For years, mobile homes have been the butt of jokes—and definitely under the radar of most real estate investors. Yet for a small but growing group of savvy investors, they have become a tremendous asset. Written by one of the top professionals in the business, Mobile Home Wealth is an easy-to-understand book that can guide you to one of the most lucrative investments in real estate. The author begins by presenting the basic principles and practices of real estate investing. He then applies these principles to mobile homes, covering every step of the investment process from choosing a home to financing the purchase, negotiating the price, improving the property, and selling or renting for maximum gains. Whether you are looking for a smart addition to your portfolio or searching for a new and different business, this book will forever change the way you view mobile homes.
All the advantages of a tiny house at a fraction of the cost! Imagine what you could do with your time if you didn't have to spend $16,000 a year on rent or a mortgage. Old single-wide mobile homes can often be found for free (and installed for a couple of thousand dollars) in rural areas, so trailersteading is akin to dumpster-diving. A trailer allows you to live without debt, to keep your ecological footprint to a minimum with energy bills at or below the national average, and even to blend right in alongside traditional-house dwellers after a few years. Trailersteading profiles thirteen mobile-home dwellers who have used trailers as a stepping stone toward achieving their dreams. Some have spent the cash saved to expedite renovations involving extra insulation, pitched roofs, classy interiors, and even basements, while the found money has allowed others to go off the grid. Many also took advantage of a low-cost housing option to pursue their passions, becoming full-time homemakers or homesteaders. In addition to the case studies, this book presents easy methods of minimizing the negative sides of trailer life while accentuating the positive. For example, did you know a single-wide is easy to retrofit for passive solar heating? That a simple plant-covered trellis can break up the blockiness of the trailer's external appearance? Learn which parts of installing and upgrading your trailer are easy for a DIYer and which parts should be left to the experts, along with how to cheaply heat and cool a mobile home.
Tommy "Bubba Jones" and his sister Jenny "Hug-a-Bug" learn more about the Great Smoky Mountain National Park than they ever thought they would when Papa Lewis lets them in on a family secret: The family has legendary time traveling skills! With these abilities, Bubba Jones and Hug-a-Bug travel back in time and meet the park’s founders, its earliest settlers, native Cherokee Indians, wild animals, extinct creatures, and what the park was like millions of years ago. With this time traveling ability also comes a family mystery, but the only person who can help solve the mystery is a long lost relative who lives somewhere in the park. Explore the Smokies with Bubba Jones and family in a whole new way.
The EPA came to numerous towns in the mining west armed with a computer program that they were certain was more accurate than any testing method for determining blood lead that was currently known to man. The EPA accepted the computer output as near sacred, while they mocked real-life, raw data. This resulted in declaring a phony health hazard, followed by the labeling of properties with the death kiss of Superfund. Complaints ensued, with the most legitimate protests coming from innocent victims. Congress had created this legal mutant but could not or would not fix it. Meanwhile, the courts were of little remedy since judges jumped from their lonely, intellectual orientation onto the chummy, buffoonery, chessboard of Democrats and Republicans. That platform that has lost its own moral up and down, all the while the courts get to dissect laws so far beyond sunlight that the consideration of common sense is beyond the pale. This is the story of several communities' battle with an immoral, misguided law.
""Tiny Homes"" explores the growing architectural and lifestyle trend of compact living spaces, challenging conventional notions of housing and consumption. This comprehensive guide delves into the motivations, practicalities, and broader impacts of the tiny home movement, tracing its roots to the 2008 financial crisis, environmental concerns, and a cultural shift towards minimalism. The book argues that downsizing living spaces can lead to personal freedom, financial independence, and sustainability. It provides a balanced perspective, discussing both benefits and challenges of tiny living. Readers will find a wealth of information, including case studies, expert interviews, and practical resources like floor plans and DIY building tips. The narrative progresses from introducing the concept to exploring design and construction techniques, culminating in an examination of the movement's wider implications. What sets ""Tiny Homes"" apart is its interdisciplinary approach, connecting architecture with environmental science, psychology, and economics. It offers valuable insights for eco-conscious individuals, aspiring homeowners, and anyone interested in alternative lifestyles. By presenting complex concepts in accessible language and incorporating personal anecdotes, the book invites readers to consider whether less could truly be more in their own lives.
