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Old park model community revamped into modernized tiny home community in Palm Springs, California


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This is an old park model community that has been revamped into a modernized tiny home community in Palm Springs, California. It’s called the Palm Canyon Mobile Club. What do you think? Would you consider living tiny/small in a community like this? Let’s talk about it in the comments.

“The biggest challenge with tiny homes is where are you going to put them? So that’s why it created a really great opportunity for us to do this.”1

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Mobile home community remodeled and modernized into a LEGAL tiny house community in Palm Springs, California

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Images © Faircompanies via YouTube

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Images © Faircompanies via YouTube

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Images © Faircompanies via YouTube

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Images © Faircompanies via YouTube

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Images © Faircompanies via YouTube

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Images © Faircompanies via YouTube

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Images © Faircompanies via YouTube

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Images © Faircompanies via YouTube

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Images © Faircompanies via YouTube

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Images © Faircompanies via YouTube

Video Tour of this Community with Faircompanies

Highlights

  • Homes range from 600 sq. ft. to 900 sq. ft.
  • They call them “Not so tiny” homes
  • The designs are great for couples
  • There is a full bathroom with a separate door for the toilet so you can use the vanity while someone is in the toilet which makes it very convenient to share the space (it’s a great layout)
  • You also get a full kitchen with plenty of storage
  • The bedroom features a really nice built-in drawer set along with two separate closets
  • You can buy your own prefab home and then you pay rent for your lot to the community
  • The homes are built on trailers with removable hitches so you can move it somewhere else down the road if you’d like to
  • They are built by Silvercrest but have been customized specifically for this community as you’ll learn in the video tour (above)

Please learn more using the links below. Thanks!

Sources

  1. YouTube
  2. Faircompanies
  3. Palm Canyon Mobile Park

Our big thanks to Faircompanies and the Kirsten Dirksen YouTube Channel for sharing!🙏

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Alex

Alex is a contributor and editor for TinyHouseTalk.com and the always free Tiny House Newsletter. He has a passion for exploring and sharing tiny homes (from yurts and RVs to tiny cabins and cottages) and inspiring simple living stories. We invite you to send in your story and tiny home photos too so we can re-share and inspire others towards a simple life too. Thank you!
{ 27 comments… add one }
  • Tobi Lamb
    September 11, 2018, 4:04 am

    They are doing the same thing in Huntington Beach. Replacing old, outdated mobile homes with Tiny Homes. Only problem is, space rents are through the roof!

  • Gabriella
    September 11, 2018, 6:32 am

    It takes very little to be happy: the objective essential, end the spiritual infinite…..🤗

  • jb
    September 11, 2018, 11:03 am

    great, we need to see more of this across the US. Not such places where they are needed most; the high populated metro areas.

  • Annette
    September 12, 2018, 4:38 pm

    These are attractive but still far too expensive with lot rents starting at $650 – not including whatever one is paying for the unit (ranging from $100K to $300K) — never mind utilities. Obviously life is never going to be free, but at this level monthly housing costs will amount to at least $1500/month+ depending on the model price and interest rates. Needless to say, the space rent will rise over time, because they never go down, while the unit is depreciating. So it just doesn’t make any sense — for these costs it’s better to buy a house in the best neighborhood one can afford.

    • James D.
      September 13, 2018, 6:49 pm

      Manufactured houses actually can appreciate… That’s why they showed people renovating the older homes because the new development is raising their property values…

      Unlike other options, manufactured houses are legally recognized as residential homes and are built to the federally regulated HUD building code. So, unlike the mobile homes built before 1976, modern Manufactured Houses are actually built to meet residential living standards and requirements.

      While he stated in the video that the lot rent already includes much of the utilities, probably only paying for electricity separately, as well as park amenities like access to the club house with pool, etc. Meaning it’s more like a HOA fee with amenities but the homes are energy efficient as well. So energy costs are much lower than they would be for most traditional houses in the area.

