Extreme Solutions to Housing Fixed Costs

   Yesterday I was learning about all the different ways that people can greatly reduce their Housing Costs. On a couple of Youtube videos from America there was a lot of talk of tent living and trading down to the Trailer Park.

   In the UK we have a hidden community of people who live on our permanent Caravan Sites for 10 months of the year and then rent a room for the other two months (the permanent Caravan Sites only open for 10 months of the year so that the residents can avoid paying Council tax). I'm not 100% sure of the cost-saving of doing this. For a start you need to lay out cash for the caravan/ park home. Mortgages are not usually offered on these. Secondly, they have next to zero resale value so you'd have to factor in the depreciation of the unit as well. Thirdly, site fees aren't cheap anymore. At a Site nearby to me fees are £200 per month - and that is being promoted as a USP! God only knows what other sites charge. Finally, you've got to factor in the 8 -12 weeks per year when you have to move off-site. At £60 per week thats another £600 you're going to have to lay out. All in all then you are looking at a minimum of £4k per year to do the equivalent of trailer park living in the UK. I think you'd be much better (as a single man) to get yourself a little 2-bed house/ bungalow/ flat and pay down the mortgage double quick. Then by renting out the second room you'd soon be sitting on an asset (in the Kiyosaki sense of the word - something that puts money in your pocket). You'd also own something which (usually) is going to appreciate in value over time, a heritable asset.

   From the business idea side of things, how about this:

* Rent out a piece of land perhaps the size of a small carpark.
* Keep your eyes open on Ebay, Gumtree etc for old campervans, RV's or whatever they are called nowadays.
* Get these vans for next to nothing and have them transported to your land.
* Start advertising out these vans for low cost living.
* Build a small wash house.
* Get some solar panels on the wash house to provide hot water.

Don't think this is a recipe for a doss camp or some sort of pseudo communist sit-in, there will be people out there who would be interested in living here. Here are the financials:

* Let's say you can fit 12 vans onto your site. At the moment there are old vans going for £1! On average let's say we lay out £500 per van to buy and have delivered to our land.
* The basic wash house costs £3000 all in.
* The field costs £200 pcm to rent.
* You charge £20 per week for a pitch.

OK, at 75% average occupancy you are bring in £180 per week or £780 pcm. Your repayments on the finance needed for the above would be roughly £180 per month over 5 years. So all in all, you are laying out £380 per month, therefore £400 profit per month for a few hours work. I say a few hours work because payment would be required up front from the campers.

Working backwards, you'd need 5 pitches to be filled every week in order to breakeven.