My Two Beans

A History of Mobile Homes

Sat 23 November 2024

Manufactured homes or Mobile homes are everywhere, millions of people live happily in them and thrive. They refer to any home built in a factory, transported to the property, and setup instead of built on site. Usually these home compromise very little and offer most or all of the amenities found in site built foundational homes. However that wasn’t always the case and manufactured homes came a long way to get where they are today.

From the Beginnings

People have always had a need for housing and dwellings, as well as the need to travel for many different reasons. Over the years countless different ways of achieving a mobile dwellings have been invented, we are going to go over those that have stood out and led to what we have today. We are going to skip over tents, and the like and stick to those truly mobile wheel-bound dwellings.

Vardos

A vardo Image from Wikipedia

A vardo or Romani Card are the mobile dwelling used by the Romani (Gypsy) people, as Romani is the proper term to refer to these people I will use it from now on. The Romani were a group of nomadic people who got very good at living on the road. As a result they developed special wagons called Vardos. The vardos differed from basic covered wagons as they were designed to be elegant, comfortable, and allow their occupants to thrive. Vardos were also very ornate and beautiful, presumably to give the occupant a better mental image.

Medieval Covered Wagons

You can look at basic covered wagons as the most basic form of mobile home, as they do offer protection from the elements but almost no work was put into the comfort of these.

Conestoga Wagons

Conestoga Wagons Image from Wikipedia

Early Mobiles Homes (Post 1800s)

Mobile homes really took off with the invention of the automobile and it’s ability to pull more weight than horses allowing for larger trailers. Between 1900 and the 1920s mobile homes started to take the shape of what you would think of as an airstream trailer and were mainly designed for temporary dwelling. They were still very simple, had chamber pots, windows, beds, and were probably better equipped to keep occupants warm.

WWI

Mobile homes of this time were called trailer coaches, they were extremely simple, consisting of bedding, some had chamber pots. Trailers of this time resembled the construction of Airstream trailers, featuring riveted exterior panels.

WWII

WWII Federal Housing Image from here

World War II changed the way mobile homes were used as men returning home from the war needed places to live after re-ingratiating into society, as well as places to house soldiers during the war. The mobile home industry like other companies suffered from the war, and used their field to stay afloat, they made housing for the soldiers, but these were very cheap and small dwellings and nobody wanted to live in them permanently, but it was around this time that mobile homes started to become more house-like.

Post War and the Golden Age of Mobile Homes

Post 1940s were the golden age of mobile homes. At this time there were hundreds of companies manufacturing mobile homes of all different shapes, sizes, and specialties. This is when architects really started to have fun with their designs, people wanted bigger, fancier, and they wanted to forget that they were living in anything except a regular home.

Mobile Home Parks

People who could afford mobile homes, were also usually not in the best of place financially. Mobile home buyers could not always afford land to put their home on. For those who could only afford the home mobile home parks began to pop up. These mobile home parks usually had many families living in many different mobile homes sometimes offering similar on-site services that apartments offer such as kids parks, pools, community centers, etc.

Manufactured Homes vs Mobile Homes

To understand this we must understand the HUD Code of 1976 and how it effected the mobile home industry. Mobile homes manufactured before 1976 remain mobile homes, but any homes that were built after 1976 are considered manufactured homes and as a result are built using a stricter set of rules and regulations. Before this there weren’t many regulations controlling the quality of manufactured homes, this led to deaths, damages, and injuries.

Bridging the gap between upper and lower class

Mobile homes help bridge the gap between upper/middle and lower classes, they make it so everyone doesn’t have to rent an apartment. Apartments simple don’t fit everyone’s lifestyle, they can be bad for the renter because the landlords tend to have way too much power and freedom when it comes to being neglectful with maintenance practices, its simply too easy to be a poor landlord. My wife and I got out of a poor living situation in an apartment complex located in the ghettos of Albuquerque. The landlord was negligent, and the neighborhood was dangerous.

Modern Manufactured Homes

Moder manufactured home Image from Wikipedia

As mobile homes continue to develop and improve there are almost no differences between manufactured homes and permanent foundational homes, however a manufactured home can be looked at as both a mobile home (a trailer with axles, trailer hitch, etc) and as a modular/manufactured home as the term manufactured home refers to a home built in a factory. Modern manufactured homes can be almost indistinguishable from full foundation built homes.

Affordable Housing

Originally mobile homes were popular because of their mobility, as the homes grew in size and offered more features they became harder and harder to transport. Now mobile home or manufactured homes are in demand for their affordability. They offer a practical and full living experience with many offering the same amenities as a foundational house. With today’s hard financial times, the only way my wife and I were able to get a house was to buy a run-down mobile home and fix it up. They are really important for those of use who simply can’t afford traditional housing, but don’t want to rent an apartment. Without mobile homes there would be many more who would have to rely on apartments and the whim of landlords and their financial situations.

My Two Beans

🫘🫘My wife and I bought a Manufactured Mobile home earlier this year in February 2024 as our first house together after only being able to rent apartments and being miserable. My wife and I don’t make a lot of money, we also currently live in hard economic times where even those with college degrees are having trouble finding good work. We were forced to live in a ghetto apartment complex in Albuquerque NM in what’s called the “War Zone”, a crime-heavy area in the “International District”. Without manufactured homes and the developments of those who came before us we would never be able to afford our own place. DIY is a big part of living on budgets, if you can’t afford to pay someone to do it for you, do you go without? Do you just say “Oh well I guess I just don’t get that…” NO! Mobile homes are in the spirit of living and thriving on little and learning to live on what you have. They are rewarding to work on, and I’m happy in out 12 foot by 60+ foot mobile manufactured home. Why should only those with money be allowed to have a nice place to live? I encourage you to go out and learn how to fix and repair your house as it can be a rewarding experience and the knowledge you get from it is worth more than it costs to hire someone.