      Besides, this is in the Palm Springs area… Costs in the area have risen significantly in the last few years. Basic cost for just utilities for a 915 Sq Ft apartment is around $228.66 a month… Vs what he stated in the video of around $55 a month… and a house would cost far more in that area with a medium cost per sq ft of $261…

      So a 1 bedroom home in the area can cost as much as one of their 600 Sq Ft single wide but you would have to cover all maintenance costs yourself, pay higher taxes and other costs, not to mention possibly needing to renovate if it’s not a new home, and pay a higher utility bill to see how that actually compares…

      While you have the option of buying a manufactured house and placing it on your own land and if you choose to install it into a foundation then it becomes recognized as a regular house and is no longer viewed as a manufactured house.

      But even a person who owns a manufactured home subject to local property tax on rented land is still eligible for either the Homeowners’ Exemption or the Renters’ Credit, though, not both… and other housing related exemptions can also apply…

      • Annette
        September 13, 2018, 9:37 pm

        Thanks for distinguishing between manufactured homes and mobile homes.
        Nevertheless (as a former banker) I’m not persuaded that a buyer would be smart to purchase a home like this, vs. stix/brix in a good (or even a less good) neighborhood.
        To live in this, or one of these developments, strikes me that one needs money to burn.

        • James D.
          September 14, 2018, 1:03 am

          Housing in general requires significant funding, especially if you expect to actually own it… Maybe if you’re comparing it to some other part of the country then there may be better options but in California it’s a high cost housing market with very few alternatives to choose from… Nationally, only Hawaii is a more expensive housing market…

          According to a recent study, forty percent of the state’s households struggle to afford the roof over their heads and many are paying over 40% of their income towards the rising housing costs.

          Never mind the hidden costs of owning a house and how the long term costs can easily accumulate to more than the original cost of the home over time.

          Or other issues like rising costs of living, lack of rising incomes, increase of population with significant debt, lack of growth in the housing market to offset rising costs and increasing population size creating more demand than supply, rising environmental and building standards that are raising the cost of new construction, higher impact fees, higher permit fees, etc.

          And that’s not counting other issues with the housing market in California and why the state has such a significant homeless population…

          Sure, renting a lot isn’t the ideal but there’s many reasons why people are looking at any and all alternatives in California and there’s different pros and cons to every choice…

  • Annette
    September 14, 2018, 2:47 am

    Listen to you James D with your hysteria re “hidden costs ” etc –and that frightening silly paragraph …. what a complete load of nonsense.
    Essentially, if a person can afford one of these, they may be able to afford a home

    • James D.
      September 15, 2018, 5:07 am

      You should look up the statistics for the state because nothing I said was nonsense. Fact is California housing is rapidly becoming too expensive for most of the population there.

      Again, out of all 50 states only Hawaii has a more expensive housing market!

      The range covers examples like a two-bedroom homes in Lake County California (the state’s poorest county) having a median sales price of $158,000 to wealthy Santa Clara County, where a two-bedroom home has a median sale price of $641,000… The average studio apartment rent is $618 above the national average. A pattern that continues with two-bedroom apartments, which carry an average rent of $2,065, $861 higher than the U.S. average. If you need three bedrooms, the California average is $2,657, a full $1,138 higher than the national average.

      You’re free to believe what you want but the data reflects the actual reality whether we like it or not…

  • Joseph
    September 14, 2018, 8:09 pm

    These are really beautiful.

  • Rett
    April 6, 2019, 4:47 pm

    I have two questions for Paul.
    1) Why no solar? And any impediment to anyone there doing that?
    2) How did the location fare in the recent floods?

  • Michael
    April 8, 2019, 10:54 pm

    I can’t for the life of me understand why people are willing to pay those costs to live in Mexifornia.
    For $1900 a month I had a 45 acre hardwood forest here in Tennessee with a creek running through 1000 ft of it and multiple clean springs with certified drinkable water, a 2700 sq ft house, a half mile from my nearest neighbor but 5 miles from town, And I could drive that 5 miles in less than 7 minute any time. That drive could easily take 45 minutes in LA.
    And I had and all kinds of wildlife all the time. Was sitting eating breakfast one morning and looked out the window to see a mama bobcat and her offspring just casually walking by. What is the attraction for living in a fenced in box with 6 ft between you and your neighbor?

