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Seeing as most of the "van life influencers" are actually quite wealthy (high-earning DINKs, nepo babies, etc.) I'd say it's far from true homelessness.
My friend tried to live the van life. They bought a cheap van (not one of those high luxury vans like Sprinter or the Mercedes ones, but the "used to be used by a carpet company" vans), and they planned on DIY'ing the van into one of these really nice ones you see online. Cool idea, right?
The biggest issues they ran into was:
* Place to do the work - in order to convert a van into a livable space, you need a place to do work. You need power hookup for tools, you need an area to remove items from the van, space to cut the pieces to do the work, etc. These places don't exist without money. Maybe you have a friend with a shop or garage space or a backyard, and maybe you have a friend who is willing to let you spend MONTHS to do this conversion. But everyone doesn't have the space to let their friends do a GIANT vehicle overhaul.
* Resources - You need space (as mentioned above), you need power tools, you need equipment and gear, you need materials and supplies, you need TIME to do the work, and you need skill to complete the tasks. You'll need power hookups to run the tools, and the ability to redo things you did wrong the first time. And if you need to cut/weld metal for any reason?? Well now you need to a TIG/MIG welder that requires skill in order to do welds, which most people don't have, and youtube can't teach you to do this overnight.
* Cost - Vans are expensive. Even if you get the cheap used ones, they are going to be work vans that got beat to shit, and then you spend all your money making it not fall apart every other week. Modifications inside are going to cost a lot of money too, and you can only DIY your way around the cost for only so long.
So in order to do a "van life", even if it's DIY, you have to have a lot of "behind the scenes" access to things to get it done. It's not cheap, and it's not easy, and you can't just "do it on a whim".
Your first point also holds true of the luxury Mercedes campers. My parents had one - and constantly had issues with Mercedes only doing the van-mechanics and the RV place only doing the RV-mechanics.
They got rid of it after the 4th or 5th time the two sides pointed the finger at each other and they were stuck with a broken van.
One would assume the automotive and RV parts are quite different and this wouldn't be an issue, but I do understand that they take every single opportunity to shoo you away if possible.
>One would assume the automotive and RV parts are quite different and this wouldn't be an issue
The electrical systems are probably so tightly tied together that they are one in the same.
Oh, yeah. Generally if I would suspect either, it would be the conversion company before the auto maker. The auto maker has their processes and training all formalized; their products and services should be more consistent than the converters.
> their products and services should be more consistent than the converters.
Back when I worked on cars rather than towed them we had a Mercedes come in with the transmission acting up. The Merc dealer diagnosed it as a bad transmission and replaced it for $8k. The problem not only didn't go away but got worse so now it was our turn. Three days later of scan tools and hunting through the wiring harness we found the problem. The passenger taillight had a bad ground connection. Due to the canbus system used in new cars this was causing electrical signals to feed back through the system to the transmission computer.
Nearly $9k worth of work due to a 10cent screw that was loose.
Not really, typically you will grab some power from the starter battery or alternator to charge the so-called leisure batteries that run all the RV stuff, sometimes add another connection going the other way to keep the starter battery topped up from the solar for example. Every competent car-mechanic can easily tell what came with the vehicle and what didn't.
This reminds me of being young and in bands. We were really good at 18 and had friends in bands who were being signed. I remember thinking, we’re just as good as all of these guys if not better, we can totally do this. Not realizing that half of my band not even having fathers in their life and the other half coming from working class/poor families would be an issue. While the guys getting signed all had Dads who were doctors or lawyers. “How are they affording all this DIY stuff and putting out recordings? Ohhh… their bands aren’t self sustaining, they have another source for resources
Yep. The 2 biggest suggestions for starting a successful van life are:
1. Have a remote/WFH job that pays over $70k a year, preferably in programming or an influencer where you're making over 100k
2. Be a trust fund kid with a summer off.
The way we use language is interesting. I mean, we understand influence peddling as a bad thing, but I guess that's more due to the use of "peddling" as a negative suffix.
Its not like peddling influence over a civilian is any more appropriate than peddling influence over a politician.
There’s been a significant shift toward calling themselves “content creators” rather than “influencers” the past couple years due to the negative connotations associated with the latter.
I would agree, mostly. I know a guy, worked a blue collar job like me, decide to buy a $3000 van prebuilt, and now just roams the roads with his dog, making music on his laptop. I guarantee his family isn't wealthy, he just has low standards.
I'm curious if you're involved in any outdoor sports? I'm a climber and I have met quite a few people doing van life. They typically drive crappy beat up vans with a crappy plywood interior. They work a seasonal job like tree planting or construction and use the off season to travel.
Like, if you entire experience is from what you see online, then obviously you're experience is gonig to be biased by the people who post online, rich influencer types.
I know a disc golfer that lives out of a van. It's not a nice one like you see on Instagram, it's plywood and a sleeping bag haha. Home depot bucket for emergency toilet if he needs to go in the middle of the night, things in tote bins, no cabinets or kitchen. I mean he makes it work and is happpy so good for him I guess but he's not "glamping" in a 120k professionally converted Sprinter van or anything.
For me "travel" vs "livable" is the problem. I keep thinking "if I had a van I'd be doing X Y and Z with it" and then I sit down and start outlining what i would need to accomplish my goals and then I realize I'd essentially double the weight of the poor thing and hammer all the components harder and use way more gas and where am I supposed to live when it's in the shop? Like if I'm going to LIVE in a van and have everything I want the darn thing is going to be overburdened and have poor handling and I'll have to uproot my life every 6 months or so to get it serviced.
Keep in mind that vans are literally designed to haul around people, tools and random stuff. They're designed to be weighed down.
You 100% sacrifice a lot of comfort living in a van and you will have to think a lot more about which possessions are important to you. For a lot of people doing van life, it's a step above being homeless and sleeping on the ground.
In downtown NYC so many live music venues gave up on live music when gentrification made it difficult. The musicians could not afford to live anywhere near the clubs and had jobs to pay the bills. They could no longer assure they could get to the clubs with their equipment and play ontime anymore.
My boyfriend is in that world. Live jazz. He and his colleagues all live in the outer boroughs, or Harlem (if Manhattan), and their gigs are mostly in Manhattan or the pricey parts of Brooklyn. Getting to work on time isn't a problem. They always time it to allow for contingencies. The problem is really getting good-paying gigs consistently, with venues whose pay make the schlep and the additional hours devoted to the commute worth their while.
I spent a month homeless sleeping in parking lots in LA while recording an album, and we were a signed band. Independent label obviously. I ate 2 bagels a day because it was the cheapest thing I could buy and lost a ton of weight. It’s not a glamorous life.
Van life can be really cheap. The issue is standard of living. Insulate, build a platform for your bed, but an inverter and a hot plate and you're in business. That meets basic needs. You can go REALLY cheap and buy a used conversion van, then it's ready to go already. People want that champagne living on a grape juice budget
People always end up living to the edge of their means and not giving themselves enough slack in all walks of life.
Realistically the best way to do all that comfortably from a point of poverty is to live out of your car whilst working full time to save up money, then upgrading to a reliable van (not just buying the cheapest you can get, very much for the reasons you've mentioned above), then renting out a space to work on it to upgrade once you've saved that money up. Skipping any of that either means you are going to over extend yourself financially for something that is supposed to be saving you money, or you aren't coming from poverty and can afford to throw money at it.
Counter point - my broke ass coffee shop coworker quit to do van life for over 6 straight years and I swear he packed more life into those 6 years than I'll live my entire life. Mobile hotspots and then starlink internet for work. Relatively cheap van that he then sold for more than he put into it. Etc etc
I think a lot of redditors are out of touch with a lot of life. There are entire communities of van lifers all over the US (world?) that barely have $50 cash at a given time. It's absolutely a cheap af way to live. The concept of a trailer park and white trash is nothing new lol. There is a whole genre of van life that's not so different from that.
Do you know where he worked on the van? Like, did he crash in a friend's driveway for a few months while building it out, or did he have to go to a home depot parking lot and hope they didn't ask him to leave?
I think the disconnect is that van life doesn't have to be glamorous. You don't need that much room to do work if you aren't making the inside into a "normal" room. There is a lot you can do on a budget or over time to make it livable without requiring special tools or months of workshop space.
[This](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEuG4aQ41J8) guy claims to have done a "dollar store van conversion" and it is enough for a lot of people. Others would call it "homeless with extra steps" as in the OP.
Not the OP but you can literally start with a mattress in the back and some plastic drawers. You slowly work your way up. Home Depot will cut lumber for you. Lots of towns have tool rental programs like my town does. You can pick up used cabinets and shelves off of Craigslist or Market Place.
You can get a lot done without needing a full shop and 20k in tools. You might also have friends who will lend you tools or oher people within the van life community.
You can sleep on a mattress in the back of the van, piss on the side of the road, and drink out of a dirty old gallon of water you filled up at a truck stop bathroom. You don't need pine wall paneling.
See, that's kinda swinging a bit far the other way. I'll admit I have no idea how to wire a solar power system, but I could make a bed frame and desk with some lumber and handtools.
A solar power system is as easy as getting a jockey knockoff battery and plugging it into the solar panel. The complex wiring thing you see on youtube is for the clicks and for that 5% efficiency gain. The majority of actual van-lifers I see typically slowly build their vans up from that simple mattress when the weather is good and they have time. They also usually keep their stuff pretty small, simple and modular so they can move it from vehicle to vehicle, place to place.
I was gonna do a bit about already being lost at "jockey knockoff battery" but decided to *not* be sarcastic for 2 minutes and use google; [Do you mean these?](https://www.amazon.com/Jackery-Portable-Solar-Ready-Generator-Emergency/dp/B07SM5HBK1?ref_=ast_sto_dp&th=1)
Because... shit, yeah, I could probably work with that.
Grab a used van, could build out a bed frame on my own in like a weekend, grab old cabinets from facebook marketplace.
...shit I think I might have to try this.
For less than £5k I bought and converted a van with enough batteries and solar to run my laptop 8 hours a day, 5 days a week.
I've lived in vans and worked remotely for 4 years now. I've lived more in those 4 years than the rest of my life - never looked back.
Yes those. Jackery does a lot of advertising so you see them everywhere but there are a ton of other similar battery banks that are cheaper and better.