Uprooting ourselves and putting down roots elsewhere has become second nature. Americans are among the most mobile people on the planet, moving house an average of nine times in adulthood. Mobile Home explores one family’s extreme and often international version of this common experience. Inspired by Megan Harlan’s globe-wandering childhood—during which she lived in seventeen homes across four continents, ranging in location from the Alaskan tundra to a Colombian jungle, a posh flat in London to a doublewide trailer near the Arabian Gulf—Mobile Home maps the emotional structures and metaphysical geographies of home. In ten interconnected essays, Harlan examines cultural histories that include Bedouin nomadic traditions and modern life in wheeled mobile homes, the psychology of motels and suburban tract housing, and the lived meanings within the built landscapes of Manhattan, Stonehenge, and the Winchester Mystery House. More personally, she traces the family histories that drove her parents to seek so many new horizons—and how those places shaped her upbringing. Her mother viewed houses as a kind of large-scale plastic art ever in need of renovating, while her father was a natural adventurer and loved nothing more than to travel, choosing a life of flight that also helped to mask his addiction to alcohol. These familial experiences color Harlan’s current journey as a mother attempting to shape a flourishing, rooted world for her son. Her memoir in essays skillfully explores the flexible, continually inventive natures of place, family, and home.
"This is an enjoyable book that, for a brief while, will take many of its readers home." --News-Journal (Mansfield, OH) " Logsdon] offers warmth and insight.. The simpler life is within our reach--if we will choose it." --Booklist "This is a quiet, reflective work that describes in some detail the difficulty of developing and maintaining a lifestyle supported by the land, something easier planned than maintained.... a memoir of the spiritual path of one escapee." --Bloomsbury Review "Deliciously irreverent, endearingly self-deprecating, full of good humor, Gene Logsdon's latest work is his personal testament to home, the retaining of which has been (Carol aside) the passion of his life." --Ohio Ecological Food & Arm Association News "Gene Logsdon has lived by failing according to most people's standards of success, and has made a good life. A good book, too. I like You Can Go Home Again (to name one reason of several) because it comes from experience. It has to do, not with speculation or theory or wishful thinking, but with what is possible." --Wendell Berry "Gene Logsdon demonstrates once again that a combination of intelligence, scholarship, passion, and fervent patriotism can equal only one characteristic these days, a contrary mind of a high order." --Wes Jackson, The Land Institute "In this vigorous memoir of his search for the good life, Gene Logsdon tells us why America's agrarian values matter to our future as well as to our past. Living simply, respecting the land, taking pleasure from the work of our hands, supplying many of our own needs, acting as neighbors--those values have not been lost, they've only been displaced, shoved to the margins. And Logsdon shows how we might draw them back to the center of our lives." --Scott Russell Sanders Here is a book for everyone who has dreamed about going back to the land to live a simpler more meaningful life. Gene Logsdon's story embodies both the frustrations and longing so many of us feel as we search for our essential selves and a happy harmonious economic existence. The measure of his courage--and contrariness--is that he has been successful. In You Can Go Home Again, he tells us what motivated him and what success has meant.
Join first-time motorhomers Barby and Tim as they experience a steep and bumpy learning curve travelling around Europe. Even though their 'trial weekend' at Whitby coincides with a huge storm, they head off a week later on a four-month trip around Europe! The adventure almost comes to an abrupt end within the first couple of days when technology and literature combine to place them on the edge of a precipice on an unlit track to nowhere. Negotiating steep-sided single-track mountain passes and narrowly avoiding collision with unexpected low bridges - but somehow failing to dodge an inflatable arch, a low hanging tree and a supermarket barrier - become just part of a normal motoring day. Filled with amusing anecdotes, interspersed with solid information about the places visited and practical advice and tips on what to do – and what not to do – when motorhoming, this book takes a wry look at how Barby and Tim cope with the peculiarities of motorhome life, enjoying good (and occasionally not so good) local food and wines (sometimes a little more than they should!). They marvel at some of the iconic sights of Europe and indulge their other shared loves of music, history and language, plus occasional artistic opportunities for Barby, whilst having lots of fun. The book is sure to amuse, educate and inspire anyone considering buying a motorhome or venturing into Europe for the first time, or indeed anyone who fancies a fun-filled trip around Europe.
Popular Mechanics inspires, instructs and influences readers to help them master the modern world. Whether it’s practical DIY home-improvement tips, gadgets and digital technology, information on the newest cars or the latest breakthroughs in science -- PM is the ultimate guide to our high-tech lifestyle.
