tell its a mobile home until you go into the basement area and see the axel and wheels attached.

I have seen the people who put single wides together to make a "dream double wide". That or they put the 2 mobiles close to each other and then build a walkway between the two. I lived in a mobile home for a short time as a kid and will do just about anything to keep myself from getting back into one...only because of how fast they seem to fall apart.

BacktoNE · 03-12-2009, 01:28 PM

I have a friend whose mother and sf did this probably 30 years ago. You see them all over Maine.

retiredtinbender · 03-12-2009, 01:53 PM

There's a place on Rt 1, I want to say around Sullivan-Gouldsboro, where a guy took 2 trailers and put them on the side of a hill. They are "side-by-each-me" and about 15 feet apart with a breezeway between them. The one closest to the road is about 20 feet up and the other is stuck against the side of the hill. They have a block foundation under them. Took him 20-30 years to put that all together. Looks neat as Hades.

Submariner · 03-12-2009, 02:26 PM

We saw them very popular in Northern California in the 1980s. And I see lots of them in Maine too.

A trailer is hard to heat. But build a pole barn around and over it, and it no longer has to support snow load. And rain leaks stop.

Wall in one side, and you stop the wind blasting on the trailer, making it easier to keep warm.

Wall up all sides and you increase your square footage.

I know that in California, you have to keep the trailer tongue sticking out or else they will change your property taxes. So long as the hitch is still ready to pull it away, it is a vehicle, and taxed as a trailer.

I have seen a few trailers in Maine where the snow crushed them. Putting up a pole barn roof over the trailer would have saved each of those crushed trailers.

Who knows but if you added a little bit each year, after a decades or two you could have a really huge 'mansion'.

We had a dear friend for a while who had added one section onto his home each year. but as they each settled, they settled differently. So walking through his house was weird. I think if a fella was going to do much of this, he should really consider having a foundation.

retiredtinbender · 03-12-2009, 03:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by forest beekeeper

I know that in California, you have to keep the trailer tongue sticking out or else they will change your property taxes. So long as the hitch is still ready to pull it away, it is a vehicle, and taxed as a trailer.

Actually you can do that in Maine. Register the mobile home and the assessor can't touch it; only the land. The thing is that it usually costs more to register than it is taxed for.