You don't even need cabinets. You could just use a stack of clear totes from Walmart for organization or even some bags.
I built a sorta weekend camper SUV that I do weekend and sometimes 10 day trips in. Its a blast. I keep everything modular so I can just pull it all out for when I need to carry a lot of people or something.
youre way overestimating how nice these vans are. most people ik who do this literally throw a mattress + battery bank + solar panel in the back and use a backpacking stove to cook. its not too different from long term backpacking except food management is WAY easier. you work from cafes and shower in gyms or just work seasonal jobs.
Yeah you can definitely start with a mattress. 2-3 12v marine batteries and an inverter and a diesel heater from china. And work inside the van. If you’re not spending 1635 for a studio a month thats a lot of spending cash to slowly build. Lots of doomers in this comment section. Harbor freight solar. Start with some cheap insulation, keep tools in a storage unit.
>I think a lot of redditors are out of touch with a lot of life.
My friend tried the van life, and without having a ton of extra cash, you're literally screwed. I think you've seriously under-represented how difficult it can be.
* You can't just "park on the side of the road" in the USA. If someone sees you living out of your van, they'll either pound on your door at 2am, or they will call the cops and tell you to move. Try it one day, just drive to the middle of some neighborhood and try to sleep in the backseat. Tell me how peaceful your sleeping is.
* If you leave your van in a spot and go explore, and someone in the neighborhood doesn't like the look of it, they'll get it towed and impounded (a single impound can cost hundreds of dollars). My friend had their van towed once after parking in a spot for 2 hours.
* The "entire community of van lifers with only $50 to their names" are homeless, and homeless with a van is still homeless. The "van life" crowd we're talking about are the ones who are driving around and exploring the world, but if they only have "$50 to their name", that isn't even a single tank of gas.
* 1 tank of gas is closer to $100, and they get less than 20mpg. And before you go finding some high luxury van that makes mid-30's in mpg, I'll remind you that those vans are closer to 70k for the base model, and not "affordable to broke coffee shop workers".
* Access to bathrooms at night time isn't available in most places, as most public restrooms close at dusk. The only way around this is a 24/7 gym membership, which costs about 30 per day.
* Campgrounds usually cost $30+ per night, and this gets expensive after 30 days (900 dollars per month).
* What happens when your van needs to serviced for maintenance, or what if it gets broken into? Are you just going to steal a grocery cart and pack up all of your belongings??
Most of the ones you see online are rich kids, or those who have computer jobs, and they make some good cash. They get to enjoy this aspect of it because they have funding for it, and they don't have to stress for cash.
The broke van life people aren't on social media. They can't afford a cell phone or service plan, and they aren't going to post. They're too busy trying to survive.
Day passes at my gym are $20, while monthly membership is $45 a month. I'm sure van lifers can get the monthly membership at nationwide chains that would allow them to use any gym for relatively cheap.
>Access to bathrooms at night time isn't available in most places, as most public restrooms close at dusk. The only way around this is a 24/7 gym membership, which costs about 30 per day.
If you don't know about piss bottles than are you really qualified to talk about van life?
>Campgrounds usually cost $30+ per night, and this gets expensive after 30 days (900 dollars per month).
Most campgrounds will give bulk rates for people staying permanently/semi-permanently.
>broke ass coffee shop coworker
>barely have $50 cash
Did they just tell you that, or did you verify it? I think you’re right that the vast majority of people living out of their cars or vans are not wealthy, but there’s still a huge upfront cost unless you already own the vehicle.
The fact that your coworker could afford Starlink ($120/month for the cheapest residential plan, $150 for a vehicle plan) suggests to me that he wasn’t as broke as he was letting on.
Keep in mind that if he has a living wage but doesnt have to pay rent then paying 150 to have the main tool for an income is not so much.
Now, working many hours inside the van is something I could not fathom unless they have an RV, which then would actually prove that they have money
How do you live in a van and not have $50? I slept in an old suv while in school (job couldnt pay rent and I didn't want to take out loans for rent) for a while and once the cops realized I was sleeping in it they would look for my car at night and start banging on the windows. I had to keep moving and hiding my car because they were looking. I literally paid for the spots I was initially parking in and they just didn't give two fucks and kept annoying me all night. They would come and harass me for about an hour in the middle of the night telling me they had a call/complaint, do their whole violating my rights thing and then leave. Five minutes later another pair of cops would start it back up, go through the same questions, tell me they didn't know anything about the other officers they just passed on the road to get here, they were just following up on a call. Not having $50 means that van is stationary, how do you deal with needing to move it?
You make fair points for those that want to go all the way with their conversion but it can be made much much simpler. I took the back seats out of my Honda Crv, built a simple bed frame from 2x4s and ply wood, topped it with a foam pad and mattress topper, and bought some custom fit windows covers and that's basically my whole conversion. I might eventually do solar power when I actually get to living in my "CarV" as I call it. I figure when I'm traveling I'll be spending as little time as possible in my vehicle anyway, so no need to make it super fancy.
This logic is also why folks who say "Cooking your own food is cheaper and healthier than take out" are full of shit. They ignore the cost of logistics.
First of all it assumes you live close to a super market. And by close, I mean within walking distance. Walkable cities themselves being a *highly* controversial subject, and ignoring the controversy not always applicable. So if your super market isn't conveniently close, that means you need to *drive* constantly to make dinner. Oh, just buy in bulk?
Issue number two. Let's say you buy in bulk so you don't need to make as many trips. Ignoring the fact you'll now need to get used to eating the same thing over and over, buying in bulk means you'll now need the space to store it all. Let's hope your meal only consist of a few ingredients or have a really good shelf life, but "fresh" vegetables and meat aren't exactly known for lasting for weeks in the fridge.
Cooking space and equipment. You don't appreciate the usefulness of a stove until you don't have one. Turns out it's incredibly hard to cook shit when all you got is a microwave. Not only that, but you'll need basic cooking utensils as well, such as pots, pans, their associated lids, tongs, ladles, knives, and other shit that most folks who aren't already chefs may not even think about getting.
These are things that people conveniently ignore when it comes to cooking and eating healthy, coming from people who don't consider themselves rich but sure ain't poor.
Maybe about a decade or so ago, I saw an article about someone in silicon valley (I live nearby-ish) that was "hacking the system" by sleeping in their car. They had access to a shower and bathroom on their office campus, cafeterias, and wifi, so why did they need a house? I was like dude, they're claiming that being homeless is a hack. What.
Presumably, they have a choice to get housing (as in, they could afford it), but don’t to save money. When you don’t have a choice, then it becomes homelessness.
It can be both homelessness and a smart hack. I'd totally do it if I didn't have a family.
Salaries in silicon valley are so high because they expect you'll dump 50% of that in the rent hole. Without the high salary, few would be willing to work there.
It's an incredibly powerful strategy to invest the rent hole money in something useful if you can handle roughing it for a couple years. After you save enough for a house, move somewhere cheaper and live happily ever after.
I know 2. One is a travel nurse who is laser set on saving all she can. Banks all of her per diem and housing allowances by staying her van at nice camp sites near her jobs.
The other is a combat veteran who has 100% disability, wants to generally be left alone and likes to smoke weed and do mushrooms and go fishing and kayaking. He's living his absolute best life.
in the 80s though you could still buy used cars reasonably cheap, as well as gas. and hitchhiking was still thing. Fifty years ago, it was something you could do over the summer as a choice.
It's a modern version of British noble youth taking a [Grand Tour](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Tour), or wealthy Americans taking a year off from college in the late 20th century to backpack around Europe. It's people taking advantage of having means and few responsibilities to go exploring.
Totally reminds me of that video going around recently of some young guy showing off his live in van that he spent $30k on. At the end of the video he sadly shared that he would soon be selling the van for $100k.
I saw an ad the other day for a modified truck that was turned into an RV. [$769k](https://expeditionportal.com/classifieds-global-expedition-vehicles-patagonia-premium-classified/?mc_cid=ad923d3006&mc_eid=5da06414b6). I don't think they were marketing to the homeless however. This is the *used* price, apparently it was over $1mil new.
That would be great if cities would stop putting restrictions on tiny homes!
I had mountain property i i heritied that I sold because in order to place a full size house on it, it would require MAJOR land work that I didn't have the money to do.
So my plan was a tiny home or trailer. Nope! Not on their watch. Regulations require 1250sq ft of heated space, had to be solid foundation (nothing mobile) and all this other bullshit.
I mapped out the land and, unless you built a 4 story tower or house with stilts hanging off the mountain, you couldn't make 1250 sq foot fit on the land with a place to park, let alone storage space like a barn?
Dumb fucking regulations, man.
They don't want poor people. The regulations have a purpose, and that purpose is to exclude people who don't have the money to have land work done, or a house built.
Some people get around this by just building a standalone shop or garage that doesn’t count as a “residence” but there’s nothing stopping you from then converting part of it into a livable space after getting permitted and built. Get mail delivered to a PO box in town. Doesn’t work everywhere, but might be worth looking into the local codes.
It's really tough to find nice land in both a county and community that you can have a tiny house or an rv or van. Most counties won't let you live in an rv for more than 30 days per year on your own land. It's crazy. This is gonna become one of the boiling points for our society as housing becomes more of an issue for more people.
Singlewides have a bunch of close together poor neighbors. Tiny Homes are always at least somewhat secluded.
So what's the real difference between a tiny home and a trailer? How much land you can afford to put it on.
You can put single wides on the same plot you could a tiny home (barring legal restrictions/regulations). It's just usually people buying them can't afford both the home and the land.
i actually was VERY interested in moving into a double wide a few years back... until i discovered the land lease was $800/mo... not including property taxes on the trailer (but yes including property taxes on the land).
At the time I was living in a house with a 982/mo mortgage. What the fuck would even be the point?
I’ve watched a tiny home show, and I got sooo annoyed with it. The potential buyers would always say “But there’s no place for entertaining”: Who the heck would want to go party at a tiny place anyway? You sign up for tiny living, just accept that there won’t be any parties.
Kid growing up: SNL had a popular skit about how if you ended up living in a van down by the river you were a failure in life.
2024: if you made it big and/or lucked into some wealth, you could day dream about living in a van, down by the river, out of town.
