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It is very common for businesses to buy something somewhere
at
one price, move it to somewhere else, and then sell it for a
higher
price. I'm not sure of anyone doing that for houses, however.
In the USA, there are middle-of-nowhere places where you could
buy a house for, say, $50,000,
and other places where a house
could be sold for a much higher price --in San Francisco, the
median price of an ordinary house has reached $1,000,000
according to a recent news article; that would be $950,000 of
profit.
All that remains is MOVING the house from its original low-
price
place to the new high-price place. Although a certain number
of
houses do get moved each year, they typically are not moved
very
far. In this Idea we could be talking about moving a house 2000
miles/3200 kilometers.
That could be troublesome for ordinary transportation systems
(narrow roads, bridges over the roads, wires over the roads,
tree
branches over the roads, et cetera).
However, a simple solution may be at hand (see link). It
advertises a heavy-lift capability of up to 500 metric tons. An
average 2-floor house is said to weigh (as a rule of thumb)
about
275 pounds per square foot (of the first floor only, I think),
which converts to nearly 1400
kilograms per square meter. If the 1st floor of the house has an
area of 200 square meters, that would be 280 metric tons for
the
whole 2-floor house.
Sounds workable! The only question is, how much do they
charge
to move the house 2000 miles, eating into that potential
$950,000
profit?
Heavy lifting
http://www.varialift.com/ As mentioned in the main text. [Vernon, Apr 18 2015]
House for free
http://www.castanet...itage-home-for-free As mentioned in the first anno. [2 fries shy of a happy meal, Apr 18 2015]
Housing/Land cost spreadsheet
http://www.lincolni...ata-msas-2014q1.xls As mentioned in an annotation. [Vernon, Apr 18 2015]
House cost $40k move cost $70k
https://www.youtube...watch?v=Ga_-fm2ovwE dirt spatula [popbottle, Apr 20 2015]
[link]
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There are often houses for free if you are willing to move them, and I recently tiled one that had been moved from Vancouver in three sections. It's a good idea if you've got the cash. |
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[Vernon], I am not sure if the situation in the US is
the same as in the UK, but I suspect it is. |
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What makes the difference in price is not the cost of
building the house, but the cost of the land it sits on. |
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Of course, if you can lease the Varialift long-term,
your problem is pretty much solved. |
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Easiest way to test this idea is on trailer homes :) |
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[MaxwellBuchanan], you are right; land values in San
Francisco are indeed most of the cost associated with a
house. In the mid-to-late 1980's it was about 82% of the
total cost, and in 2007 got as high as 87% of the total cost,
and then the Recession hit, and everything cost less for a
time. In the first part of 2014 land cost was down to less
than 79% of the total cost. |
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For detailed figures, see the linked spreadsheet (a
download). |
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In which case, what becomes of your $950,000 profit? |
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Incidentally, there are some blackspots in the UK
where you can buy a house (including the land it
stands on) for a few thousand pounds. I've often
wondered about the economics of reclaiming the
building materials. |
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I read the linked article and found it interesting. Make sure
[Vernon] that you only buy houses which can withstand 250-
350 km/h winds generated during transport. |
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and also the "up to 50km/h" winds the craft can fly in. |
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How much would it cost to add more land off the coast of
San Francisco? |
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//1400 kilograms per square meter. If the 1st floor of
the house has an area of 200 square meters, that
would be 280 metric tons for the whole 2-floor
house.// |
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Is that for all-timber houses, or for more substantial
buildings? For a brick-built structure, suppose a
typical room is 4m x 4m x 3m high. It has a 30cm-
thick brick thick wall around it (this is allowing for
the fact that internal walls are shared between
rooms), meaning that you have about 15 cubic metres
of brick per room, or about 1 cubic metre of brick
per square metre of room. That's 200 cubic metres
per floor (for a 200m2 house), or 400 cubic metres
total. Density of brick is about 2 tons per m3, giving
a weight of 800 tons total (ignoring the roof and
internal floors and fitments). |
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//30cm thick// Breezeblocks are hollow. |
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My house is a Thunderbird-2 container. Just waiting for the day: scanning the skies for Supermarionation. |
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//Breezeblocks are hollow.// Eugh. |
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// How much would it cost to add more land off the coast of San
Francisco // |
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That rather depends if you want it still to be there after the big 'quake
hits. In 1906, a lot of reclaimed land on the shore experienced
liquefaction. |
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Your species has an unenviable track record of constructing major
urban areas in bad places. 'Frisco ? Quakes. Same for L.A. Naples ?
Oooh, look, big pointy volcano thingy. Miami ? New Orleans ?
Hurricanes and floods. Tokyo ? Quakes again ... Paris ? It's in france.
Doesn't get much worse than that. |
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Swings and roundabouts. Pleasant climate, scenic terrain, fertile soil
and good harbours tend to go along with hidden geological
unpleasantness ... |
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Cost to move a double wide mobile home is around 3 to 5 thousand dollars. |
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How about buying a plot of seabed off the coast and
then claiming on flood insurance? |
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Has anyone noticed that the house shown in
[popbottle]'s link was built by a company called
"Cretin Homes"? Really? |
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Hey, even people from Crete need to live somewhere... |
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Ah, yes. If I remember, correctly, the 3 most important
factors in real-estate are, "building, building, building!" |
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