Pre-fabricated Cabins

[Sliver]

Anybody have any experience with these? Here's an example of what I'm talking about:

Spoiler!

It seems everybody is buying condos for their vacation properties these days, but I wouldn't want to be paying for common areas, underground parking, elevators, swimming pools, management companies and condo fees. Seems like a giant waste of money.

But if a pre-fabbed cabin is such a great idea, why have I never heard of anybody I know buying one of these? I mean, you can get them for like $25,000. Say you double that to account for all the hidden costs that are bound to crop up, or even quadruple it to include shipping it to your destination and you're still at only like $100K, plus land. It just doesn't seem that crazy to me. Am I missing something?

[Locke]

I've heard that the main difficulty in these cabins is the difficulty involved in filing the paperwork to have them assigned as embassies.

Its always the paperwork...

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by Locke

I've heard that the main difficulty in these cabins is the difficulty involved in filing the paperwork to have them assigned as embassies.

Its always the paperwork...

Oh god. That would be a nightmare if one of those monkeys moved in, eh.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by Sliver

Oh god. That would be a nightmare if one of those monkeys moved in, eh.

I dunno. It is your land and its only $25K after all. I'm sure you have some matches and gasoline?

I'll bet you'll never see a Freeman run so fast.

[Bigtime]

I really like the look of the one you've posted. I'm surprised they haven't caught on at those places where people park RV's year round in holiday spots. Maybe the bylaws of those places don't allow them?

[burn_this_city]

I don't see how a building that size would be anything more than an RV without wheels.

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by burn_this_city

I don't see how a building that size would be anything more than an RV without wheels.

They look to me to be finished more like a modern apartment-style condo. There are a lot more online than the one I posted, but I think they are deliberately unlike RVs.

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by Bigtime

I really like the look of the one you've posted. I'm surprised they haven't caught on at those places where people park RV's year round in holiday spots. Maybe the bylaws of those places don't allow them?

Yeah, maybe not. I wouldn't want to have a cabin in one of those RV parks anyway, though. Probably just being snobby, but those places don't feel like my bag. I was thinking of getting an acre or half acre somewhere and plopping something like this down.

[burn_this_city]

Originally Posted by Sliver

They look to me to be finished more like a modern apartment-style condo. There are a lot more online than the one I posted, but I think they are deliberately unlike RVs.

They probably have much nicer finishing, but the plumbing, heating, electrical is probably very RV like. I'm sure you can get some nice ones, but you get what you pay for.

[ken0042]

Just curious where you got the pricing of $25K? I agree- seems low.

[Hevishot]

Looks like a fancy double wide trailer more than a prefab cabin. I doubt you could get into one that looks anything remotely close to that one for 25k.

[19Yzerman19]

If that costs $25k I'll take it.

[DFO]

The window/door package in that cabin will run 25k or better.

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by ken0042

Just curious where you got the pricing of $25K? I agree- seems low.

I think you'd have to talk to a sales rep to get actual pricing. The online pricing I've come across seems low on all the sites with pre-fabbed cabins. That's kind of why I quadrupled to say at $100K it doesn't even seem that bad.

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by burn_this_city

They probably have much nicer finishing, but the plumbing, heating, electrical is probably very RV like. I'm sure you can get some nice ones, but you get what you pay for.

They probably borrow from the guts of a trailer park-style trailer, but I don't have a problem with that. I think they've done a good job of editing out the ghetto style of your typical trailer park trailer, but there's nothing wrong with borrowing from them w/ respect to plumbing, heating, etc.

I agree that you get what you pay for, but that to me is why these seem like a good deal at a sub-$100K price point. Geez, for a nice RV and a decent tow vehicle you'd be looking at $100,000 without even going that crazy.

I'll do some more digging this week to try to pin down an exact price on a unit I would be happy with including transportation and an estimate on setting it up on site so we can all know more about this.

[ken0042]

If you are going to be happy with being just below $100K, look at Ready To Move homes. I had been looking for my property north of Winnipeg; and although this is Manitoba pricing we were looking at around $100K to have an entire house built and moved onto your site.

[opendoor]

There's no way one of those is $25K. That'd be $35 a square foot which would be a good price for a garage.

I'm not sure about those particular models or that company, but other prefab cabins I know of are about 6-7 times that price per square foot. Here are 3 models from another company and the base model of a slightly smaller cabin starts at $132K:

http://methodhomes.net/homes/sml-series/

That also doesn't include site prep (excavation, foundation, electricity, waste disposal, water supply, etc.) which would be tens of thousands more.

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by opendoor

There's no way one of those is $25K. That'd be $35 a square foot which would be a good price for a garage.

I'm not sure about those particular models or that company, but other prefab cabins I know of are about 6-7 times that price per square foot. Here are 3 models from another company and the base model of a slightly smaller cabin starts at $132K:

http://methodhomes.net/homes/sml-series/

That also doesn't include site prep (excavation, foundation, electricity, waste disposal, water supply, etc.) which would be tens of thousands more.

lol dude, we've established it's not $25K about four times already. We even settled on it being about $100K.

I like the picture from the link you posted:

Spoiler!

Say the site prep is double what the price of the cabin is, I still (intuitively) think you'd financially come out way ahead with this versus a condo somewhere.

If I have time today I'll try to get some more accurate pricing from one of these guys.

[opendoor]

Originally Posted by Sliver

lol dude, we've established it's not $25K about four times already. We even settled on it being about $100K.

I like the picture from the link you posted:

Spoiler!

Say the site prep is double what the price of the cabin is, I still (intuitively) think you'd financially come out way ahead with this versus a condo somewhere.

If I have time today I'll try to get some more accurate pricing from one of these guys.

Like I said, I think $100K is too low as well based on the link above. Here's a link on costs from that same site:

http://methodhomes.net/homes/pricing/

Basically they have it as $15-20K for permits, surveys, hookups, etc., $133+ a square foot for the house, and then 30-70% of the house cost for site prep and install.

Though it's important to remember that bigger houses are generally cheaper per square foot than smaller ones. For instance a 1000 square foot rectangular house would have nearly 80% as much exterior surface (siding, wall insulation, windows, etc.) as a 2000 square foot one does. So that $133+ price is closer to $200 a square foot in the sub 1000 square foot range.

So for a 750 square foot base unit you're probably looking at $250K ($20K + $150K unit + $80K site prep and install). And those are US prices, so something done in Canada would likely cost more. If the land is cheap enough it could be a pretty good option, but you're not really saving much if any money over a conventionally framed house when you buy a good quality modular or prefab house.

[Minnie]

That looks very similar to what they've shown at one or the other of the home shows every year. Got to poke around inside of one. Very cool.