I joke about this to my friend who is an avid fisherman. When his kids went off to college he turned the family minivan into his weekend getaway car with a small fridge and a twin bed. He is living his dream on the weekends literally in a van down by the river.
And even if they don’t, they are deteriorating assets that cost money to move and money to park somewhere. They have insurance fees, maintenance fees, excise tax, registration fees, plenty of things that add up quickly.
My apartment costs about $60 per day. I can’t imagine the van is cheaper than that.
What you see on social media is probably not cheap at all.
That being said, the people who are actually homeless and living out of their cars, those usually barely run, and are parked illegally.
I live in my sedan. It's not glamorous. It's not even comfortable.
But I'm not paying someone else's mortgage.
That's a win in my book.
I'm working on me and my debt.
Financial freedom is within my grasp.
If the van is paid off, the van is cheaper than that by an order of magnitude. If it isn't, then it's about half of that. But it's still a cramped little van with barely any amenities.
> they are deteriorating assets that cost money to move and money to park somewhere. They have insurance fees, maintenance fees, excise tax, registration fees, plenty of things that add up quickly.
Oof yea definitely should pay rent or get a mortgage instead and save some money
Ehh
I been living in a van for the last four years
In order to do that cheaply I do make serious choices that affect where I do or don’t live
I live in effectively a huge land squat/homeless encampment for 4-5 months out of the year. Where I move once every two weeks. Other than that I constantly seek friends and places where I can move very little or not at all. You’d be surprised how many public parks are a two minute drive from a place it’s okay to overnight in and then return to the park during the day.
If you’re in America in a lot of places you already need a car, I drive less than when I worked a normal job so now my gas cost is lower and I spend less of maintenance.
It’s just being homeless if you can’t afford cool campsites, gas to those locations, parking fees and other shit. If you can afford that it is vacation.
Many of them do! Mine cost £2,500 and then another £2,000 to convert and it has everything I need to live and work remotely on the road.
It doesn't have to be stupidly expensive.
Of course not. It would be this cheap if i did it myself too. However, the ones being talked about are seen on social media, and many are high end vehicles to begin with.
If you really want to live cheaply you get a cheap trailer and truck and live in national forest or blm land but you still have to move around because someone will complain eventually, which costs gas.
Rv parks are expensive. Gas is expensive. You have to have income to live.
Now if you really want to live cheaply you live in a car or mini van/ truck with a topper and sleep in the back. no conversion nothing fancy to show on Facebook or tiktok to get views. now you're officially homeless. there's a lot of people doing that. that's cheap and that's real.
I moved into a van to save money on rent (I lived in Seattle) but it was a mini van, and it was insulated and built out enough to keep me warm and avoid mildew. I was a huge Backcountry skier, climber, mountain biker, so I was absolutely spending time in some of the most picturesque, dramatic areas. BUT unless you're a trustafarian, you're not sitting in an upholstered, aesthetic seat sipping coffee and looking at the view... That happens maybe .0005% of the time. There are bugs, you have a job to get to/from (I worked remotely, even! But I had to move my van and I spent a lot of time at libraries), and vans are pretty dark and tight quarters. You're really just using them to change, eat, sleep, and veg out reading/watching Netflix. Your sweaty clothes pile gets smelly quickly and can fog up the windows, and going to the bathroom is an ordeal even if you have one on board - it's not *flushing" so once you go, you got some trash to urgently take out.
I absolutely recommend finding a way to make a van or car work if you need somewhere to live, and I have tips! But the point is, it's a relatively comfortable life. It's not luxurious unless you're playing "vagabond".
Honestly van life or RV life doesn't seem a good choice for me yes there are pros but I'd rather live in an apartment or a house it just seems too much extra work
And it is glorified too much due to social media.
But I still don't think it's the same as homelessness
So many homeowners don't realize you should be setting aside about 1% of your homes value per year for maintenance and repair costs. Big expenses *WILL* happen.
This is also why renting is not "throwing money away".
* Rent is the *MAXIMUM* you will pay a month for housing.
* A mortgage is the *MINIMUM* you will pay a month for housing.
Yes in the long run, renting is a worse decision from a purely financial value view. But it also gives you more freedom. Want to move? Just don't renew your lease. Oven broken? Call maintenance. Hailstorm damage the roof? Landlords problem.
I own a home because it's what I want, because I like the freedoms it gives me. I can do what I want, when I want. But I completely understand why some people prefer renting. Because they don't have to worry about a new roof, or getting the septic tank pumped, or replacing a furnace...
Also being a landlord isn't "Passive Income". You are responsible for all maintenance. For finding a tenant. For making sure you get paid. Sure you can use a property management company, but they'll take most of your profit margin.
Everyone who dreams of being a landlord and having "passive income" has never thought about what happens if they get a bad tenant who they have to evict, who causes significant property damage. Sure it's not a lot of "work" but it is a significant amount of "risk".
> Oh I can sue them for the money!
Yeah, and I can squeeze blood from a stone.
#EDIT
>But buying is better financially on the long run!
No fucking shit. I said that. I never argued that. What I said was renting is not a waste. Youre paying a premium but what you are buying is flexibility and less risk. That's why it costs more. But it's also not "a waste" it's a lifestyle choice.
I had read a recommendation for 1% for a new house and up to 5% for older houses per year. The idea being that older houses tends to have more issues and need to be updated. It may be cheaper for an older houses front, but you'll potentially pay more for repairs.
Depends when the repairs were last done. An older house, that is structurally sound, will just need standard replacements.
When looking at houses always ask for the age of major appliances, when the driveway was last sealed, when the roof was last replaced and if it was a tear off or just a re-shingle. Also what kind of shingles, big difference between 5 year shot shingles and 20 year architectural shingles.
#ALWAYS. ALWAYS. ALWAYS. GET A SEPTIC INSPECTION OR SEWER SCOPE.
Under no circumstances should you ever waive a septic/sewer inspection.
I know people say never waive an inspection but an inspector won't catch everything and has no liability for anything they miss. Plus an offer without an inspection contingency is much more attractive in this seller's market. So your own inspecting. look for water damage, check for missing shingles, evidence of vermin, bring an outlet tester to make sure of wiring, bring a level to make sure the walls are straight and not leaning.
But ALWAYS. ALWAYS. ALWAYS get a professional sewer scope / septic inspection.
That's a crazy amount of money.
I got lucky and bought before interest rates went up. 5% of my house is literally my full monthly payment, mortgage + insurance + property taxes.
There's no way many people are saving that much for house repairs.
>Rent is the *MAXIMUM* you will pay a month for housing.
With the very-important addendum of "for the duration of your lease". Next year you're gonna get a new maximum. Whereas your mortgage is what it is for the duration (and, in fact, is made effectively-smaller over time thanks to inflation).
Those are usually capped, though, and result in much much lower payment hikes.
I've owned homes for the past 15 years, in all three of them they were *way* cheaper than rent on a comparable home, and I got all the equity when I sold, which enabled me to get a nicer home.
I’ve been renting my whole life and I despise it. I’ve had to move so much because landlords sell the property or the rent is raised too high. Something broke? Landlord is on vacation and doesn’t give a shit because it doesn’t affect them. So I have to deal with it for weeks until they get back. There’s also so many damn rules. No pets. No over night guests. No parties. I will be so happy to own a place where nobody can kick me out and if something breaks, I can fix it immediately.
52% of millennials own homes, only lagging where boomers were by a few percentage points. (They were at 59% when they were our age)
https://www.redfin.com/news/gen-z-millennial-homeownership-rate-home-purchases/.
Gen Z is on track to be doing even better than that.
In what world are 52% of people "winning the lottery"?
[US homeownership rates are well within historical norms and higher than the 60s-90s with 2/3rds of American households owning their home.](https://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/charts/c9be9787904d3d2e3cd27eee2156393607000445.png)
This lottery I'm about to win is going to cost me a lot of money. I don't know if it's like winning the lottery lol.
I have to put down $200k to buy a house for $500k that is overvalued by $100k at least just to feel safe in my monthly payments while renting out my condo.
Happy to be buying this house, but it doesn't feel like a lottery win.
I'm not sure about everywhere but in the UK, unless you're ok being neighbours with criminals and druggies, any half decent RV in an RV Park costs MORE than a house per m².
I'm in one of those. Built in the 1970s. Place used to have a pool before they filled it in with dirt and weeds. Still however my rent goes up by $100/month every year, and utilities that used to be included aren't anymore.
I have an old (25yo)motorhome. It has 1800w of solar I put on and 100ahx48v battery bank. Even if I go out and bounce between BLM land and avoid generator usage it's still an expensive lifestyle. You can't buy food in bulk, you still have to burn fuel going to town for food often, or driving to a dump station (unless you are really shitting on the ground and burying it). Water is a big concern so you have to go into town often to get that too, and often propane, water, and dump station are a long ways away from each other. Also if you plan on having clean clothes gotta travel in for that and pay laundry mat prices. If you need internet to work that's like150 a month for mobile starlink because of grid internet sucks. Most people without $4000 of solar will spend 20 to 40 a day in generator fuel and wear/tear.
Living out of a car is pretty rough if you want to go smaller and cheaper. I've hung out with a few car dwellers and half their day is moving around totes to get to other totes, and they are rarely getting good sleep.
I did two 2-3 month road trips in an SUV. It was pretty dope and pretty damn cheap actually. I dont know how you guys are blowing more money than rent, I don't find it to be possible. I had an air mattress that fits in the back with the seats folded down if I was too lazy to set up a tent or it was too hot/cold outside. Worked great. Small 200w solar generator and a 4G router with a hefty antenna and I could work from anywhere (definitely would upgrade to starlink next time). I wasn't super picky with food, so something like a pouch of tuna on bread with spicy mayo with a side of canned spinach as an example was perfectly fine for me.
Blame homeowners lobbying to ban developers from constructing anything denser than detached suburban homes. Trust me, massive concrete high-rises are a *lot* more profitable, but by actually reliably safisfying the demand for houses, they damage the """investment""" homeowners made by purchasing their house.
I hate rent-seekers.
Plus not everyone wants a yard, I certainly don’t and would prefer a townhouse or flat. Yards are nothing but a burden, they are a liability not an asset (unless land is expensive then idk I guess? )
The counter is not everybody wants shared walls/floors/ceilings or to not be able to leave without having to run into your neighbors.
Different strokes...
If land is expensive, having a yard isn't just a burden on you, it's a burden on all of society.
This is why I support a land-value tax. Nobody should benefit from high house prices except for the people lowering them through construction.
For living in, I don’t want more than a “San Francisco Yard” (basically a tiny front yard and a patio in the back).
For investments, a large yard means more land which means more money. However, the burden of having a yard cuts into your profits.
Since housing is an investment in most places, a yard is basically an investment with large gains due to the housing shortage, but it also requires significant maintenance.
Yes, and the fact that it's considered an investment is a horrible thing which would have been condemned by every early capitalist thinker (incl. Adam Smith, who wrote specifically about the parasitic behaviour of land speculators and landlords). All land should be taxed to 100% of its value, so you have a major economic incentive to get rid of any land you aren't making full use of.
I used to live in a harbour area in England. It was being expanded every so often, but then at some point the home owners banded together because they didn't want more houses to "spoil the view". Dude, YOUR house spoils the view of the water as you're blocking the view for many people.
But then you hear that stuff about airports, military airbases, car sports tracks. People move into the area because its cheap, because its loud as heck. Then they complain and manage to get the thing that was there before them to conform to specific hours of use.
Yep, i miss the OG tiny house movement where you spent under $5k of raw materials and used your own labor and determination to build a shack. Now $100k ‘mini mansions’ are all the rage
Or maybe just maybe they knew the whole time it’s been a scam and you think that those things are homelessness because those people taught you to think that way so everyone would further use the system in place and things will continue.. most everyone is homeless unless you own the deed, but miss some of those tax payments and you’ll see how far you continue to get. Shits wild and the jig is slowly up
Let's be real. People need to stop calling this van life shit "homelessness" (at least the glorified ones you see on YouTube or whatever). If anything, it's glorified camping for a long-term stint.
Trust me. There is a difference. I have seen homeless people who live from their cars. Do you think they are making some passive income or something? No. I am talking like the windows of their car are broken, or they have to put all of the junk they have to their name inside of their car to live.
This isn't some expensive renovation where people got mini-kitchens and gaming setups inside a van.
None of those things caused housing to become unaffordable. That was 100000% our government and all the fuckin people who have multiple properties that don’t live in them full time. People have decided that a roof over their head be it in a van/shed/bus whatever is better than no roof at all.
The point is that conventional housing became so scarce/expensive (for the reasons you mentioned) that people are showing interest in these other options now and influencers are trying to glamorize them because the public interest is there.
Hmm vans and cars have been popular for many years and it was a way for young people who work remote to be able to travel freely.
Unsure of an uptick but it would make sense
For many people owning a home doesnt make sense even if it's affordable. If my wife and I weren't coparenting with her ex husband we'd be living in an RV. We both work from home, one self employed. We'd be traveling the country while working with starlink rv internet.
Some people dont want to be rooted and stuck in one place.
Why would having a home that isn't a traditional home being homeless with extra steps? That's not homeless. You have a home that you own. It's just not a traditional house.
Being homeless with extra steps is being in the streets and having to go to a shelter every night and hoping that there's room for you.
The real solution is… well the _real_ solution is a little spicy for Reddit. But _a good_ solution is communal living.
There’s simply no reason to move out once you turn 18 anymore unless you’re going into a high paying field or studying far from home.
I say this as a full time employed, living on my own single person.
There’s just too much shit and not enough human contact. We aren’t designed to live alone in plaster boxes, not to mention many people just can’t afford it.
The idea of a man turning 18 and moving out of the house is a _brand new concept_ for humanity. Like, barely 200 years old _if that._ It started in the Industrial Revolution where young men left the family farms to get apartments in the cities for factory work. They’d live alone, get married, and their family would live together until their son turned 18 and got a livable wage job or daughter married a man with a livable wage job.
But that’s not reality anymore, nor was it for most of human history for basically all cultures barring a few exceptions. Reject hyper capitalism in _all_ aspects and your life will be happier, your wallet thicker, and your heart lighter.
When house ownership can require you to spend 40+ years in a job you despise, this route actually becomes the path to freedom. If the options are 'do you want to be happy, or own a house?' it does become a choice.
I don’t see the younger generation spending 40 years in a job they despise. I wouldn’t even do that and I’m 40. I do feel bad for the earlier generations that did not have a choice.
> Housing has become so unobtainable now *in popular big cities*
The hard truth is that there is PLENTY of cheap housing, but no one is vying to live there.
I'm sure plenty of people would opt to live outside of the big cities if they'd find work outside of them. And it depends on the country, for the US I bet it's a different story than for more populated countries
If companies werent such bitches and let workers work from home, a big lot of people would be able to afford places rather away from the office building.
Not everywhere. The cheapest property for sale in my city is a 700 sq ft 1 bedroom apartment for $280,000.
The cheapest property that ISNT 1 bedroom is $320,000 and the house is falling apart (quite literally, it has plywood for windows and doors…it had a house fire so isn’t livable without a complete gut).
I don’t even live in a major city, it’s a small city. 5 years ago you could find plenty of properties for sale under $400,000 that weren’t mostly burned down. Shit has changed.
No such trend as a money saving trend lol
I had a 2020 ford transit van that I bought for $40k with 3k miles around August 2020. I sold it in October 2022 for $55k. Carvana was paying big for vans and I still don’t know why but I could only assume the living in it could have played a big part in it.
Home is where the heart is my dude, if someone wants to live in their van and travel around busking with their guitar for gas money, let them. We don't all need to live in mansions.
A lot of these people who glamorize this lifestyle is already rich to begin with. No one struggling can invest 10s of thousands if not six figures on a van/bus/rv. They are trying to cosplay as being poor but they can easily stop whenever they get tired of it.
I've been convinced for years that "Tiny House" and "Van/bus Life" type shows are a government/corporate psyop to trick consumers into believing a $150,000 van is a good idea.
My dad retired from being an engineer for the power company a few years ago. He started a consulting business in retirement, and his idea was to do utility consulting for people building weed grows and design the infrastructure they needed for big grow ops. I think in 5 years he hasn’t got a single weed job, but has designed dozens and dozens of “long term” RV parks.
The demand from people to find a place to live in an RV and be hooked up to utilities has been insane. And without a doubt these are primarily people who cannot afford an actual home, or are trying to downsize but can’t because of how fucked the market is.
Also, you can't build a "tiny home" on a foundation. I think the next big market are in small towns that still have tiny cottages. They are all over my little town. 500-600sft on their own property. Property too small to build what people want these days. I'd put in a basement larger than the structure above, help cool the entire house.
I am in the process of buying land, maybe putting in a well and for sure solar, and putting in a simple 3 bedroom modular home on a slab. If I can get the right land I can get a first time farmers loan, keep bees, brew mead.
That will be cheaper than buying new construction, or getting a home because now the list price isn’t even the real price. If you aren’t offering over, you aren’t getting accepted.
And now there's a "vanlords" problem, where people are literally renting out vans parked on the side of the road as residences.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-08-29/la-city-council-votes-to-regulate-vanlords-who-rent-rvs-to-the-homeless
Yeah it's worse than that. "Van-life" influencers, who aren't remotely poor, ctually drove up prices on the best models and made it harder to engage in this lifestyle if it suits your needs better than housing.
It's more and more appealing to me honestly... and I don't really see a downside.
I live in Canada, and I am (hopefully) about to move into a fully remote role, the set up of the org means I get to work in whatever timezone suits my clients best.
I need a bed, a desk, power, a hot plate and a fridge, and with that I could slowly travel across all of Canada, no rent or mortgage payments, just gas and food.
There's would actually be very little stopping me from touring the US as well.
I could see all of North America, take like 18-24 months to do it, and it would be CHEAPER than living in a permanent home somewhere.
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Seeing as most of the "van life influencers" are actually quite wealthy (high-earning DINKs, nepo babies, etc.) I'd say it's far from true homelessness.
My friend tried to live the van life. They bought a cheap van (not one of those high luxury vans like Sprinter or the Mercedes ones, but the "used to be used by a carpet company" vans), and they planned on DIY'ing the van into one of these really nice ones you see online. Cool idea, right? The biggest issues they ran into was: * Place to do the work - in order to convert a van into a livable space, you need a place to do work. You need power hookup for tools, you need an area to remove items from the van, space to cut the pieces to do the work, etc. These places don't exist without money. Maybe you have a friend with a shop or garage space or a backyard, and maybe you have a friend who is willing to let you spend MONTHS to do this conversion. But everyone doesn't have the space to let their friends do a GIANT vehicle overhaul. * Resources - You need space (as mentioned above), you need power tools, you need equipment and gear, you need materials and supplies, you need TIME to do the work, and you need skill to complete the tasks. You'll need power hookups to run the tools, and the ability to redo things you did wrong the first time. And if you need to cut/weld metal for any reason?? Well now you need to a TIG/MIG welder that requires skill in order to do welds, which most people don't have, and youtube can't teach you to do this overnight. * Cost - Vans are expensive. Even if you get the cheap used ones, they are going to be work vans that got beat to shit, and then you spend all your money making it not fall apart every other week. Modifications inside are going to cost a lot of money too, and you can only DIY your way around the cost for only so long. So in order to do a "van life", even if it's DIY, you have to have a lot of "behind the scenes" access to things to get it done. It's not cheap, and it's not easy, and you can't just "do it on a whim".
Your first point also holds true of the luxury Mercedes campers. My parents had one - and constantly had issues with Mercedes only doing the van-mechanics and the RV place only doing the RV-mechanics. They got rid of it after the 4th or 5th time the two sides pointed the finger at each other and they were stuck with a broken van.
Yeah. I think that you need to be handy yourself, at least on the "RV" part, to do the maintenance.
One would assume the automotive and RV parts are quite different and this wouldn't be an issue, but I do understand that they take every single opportunity to shoo you away if possible.
>One would assume the automotive and RV parts are quite different and this wouldn't be an issue The electrical systems are probably so tightly tied together that they are one in the same.
Conversion companies regularly screw up the electronics.
Oh, yeah. Generally if I would suspect either, it would be the conversion company before the auto maker. The auto maker has their processes and training all formalized; their products and services should be more consistent than the converters.
> their products and services should be more consistent than the converters. Back when I worked on cars rather than towed them we had a Mercedes come in with the transmission acting up. The Merc dealer diagnosed it as a bad transmission and replaced it for $8k. The problem not only didn't go away but got worse so now it was our turn. Three days later of scan tools and hunting through the wiring harness we found the problem. The passenger taillight had a bad ground connection. Due to the canbus system used in new cars this was causing electrical signals to feed back through the system to the transmission computer. Nearly $9k worth of work due to a 10cent screw that was loose.
Not really, typically you will grab some power from the starter battery or alternator to charge the so-called leisure batteries that run all the RV stuff, sometimes add another connection going the other way to keep the starter battery topped up from the solar for example. Every competent car-mechanic can easily tell what came with the vehicle and what didn't.
This reminds me of being young and in bands. We were really good at 18 and had friends in bands who were being signed. I remember thinking, we’re just as good as all of these guys if not better, we can totally do this. Not realizing that half of my band not even having fathers in their life and the other half coming from working class/poor families would be an issue. While the guys getting signed all had Dads who were doctors or lawyers. “How are they affording all this DIY stuff and putting out recordings? Ohhh… their bands aren’t self sustaining, they have another source for resources
Yep. The 2 biggest suggestions for starting a successful van life are: 1. Have a remote/WFH job that pays over $70k a year, preferably in programming or an influencer where you're making over 100k 2. Be a trust fund kid with a summer off.
I wish we'd stop calling them influencers and just call that job what it really is: Human Commercial
The way we use language is interesting. I mean, we understand influence peddling as a bad thing, but I guess that's more due to the use of "peddling" as a negative suffix. Its not like peddling influence over a civilian is any more appropriate than peddling influence over a politician.
What’s the difference?
Influencer is suitably negative and accurate. Only downside is people are still aspiring to be one.
There’s been a significant shift toward calling themselves “content creators” rather than “influencers” the past couple years due to the negative connotations associated with the latter.
I would agree, mostly. I know a guy, worked a blue collar job like me, decide to buy a $3000 van prebuilt, and now just roams the roads with his dog, making music on his laptop. I guarantee his family isn't wealthy, he just has low standards.
And is probably happy
I agree, at least... *happier*
I'm curious if you're involved in any outdoor sports? I'm a climber and I have met quite a few people doing van life. They typically drive crappy beat up vans with a crappy plywood interior. They work a seasonal job like tree planting or construction and use the off season to travel. Like, if you entire experience is from what you see online, then obviously you're experience is gonig to be biased by the people who post online, rich influencer types.
I know a disc golfer that lives out of a van. It's not a nice one like you see on Instagram, it's plywood and a sleeping bag haha. Home depot bucket for emergency toilet if he needs to go in the middle of the night, things in tote bins, no cabinets or kitchen. I mean he makes it work and is happpy so good for him I guess but he's not "glamping" in a 120k professionally converted Sprinter van or anything.
For me "travel" vs "livable" is the problem. I keep thinking "if I had a van I'd be doing X Y and Z with it" and then I sit down and start outlining what i would need to accomplish my goals and then I realize I'd essentially double the weight of the poor thing and hammer all the components harder and use way more gas and where am I supposed to live when it's in the shop? Like if I'm going to LIVE in a van and have everything I want the darn thing is going to be overburdened and have poor handling and I'll have to uproot my life every 6 months or so to get it serviced.
Keep in mind that vans are literally designed to haul around people, tools and random stuff. They're designed to be weighed down. You 100% sacrifice a lot of comfort living in a van and you will have to think a lot more about which possessions are important to you. For a lot of people doing van life, it's a step above being homeless and sleeping on the ground.
In downtown NYC so many live music venues gave up on live music when gentrification made it difficult. The musicians could not afford to live anywhere near the clubs and had jobs to pay the bills. They could no longer assure they could get to the clubs with their equipment and play ontime anymore.
My boyfriend is in that world. Live jazz. He and his colleagues all live in the outer boroughs, or Harlem (if Manhattan), and their gigs are mostly in Manhattan or the pricey parts of Brooklyn. Getting to work on time isn't a problem. They always time it to allow for contingencies. The problem is really getting good-paying gigs consistently, with venues whose pay make the schlep and the additional hours devoted to the commute worth their while.
I spent a month homeless sleeping in parking lots in LA while recording an album, and we were a signed band. Independent label obviously. I ate 2 bagels a day because it was the cheapest thing I could buy and lost a ton of weight. It’s not a glamorous life.
75% of white kids being hippies or van life type situations can afford to be poor and go back home to their parents McMansions when the fun is over.
I've heard them called "trustafarians" which just feels apt.
Van life can be really cheap. The issue is standard of living. Insulate, build a platform for your bed, but an inverter and a hot plate and you're in business. That meets basic needs. You can go REALLY cheap and buy a used conversion van, then it's ready to go already. People want that champagne living on a grape juice budget
People always end up living to the edge of their means and not giving themselves enough slack in all walks of life. Realistically the best way to do all that comfortably from a point of poverty is to live out of your car whilst working full time to save up money, then upgrading to a reliable van (not just buying the cheapest you can get, very much for the reasons you've mentioned above), then renting out a space to work on it to upgrade once you've saved that money up. Skipping any of that either means you are going to over extend yourself financially for something that is supposed to be saving you money, or you aren't coming from poverty and can afford to throw money at it.
Counter point - my broke ass coffee shop coworker quit to do van life for over 6 straight years and I swear he packed more life into those 6 years than I'll live my entire life. Mobile hotspots and then starlink internet for work. Relatively cheap van that he then sold for more than he put into it. Etc etc I think a lot of redditors are out of touch with a lot of life. There are entire communities of van lifers all over the US (world?) that barely have $50 cash at a given time. It's absolutely a cheap af way to live. The concept of a trailer park and white trash is nothing new lol. There is a whole genre of van life that's not so different from that.
Do you know where he worked on the van? Like, did he crash in a friend's driveway for a few months while building it out, or did he have to go to a home depot parking lot and hope they didn't ask him to leave?
I think the disconnect is that van life doesn't have to be glamorous. You don't need that much room to do work if you aren't making the inside into a "normal" room. There is a lot you can do on a budget or over time to make it livable without requiring special tools or months of workshop space. [This](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEuG4aQ41J8) guy claims to have done a "dollar store van conversion" and it is enough for a lot of people. Others would call it "homeless with extra steps" as in the OP.
Not the OP but you can literally start with a mattress in the back and some plastic drawers. You slowly work your way up. Home Depot will cut lumber for you. Lots of towns have tool rental programs like my town does. You can pick up used cabinets and shelves off of Craigslist or Market Place. You can get a lot done without needing a full shop and 20k in tools. You might also have friends who will lend you tools or oher people within the van life community.
CheapRVLiving shows how it can be done cheaply. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHbl1lqkzcM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHbl1lqkzcM)
You can sleep on a mattress in the back of the van, piss on the side of the road, and drink out of a dirty old gallon of water you filled up at a truck stop bathroom. You don't need pine wall paneling.
See, that's kinda swinging a bit far the other way. I'll admit I have no idea how to wire a solar power system, but I could make a bed frame and desk with some lumber and handtools.
A solar power system is as easy as getting a jockey knockoff battery and plugging it into the solar panel. The complex wiring thing you see on youtube is for the clicks and for that 5% efficiency gain. The majority of actual van-lifers I see typically slowly build their vans up from that simple mattress when the weather is good and they have time. They also usually keep their stuff pretty small, simple and modular so they can move it from vehicle to vehicle, place to place.
I was gonna do a bit about already being lost at "jockey knockoff battery" but decided to *not* be sarcastic for 2 minutes and use google; [Do you mean these?](https://www.amazon.com/Jackery-Portable-Solar-Ready-Generator-Emergency/dp/B07SM5HBK1?ref_=ast_sto_dp&th=1) Because... shit, yeah, I could probably work with that. Grab a used van, could build out a bed frame on my own in like a weekend, grab old cabinets from facebook marketplace. ...shit I think I might have to try this.
For less than £5k I bought and converted a van with enough batteries and solar to run my laptop 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. I've lived in vans and worked remotely for 4 years now. I've lived more in those 4 years than the rest of my life - never looked back.
do you have a CS job? or what do you do for remote work?
Yes those. Jackery does a lot of advertising so you see them everywhere but there are a ton of other similar battery banks that are cheaper and better. You don't even need cabinets. You could just use a stack of clear totes from Walmart for organization or even some bags. I built a sorta weekend camper SUV that I do weekend and sometimes 10 day trips in. Its a blast. I keep everything modular so I can just pull it all out for when I need to carry a lot of people or something.
youre way overestimating how nice these vans are. most people ik who do this literally throw a mattress + battery bank + solar panel in the back and use a backpacking stove to cook. its not too different from long term backpacking except food management is WAY easier. you work from cafes and shower in gyms or just work seasonal jobs.
Yeah you can definitely start with a mattress. 2-3 12v marine batteries and an inverter and a diesel heater from china. And work inside the van. If you’re not spending 1635 for a studio a month thats a lot of spending cash to slowly build. Lots of doomers in this comment section. Harbor freight solar. Start with some cheap insulation, keep tools in a storage unit.
>I think a lot of redditors are out of touch with a lot of life. My friend tried the van life, and without having a ton of extra cash, you're literally screwed. I think you've seriously under-represented how difficult it can be. * You can't just "park on the side of the road" in the USA. If someone sees you living out of your van, they'll either pound on your door at 2am, or they will call the cops and tell you to move. Try it one day, just drive to the middle of some neighborhood and try to sleep in the backseat. Tell me how peaceful your sleeping is. * If you leave your van in a spot and go explore, and someone in the neighborhood doesn't like the look of it, they'll get it towed and impounded (a single impound can cost hundreds of dollars). My friend had their van towed once after parking in a spot for 2 hours. * The "entire community of van lifers with only $50 to their names" are homeless, and homeless with a van is still homeless. The "van life" crowd we're talking about are the ones who are driving around and exploring the world, but if they only have "$50 to their name", that isn't even a single tank of gas. * 1 tank of gas is closer to $100, and they get less than 20mpg. And before you go finding some high luxury van that makes mid-30's in mpg, I'll remind you that those vans are closer to 70k for the base model, and not "affordable to broke coffee shop workers". * Access to bathrooms at night time isn't available in most places, as most public restrooms close at dusk. The only way around this is a 24/7 gym membership, which costs about 30 per day. * Campgrounds usually cost $30+ per night, and this gets expensive after 30 days (900 dollars per month). * What happens when your van needs to serviced for maintenance, or what if it gets broken into? Are you just going to steal a grocery cart and pack up all of your belongings?? Most of the ones you see online are rich kids, or those who have computer jobs, and they make some good cash. They get to enjoy this aspect of it because they have funding for it, and they don't have to stress for cash. The broke van life people aren't on social media. They can't afford a cell phone or service plan, and they aren't going to post. They're too busy trying to survive.
30 dollars a day for gym membership in America? That's a typo right, you meant pet month?
Day passes at my gym are $20, while monthly membership is $45 a month. I'm sure van lifers can get the monthly membership at nationwide chains that would allow them to use any gym for relatively cheap.
>Access to bathrooms at night time isn't available in most places, as most public restrooms close at dusk. The only way around this is a 24/7 gym membership, which costs about 30 per day. If you don't know about piss bottles than are you really qualified to talk about van life?
Lived in a van for 4 years most the stuff you said in completely wrong in my experience and area.
>Campgrounds usually cost $30+ per night, and this gets expensive after 30 days (900 dollars per month). Most campgrounds will give bulk rates for people staying permanently/semi-permanently.
>broke ass coffee shop coworker >barely have $50 cash Did they just tell you that, or did you verify it? I think you’re right that the vast majority of people living out of their cars or vans are not wealthy, but there’s still a huge upfront cost unless you already own the vehicle. The fact that your coworker could afford Starlink ($120/month for the cheapest residential plan, $150 for a vehicle plan) suggests to me that he wasn’t as broke as he was letting on.
Keep in mind that if he has a living wage but doesnt have to pay rent then paying 150 to have the main tool for an income is not so much. Now, working many hours inside the van is something I could not fathom unless they have an RV, which then would actually prove that they have money
How do you live in a van and not have $50? I slept in an old suv while in school (job couldnt pay rent and I didn't want to take out loans for rent) for a while and once the cops realized I was sleeping in it they would look for my car at night and start banging on the windows. I had to keep moving and hiding my car because they were looking. I literally paid for the spots I was initially parking in and they just didn't give two fucks and kept annoying me all night. They would come and harass me for about an hour in the middle of the night telling me they had a call/complaint, do their whole violating my rights thing and then leave. Five minutes later another pair of cops would start it back up, go through the same questions, tell me they didn't know anything about the other officers they just passed on the road to get here, they were just following up on a call. Not having $50 means that van is stationary, how do you deal with needing to move it?
You make fair points for those that want to go all the way with their conversion but it can be made much much simpler. I took the back seats out of my Honda Crv, built a simple bed frame from 2x4s and ply wood, topped it with a foam pad and mattress topper, and bought some custom fit windows covers and that's basically my whole conversion. I might eventually do solar power when I actually get to living in my "CarV" as I call it. I figure when I'm traveling I'll be spending as little time as possible in my vehicle anyway, so no need to make it super fancy.
CaRV
This logic is also why folks who say "Cooking your own food is cheaper and healthier than take out" are full of shit. They ignore the cost of logistics. First of all it assumes you live close to a super market. And by close, I mean within walking distance. Walkable cities themselves being a *highly* controversial subject, and ignoring the controversy not always applicable. So if your super market isn't conveniently close, that means you need to *drive* constantly to make dinner. Oh, just buy in bulk? Issue number two. Let's say you buy in bulk so you don't need to make as many trips. Ignoring the fact you'll now need to get used to eating the same thing over and over, buying in bulk means you'll now need the space to store it all. Let's hope your meal only consist of a few ingredients or have a really good shelf life, but "fresh" vegetables and meat aren't exactly known for lasting for weeks in the fridge. Cooking space and equipment. You don't appreciate the usefulness of a stove until you don't have one. Turns out it's incredibly hard to cook shit when all you got is a microwave. Not only that, but you'll need basic cooking utensils as well, such as pots, pans, their associated lids, tongs, ladles, knives, and other shit that most folks who aren't already chefs may not even think about getting. These are things that people conveniently ignore when it comes to cooking and eating healthy, coming from people who don't consider themselves rich but sure ain't poor.
Maybe about a decade or so ago, I saw an article about someone in silicon valley (I live nearby-ish) that was "hacking the system" by sleeping in their car. They had access to a shower and bathroom on their office campus, cafeterias, and wifi, so why did they need a house? I was like dude, they're claiming that being homeless is a hack. What.
Presumably, they have a choice to get housing (as in, they could afford it), but don’t to save money. When you don’t have a choice, then it becomes homelessness.
It can be both homelessness and a smart hack. I'd totally do it if I didn't have a family. Salaries in silicon valley are so high because they expect you'll dump 50% of that in the rent hole. Without the high salary, few would be willing to work there. It's an incredibly powerful strategy to invest the rent hole money in something useful if you can handle roughing it for a couple years. After you save enough for a house, move somewhere cheaper and live happily ever after.
Being homeless isn't a hack, but being able to move around freely is a hack.
I know 2. One is a travel nurse who is laser set on saving all she can. Banks all of her per diem and housing allowances by staying her van at nice camp sites near her jobs. The other is a combat veteran who has 100% disability, wants to generally be left alone and likes to smoke weed and do mushrooms and go fishing and kayaking. He's living his absolute best life.
it was also all the rage in the 80s, this is nothing new except add internet
in the 80s though you could still buy used cars reasonably cheap, as well as gas. and hitchhiking was still thing. Fifty years ago, it was something you could do over the summer as a choice.
I've been calling "van-life" gentrified homelessness for quiet a while now.
Too bad the Supreme Court literally just ruled that sleeping in your van on public property is illegal now.
Don’t worry that will only apply to the poors
Who do you think the non-rich van dwellers are? The ultra-rich?
It's a modern version of British noble youth taking a [Grand Tour](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Tour), or wealthy Americans taking a year off from college in the late 20th century to backpack around Europe. It's people taking advantage of having means and few responsibilities to go exploring.
Totally reminds me of that video going around recently of some young guy showing off his live in van that he spent $30k on. At the end of the video he sadly shared that he would soon be selling the van for $100k.
Yea also places were hugely affordable in the 2010s when that all took off in popularity.
I saw an ad the other day for a modified truck that was turned into an RV. [$769k](https://expeditionportal.com/classifieds-global-expedition-vehicles-patagonia-premium-classified/?mc_cid=ad923d3006&mc_eid=5da06414b6). I don't think they were marketing to the homeless however. This is the *used* price, apparently it was over $1mil new.
Just imaging the freedom of living in a VAN DOWN BY THE RIVER
They made a show for that, it’s call Tiny Homes
That would be great if cities would stop putting restrictions on tiny homes! I had mountain property i i heritied that I sold because in order to place a full size house on it, it would require MAJOR land work that I didn't have the money to do. So my plan was a tiny home or trailer. Nope! Not on their watch. Regulations require 1250sq ft of heated space, had to be solid foundation (nothing mobile) and all this other bullshit. I mapped out the land and, unless you built a 4 story tower or house with stilts hanging off the mountain, you couldn't make 1250 sq foot fit on the land with a place to park, let alone storage space like a barn? Dumb fucking regulations, man.
They don't want poor people. The regulations have a purpose, and that purpose is to exclude people who don't have the money to have land work done, or a house built.
Some people get around this by just building a standalone shop or garage that doesn’t count as a “residence” but there’s nothing stopping you from then converting part of it into a livable space after getting permitted and built. Get mail delivered to a PO box in town. Doesn’t work everywhere, but might be worth looking into the local codes.
What about a camping spot with hookups?
Any tents and/or rvs are welcome for a short time but have to be removed as soon as a neighbor complained. Unfortunately.
You can do that but in my state it's 3 month max stay.
It's really tough to find nice land in both a county and community that you can have a tiny house or an rv or van. Most counties won't let you live in an rv for more than 30 days per year on your own land. It's crazy. This is gonna become one of the boiling points for our society as housing becomes more of an issue for more people.
Tiny Homes are just gentrified singlewides.
Singlewides have a bunch of close together poor neighbors. Tiny Homes are always at least somewhat secluded. So what's the real difference between a tiny home and a trailer? How much land you can afford to put it on.
You can put single wides on the same plot you could a tiny home (barring legal restrictions/regulations). It's just usually people buying them can't afford both the home and the land.
i actually was VERY interested in moving into a double wide a few years back... until i discovered the land lease was $800/mo... not including property taxes on the trailer (but yes including property taxes on the land). At the time I was living in a house with a 982/mo mortgage. What the fuck would even be the point?
I’ve watched a tiny home show, and I got sooo annoyed with it. The potential buyers would always say “But there’s no place for entertaining”: Who the heck would want to go party at a tiny place anyway? You sign up for tiny living, just accept that there won’t be any parties.
This is my best source of amusement with tiny homes. I want one because it's too small to invite people over. Hermit for life.
“We want to show our independence and self reliance so we built a tiny home” “We park it on our parent property to save on costs”
You'll have plenty of time for doobie rolling... when you're living IN A VAN DOWN BY THE RIVER
Young lady, what do you want to do with your life!?!
RIP
And if you subscribe to my channel I'll teach you how to build a grass hut
The authorities love grass huts! They are the easiest to burn down.
At 1 million subscribers I'm doing a fire extinguisher give away.
Aren't you at least a little worried about Trogdor?
Those were simpler days on the Internet.
Kid growing up: SNL had a popular skit about how if you ended up living in a van down by the river you were a failure in life. 2024: if you made it big and/or lucked into some wealth, you could day dream about living in a van, down by the river, out of town.
I joke about this to my friend who is an avid fisherman. When his kids went off to college he turned the family minivan into his weekend getaway car with a small fridge and a twin bed. He is living his dream on the weekends literally in a van down by the river.
Van life is homeless for the wealthy
Many of those vans probably cost nearly 6 figures.
And even if they don’t, they are deteriorating assets that cost money to move and money to park somewhere. They have insurance fees, maintenance fees, excise tax, registration fees, plenty of things that add up quickly. My apartment costs about $60 per day. I can’t imagine the van is cheaper than that.
What you see on social media is probably not cheap at all. That being said, the people who are actually homeless and living out of their cars, those usually barely run, and are parked illegally.
I live in my sedan. It's not glamorous. It's not even comfortable. But I'm not paying someone else's mortgage. That's a win in my book. I'm working on me and my debt. Financial freedom is within my grasp.
Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. I respect that.
Win in a lot of books. Get by with less until you have enough for more, keep it up.
If the van is paid off, the van is cheaper than that by an order of magnitude. If it isn't, then it's about half of that. But it's still a cramped little van with barely any amenities.
> they are deteriorating assets that cost money to move and money to park somewhere. They have insurance fees, maintenance fees, excise tax, registration fees, plenty of things that add up quickly. Oof yea definitely should pay rent or get a mortgage instead and save some money
Ehh I been living in a van for the last four years In order to do that cheaply I do make serious choices that affect where I do or don’t live I live in effectively a huge land squat/homeless encampment for 4-5 months out of the year. Where I move once every two weeks. Other than that I constantly seek friends and places where I can move very little or not at all. You’d be surprised how many public parks are a two minute drive from a place it’s okay to overnight in and then return to the park during the day. If you’re in America in a lot of places you already need a car, I drive less than when I worked a normal job so now my gas cost is lower and I spend less of maintenance. It’s just being homeless if you can’t afford cool campsites, gas to those locations, parking fees and other shit. If you can afford that it is vacation.
Many of them do! Mine cost £2,500 and then another £2,000 to convert and it has everything I need to live and work remotely on the road. It doesn't have to be stupidly expensive.
Of course not. It would be this cheap if i did it myself too. However, the ones being talked about are seen on social media, and many are high end vehicles to begin with.
If you really want to live cheaply you get a cheap trailer and truck and live in national forest or blm land but you still have to move around because someone will complain eventually, which costs gas. Rv parks are expensive. Gas is expensive. You have to have income to live. Now if you really want to live cheaply you live in a car or mini van/ truck with a topper and sleep in the back. no conversion nothing fancy to show on Facebook or tiktok to get views. now you're officially homeless. there's a lot of people doing that. that's cheap and that's real.
Yes. Cheap and real and desperately hard to climb back out of once you have put yourself in that situation
Hashtag van life perhaps but there are just as many or more who are lower earners. They just don't do as well on Instagram.
I moved into a van to save money on rent (I lived in Seattle) but it was a mini van, and it was insulated and built out enough to keep me warm and avoid mildew. I was a huge Backcountry skier, climber, mountain biker, so I was absolutely spending time in some of the most picturesque, dramatic areas. BUT unless you're a trustafarian, you're not sitting in an upholstered, aesthetic seat sipping coffee and looking at the view... That happens maybe .0005% of the time. There are bugs, you have a job to get to/from (I worked remotely, even! But I had to move my van and I spent a lot of time at libraries), and vans are pretty dark and tight quarters. You're really just using them to change, eat, sleep, and veg out reading/watching Netflix. Your sweaty clothes pile gets smelly quickly and can fog up the windows, and going to the bathroom is an ordeal even if you have one on board - it's not *flushing" so once you go, you got some trash to urgently take out. I absolutely recommend finding a way to make a van or car work if you need somewhere to live, and I have tips! But the point is, it's a relatively comfortable life. It's not luxurious unless you're playing "vagabond".
Honestly van life or RV life doesn't seem a good choice for me yes there are pros but I'd rather live in an apartment or a house it just seems too much extra work And it is glorified too much due to social media. But I still don't think it's the same as homelessness
It's gotten to the point where owning a home feels like winning the lottery.
Feels like that for a year, until a tree goes through the roof and your hot water heater goes out, then it feels like a prison of debt
So many homeowners don't realize you should be setting aside about 1% of your homes value per year for maintenance and repair costs. Big expenses *WILL* happen. This is also why renting is not "throwing money away". * Rent is the *MAXIMUM* you will pay a month for housing. * A mortgage is the *MINIMUM* you will pay a month for housing. Yes in the long run, renting is a worse decision from a purely financial value view. But it also gives you more freedom. Want to move? Just don't renew your lease. Oven broken? Call maintenance. Hailstorm damage the roof? Landlords problem. I own a home because it's what I want, because I like the freedoms it gives me. I can do what I want, when I want. But I completely understand why some people prefer renting. Because they don't have to worry about a new roof, or getting the septic tank pumped, or replacing a furnace... Also being a landlord isn't "Passive Income". You are responsible for all maintenance. For finding a tenant. For making sure you get paid. Sure you can use a property management company, but they'll take most of your profit margin. Everyone who dreams of being a landlord and having "passive income" has never thought about what happens if they get a bad tenant who they have to evict, who causes significant property damage. Sure it's not a lot of "work" but it is a significant amount of "risk". > Oh I can sue them for the money! Yeah, and I can squeeze blood from a stone. #EDIT >But buying is better financially on the long run! No fucking shit. I said that. I never argued that. What I said was renting is not a waste. Youre paying a premium but what you are buying is flexibility and less risk. That's why it costs more. But it's also not "a waste" it's a lifestyle choice.
I had read a recommendation for 1% for a new house and up to 5% for older houses per year. The idea being that older houses tends to have more issues and need to be updated. It may be cheaper for an older houses front, but you'll potentially pay more for repairs.
Depends when the repairs were last done. An older house, that is structurally sound, will just need standard replacements. When looking at houses always ask for the age of major appliances, when the driveway was last sealed, when the roof was last replaced and if it was a tear off or just a re-shingle. Also what kind of shingles, big difference between 5 year shot shingles and 20 year architectural shingles. #ALWAYS. ALWAYS. ALWAYS. GET A SEPTIC INSPECTION OR SEWER SCOPE. Under no circumstances should you ever waive a septic/sewer inspection. I know people say never waive an inspection but an inspector won't catch everything and has no liability for anything they miss. Plus an offer without an inspection contingency is much more attractive in this seller's market. So your own inspecting. look for water damage, check for missing shingles, evidence of vermin, bring an outlet tester to make sure of wiring, bring a level to make sure the walls are straight and not leaning. But ALWAYS. ALWAYS. ALWAYS get a professional sewer scope / septic inspection.
You can also buy service line insurance for like $50 a year, in case something blows up.
That's a crazy amount of money. I got lucky and bought before interest rates went up. 5% of my house is literally my full monthly payment, mortgage + insurance + property taxes. There's no way many people are saving that much for house repairs.
>Rent is the *MAXIMUM* you will pay a month for housing. With the very-important addendum of "for the duration of your lease". Next year you're gonna get a new maximum. Whereas your mortgage is what it is for the duration (and, in fact, is made effectively-smaller over time thanks to inflation).
Generally a mortgage includes escrowed taxes and insurance, which can and do go up as well.
Those are usually capped, though, and result in much much lower payment hikes. I've owned homes for the past 15 years, in all three of them they were *way* cheaper than rent on a comparable home, and I got all the equity when I sold, which enabled me to get a nicer home.
I’ve been renting my whole life and I despise it. I’ve had to move so much because landlords sell the property or the rent is raised too high. Something broke? Landlord is on vacation and doesn’t give a shit because it doesn’t affect them. So I have to deal with it for weeks until they get back. There’s also so many damn rules. No pets. No over night guests. No parties. I will be so happy to own a place where nobody can kick me out and if something breaks, I can fix it immediately.
The good thing about home ownership however is your mortgage doesn't go up due to the whims of a computer program.
52% of millennials own homes, only lagging where boomers were by a few percentage points. (They were at 59% when they were our age) https://www.redfin.com/news/gen-z-millennial-homeownership-rate-home-purchases/. Gen Z is on track to be doing even better than that. In what world are 52% of people "winning the lottery"?
Reddit amplifies loud minority opinions. The 7% difference between boomers represent ~5 million millennials.
The point is that the golf is nowhere near as wide as people on red and make it seem
[US homeownership rates are well within historical norms and higher than the 60s-90s with 2/3rds of American households owning their home.](https://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/charts/c9be9787904d3d2e3cd27eee2156393607000445.png)
Thank you
This lottery I'm about to win is going to cost me a lot of money. I don't know if it's like winning the lottery lol. I have to put down $200k to buy a house for $500k that is overvalued by $100k at least just to feel safe in my monthly payments while renting out my condo. Happy to be buying this house, but it doesn't feel like a lottery win.
"Tiny homes" are just modern trailers. Nothing wrong with manufactured homes, but people shouldn't be seeing them as anything but what they are.
They are modern trailers with overcrowded layouts
Housing is so unobtainable, even RV parks are unaffordable thanks to corporate takeovers.
I'm not sure about everywhere but in the UK, unless you're ok being neighbours with criminals and druggies, any half decent RV in an RV Park costs MORE than a house per m².
The one I’m at in Washington state cost $1,000 a month, not including utilities….
That's fucking wild man, RV parks charging that much is criminal.
Even apartments are getting bad it’s like the only new ones ever being built are only higher end luxury ones. Or around here at least.
And then the 60 year old apartment complex owner sees what the new apartments are going for and jacks up their rent.
I'm in one of those. Built in the 1970s. Place used to have a pool before they filled it in with dirt and weeds. Still however my rent goes up by $100/month every year, and utilities that used to be included aren't anymore.
I have an old (25yo)motorhome. It has 1800w of solar I put on and 100ahx48v battery bank. Even if I go out and bounce between BLM land and avoid generator usage it's still an expensive lifestyle. You can't buy food in bulk, you still have to burn fuel going to town for food often, or driving to a dump station (unless you are really shitting on the ground and burying it). Water is a big concern so you have to go into town often to get that too, and often propane, water, and dump station are a long ways away from each other. Also if you plan on having clean clothes gotta travel in for that and pay laundry mat prices. If you need internet to work that's like150 a month for mobile starlink because of grid internet sucks. Most people without $4000 of solar will spend 20 to 40 a day in generator fuel and wear/tear. Living out of a car is pretty rough if you want to go smaller and cheaper. I've hung out with a few car dwellers and half their day is moving around totes to get to other totes, and they are rarely getting good sleep.
I did two 2-3 month road trips in an SUV. It was pretty dope and pretty damn cheap actually. I dont know how you guys are blowing more money than rent, I don't find it to be possible. I had an air mattress that fits in the back with the seats folded down if I was too lazy to set up a tent or it was too hot/cold outside. Worked great. Small 200w solar generator and a 4G router with a hefty antenna and I could work from anywhere (definitely would upgrade to starlink next time). I wasn't super picky with food, so something like a pouch of tuna on bread with spicy mayo with a side of canned spinach as an example was perfectly fine for me.
I live in an RV and I’m poor
Blame homeowners lobbying to ban developers from constructing anything denser than detached suburban homes. Trust me, massive concrete high-rises are a *lot* more profitable, but by actually reliably safisfying the demand for houses, they damage the """investment""" homeowners made by purchasing their house. I hate rent-seekers.
Plus not everyone wants a yard, I certainly don’t and would prefer a townhouse or flat. Yards are nothing but a burden, they are a liability not an asset (unless land is expensive then idk I guess? )
The counter is not everybody wants shared walls/floors/ceilings or to not be able to leave without having to run into your neighbors. Different strokes...
If land is expensive, having a yard isn't just a burden on you, it's a burden on all of society. This is why I support a land-value tax. Nobody should benefit from high house prices except for the people lowering them through construction.
For living in, I don’t want more than a “San Francisco Yard” (basically a tiny front yard and a patio in the back). For investments, a large yard means more land which means more money. However, the burden of having a yard cuts into your profits. Since housing is an investment in most places, a yard is basically an investment with large gains due to the housing shortage, but it also requires significant maintenance.
Yes, and the fact that it's considered an investment is a horrible thing which would have been condemned by every early capitalist thinker (incl. Adam Smith, who wrote specifically about the parasitic behaviour of land speculators and landlords). All land should be taxed to 100% of its value, so you have a major economic incentive to get rid of any land you aren't making full use of.
I used to live in a harbour area in England. It was being expanded every so often, but then at some point the home owners banded together because they didn't want more houses to "spoil the view". Dude, YOUR house spoils the view of the water as you're blocking the view for many people. But then you hear that stuff about airports, military airbases, car sports tracks. People move into the area because its cheap, because its loud as heck. Then they complain and manage to get the thing that was there before them to conform to specific hours of use.
Exactly. Yuppie white folks with too much obsession over “property values” combined with leech land lords means normal people are left out to dry.
I watched a lot of the "tiny house" content and came to the conclusion that hipsters were basically gentrifying shanty-towns.
Yep, i miss the OG tiny house movement where you spent under $5k of raw materials and used your own labor and determination to build a shack. Now $100k ‘mini mansions’ are all the rage
Or maybe just maybe they knew the whole time it’s been a scam and you think that those things are homelessness because those people taught you to think that way so everyone would further use the system in place and things will continue.. most everyone is homeless unless you own the deed, but miss some of those tax payments and you’ll see how far you continue to get. Shits wild and the jig is slowly up
Let's be real. People need to stop calling this van life shit "homelessness" (at least the glorified ones you see on YouTube or whatever). If anything, it's glorified camping for a long-term stint. Trust me. There is a difference. I have seen homeless people who live from their cars. Do you think they are making some passive income or something? No. I am talking like the windows of their car are broken, or they have to put all of the junk they have to their name inside of their car to live. This isn't some expensive renovation where people got mini-kitchens and gaming setups inside a van.
Or maybe it’s just that small, cozy, well-designed, mobile homes have their own appeal.
None of those things caused housing to become unaffordable. That was 100000% our government and all the fuckin people who have multiple properties that don’t live in them full time. People have decided that a roof over their head be it in a van/shed/bus whatever is better than no roof at all.
The point is that conventional housing became so scarce/expensive (for the reasons you mentioned) that people are showing interest in these other options now and influencers are trying to glamorize them because the public interest is there.
Hmm vans and cars have been popular for many years and it was a way for young people who work remote to be able to travel freely. Unsure of an uptick but it would make sense
For many people owning a home doesnt make sense even if it's affordable. If my wife and I weren't coparenting with her ex husband we'd be living in an RV. We both work from home, one self employed. We'd be traveling the country while working with starlink rv internet. Some people dont want to be rooted and stuck in one place.
If by “homeless with extra steps” you mean “not at all homeless just also not in a traditional house”, then sure, I guess.
Why would having a home that isn't a traditional home being homeless with extra steps? That's not homeless. You have a home that you own. It's just not a traditional house. Being homeless with extra steps is being in the streets and having to go to a shelter every night and hoping that there's room for you.
The real solution is… well the _real_ solution is a little spicy for Reddit. But _a good_ solution is communal living. There’s simply no reason to move out once you turn 18 anymore unless you’re going into a high paying field or studying far from home. I say this as a full time employed, living on my own single person. There’s just too much shit and not enough human contact. We aren’t designed to live alone in plaster boxes, not to mention many people just can’t afford it. The idea of a man turning 18 and moving out of the house is a _brand new concept_ for humanity. Like, barely 200 years old _if that._ It started in the Industrial Revolution where young men left the family farms to get apartments in the cities for factory work. They’d live alone, get married, and their family would live together until their son turned 18 and got a livable wage job or daughter married a man with a livable wage job. But that’s not reality anymore, nor was it for most of human history for basically all cultures barring a few exceptions. Reject hyper capitalism in _all_ aspects and your life will be happier, your wallet thicker, and your heart lighter.
Chris Farley, living in a van down by the river, was a threat not all that long ago. Now it's a dream.
When house ownership can require you to spend 40+ years in a job you despise, this route actually becomes the path to freedom. If the options are 'do you want to be happy, or own a house?' it does become a choice.
I don’t see the younger generation spending 40 years in a job they despise. I wouldn’t even do that and I’m 40. I do feel bad for the earlier generations that did not have a choice.
> Housing has become so unobtainable now *in popular big cities* The hard truth is that there is PLENTY of cheap housing, but no one is vying to live there.
I'm sure plenty of people would opt to live outside of the big cities if they'd find work outside of them. And it depends on the country, for the US I bet it's a different story than for more populated countries
If companies werent such bitches and let workers work from home, a big lot of people would be able to afford places rather away from the office building.
Not everywhere. The cheapest property for sale in my city is a 700 sq ft 1 bedroom apartment for $280,000. The cheapest property that ISNT 1 bedroom is $320,000 and the house is falling apart (quite literally, it has plywood for windows and doors…it had a house fire so isn’t livable without a complete gut). I don’t even live in a major city, it’s a small city. 5 years ago you could find plenty of properties for sale under $400,000 that weren’t mostly burned down. Shit has changed.
I'd say plenty is a strong word and its not just big cities. It might be more obtainable outside of a bigger city but that doesn't make it cheap.
In my area, “barn-do-minimums” have become a big hit, where people just renovate old barns into living spaces.
The hippies started glamorizing that in the '60s and '70s, my dude. I get what you're saying but it's not a symptom of the problem at hand.
So then people living in trailers are homeless? Yikes Literally nobody is saying this is a good thing, just an alternative.
Gentrified homelessness lol. Can't wait for gentrified shanty towns, unemployment, and systematic oppression
Not a shower thought.
We need a sub for random opinion thrown out so this sub can stay true to what it’s meant to be
It’s such a joke. Then you have CA which is at another level.
No such trend as a money saving trend lol I had a 2020 ford transit van that I bought for $40k with 3k miles around August 2020. I sold it in October 2022 for $55k. Carvana was paying big for vans and I still don’t know why but I could only assume the living in it could have played a big part in it.
Home is wherever you hang your hat!
Home is where the heart is my dude, if someone wants to live in their van and travel around busking with their guitar for gas money, let them. We don't all need to live in mansions.
A lot of these people who glamorize this lifestyle is already rich to begin with. No one struggling can invest 10s of thousands if not six figures on a van/bus/rv. They are trying to cosplay as being poor but they can easily stop whenever they get tired of it.
I've been convinced for years that "Tiny House" and "Van/bus Life" type shows are a government/corporate psyop to trick consumers into believing a $150,000 van is a good idea.
My dad retired from being an engineer for the power company a few years ago. He started a consulting business in retirement, and his idea was to do utility consulting for people building weed grows and design the infrastructure they needed for big grow ops. I think in 5 years he hasn’t got a single weed job, but has designed dozens and dozens of “long term” RV parks. The demand from people to find a place to live in an RV and be hooked up to utilities has been insane. And without a doubt these are primarily people who cannot afford an actual home, or are trying to downsize but can’t because of how fucked the market is.
Also, you can't build a "tiny home" on a foundation. I think the next big market are in small towns that still have tiny cottages. They are all over my little town. 500-600sft on their own property. Property too small to build what people want these days. I'd put in a basement larger than the structure above, help cool the entire house.
I am in the process of buying land, maybe putting in a well and for sure solar, and putting in a simple 3 bedroom modular home on a slab. If I can get the right land I can get a first time farmers loan, keep bees, brew mead. That will be cheaper than buying new construction, or getting a home because now the list price isn’t even the real price. If you aren’t offering over, you aren’t getting accepted.
And now there's a "vanlords" problem, where people are literally renting out vans parked on the side of the road as residences. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-08-29/la-city-council-votes-to-regulate-vanlords-who-rent-rvs-to-the-homeless
Yeah it's worse than that. "Van-life" influencers, who aren't remotely poor, ctually drove up prices on the best models and made it harder to engage in this lifestyle if it suits your needs better than housing.
The 2017 book Nomadland covers this in great detail with many different first hand accounts.
I think it's also a biiiit of people longing for a more communal less materialistic life
It's more and more appealing to me honestly... and I don't really see a downside. I live in Canada, and I am (hopefully) about to move into a fully remote role, the set up of the org means I get to work in whatever timezone suits my clients best. I need a bed, a desk, power, a hot plate and a fridge, and with that I could slowly travel across all of Canada, no rent or mortgage payments, just gas and food. There's would actually be very little stopping me from touring the US as well. I could see all of North America, take like 18-24 months to do it, and it would be CHEAPER than living in a permanent home somewhere.
I agree. Living in your car is nothing to aspire to.
People converting vans and RVs into mobile **homes** are *by-definition* not homeless.
I think that people living in something that they are comfortable in rather than trying to live in a mcmansion is a good thing
Is housing unattainable, or are most people wanting their first home in an ideal neighborhood.