    • Alex
      June 1, 2019, 1:51 pm

      Interesting points. I suppose I still want everyone to at least consider, what if this idea/strategy was used in OTHER areas, near you, to create/develop more tiny/small housing opportunities? This activity even helps create/support jobs. So I stress that anyone who has any experience or interest in development or business to look into using this somewhere else… What other opportunities are there out there for rehabbing an older community and turning it into a tiny house community. I LOVE seeing examples of it done, even if it’s seemingly overpriced.

    • Cathie Lanier
      June 1, 2019, 4:09 pm

      Hey Michael: we live in a suburb of Dallas. We have a “spacious” back yard with 10 feet of space between neighbors and a box house that looks like probably every 6th one down the street… Yuk… We are having issues with a couple of things in common with you though, bobcats and coyotes. Wish we could be there…

    • Cathie Lanier
      June 1, 2019, 4:15 pm

      P.S. Recently, I took my husband to UCSF for medical care. Our taxi driver told us his house was worth over a million and a half… Old people cannot afford things like this. I wish, in Texas, there were tiny home communities to make getting old more affordable. I am not sure many realize the drastic shock of drug cost and medical care in old age. Old people need affordable housing and minimal space. Would love to have that where Michael is, but around Dallas, that is not happening.

      • Ellen Toliver
        June 7, 2019, 10:33 am

        Actually in Terrell there is a small house community. It’s not too far from Dallas and I believe it’s called Blue Bonnet.

  • Angela
    June 2, 2019, 5:38 am

    Nope. Nope. Nope. All they have done here is have a profit-minded person or company buy a long-established mobile home park (I used to visit Palm Springs and so I know the place) and oust the elderly residents who had moved there decades ago, back in the ’60s, some of them, and couldn’t afford the newly jacked-upped rents. They couldn’t move their mobile homes, either (because they had sat there forever, and would fall apart if they tried to move them) so they found themselves homeless because, after giving them a month or so to move their long-immobile homes, the new, black-hearted owners simply demolished them and had them hauled out so they could put in this ugly, obnoxious trendy piece of trash for old fogey faux-millennials and hipsters. It is the antithesis of what the tiny home movement is all about, it is a cynical, money-making twist on a movement designed to help people create an affordable space to live. A pox on all of these “not-so-tiny” homes and the rich heartless ignoramuses who live in them Pah! Go watch John Oliver’s excellent piece on YouTube about this nastiness.

    • Rickiwest
      July 23, 2021, 3:54 pm

      The same thing was done to an older, long established mobile home park on Lido Isle. Thirty years ago I was paying 850.00 a month for a space, where I owned my home. They were old, but wonderful, and couldn’t be moved. I lost my ……., and had to sign over my place to the owners which soon developed it into a resort on the beach. I think many of the long time residents had to abandon their places because of the lot fee expense which went up every year. Live and learn the hard way. It was an expensive lesson.

  • Kathi Edge
    July 19, 2019, 7:26 am

    So, it is just a mobile home park with more expensive units and a reason to pump up the lot rent? It looks much better than the eyesore that was there before probably, but hardly an “affordable” option for most. I have been searching high and low for communities like this, but they are all the same, spend $100K+ for the housing unit, another $20K+ for add ons, and then the $600 a month lot rent….YIKES. I am wanting to downsize not only my physical footprint, but my financial as well!

  • Chuck Alan
    July 31, 2019, 10:16 pm

    I checked in to this… Yes.. they are pretty…however the space rents are astronomical!!! These tiny homes are not exactly affordable ($150K – $300K…and the rents on the space are over $800 a month! Not exactly saving money or economical.

  • Bob P
    September 7, 2019, 4:36 pm

    I would love to see some tiny home communities that are affordable and geared towards retirement for seniors.

    • Sherry
      November 10, 2019, 2:37 pm

      That I would so love being a senior……..I miss grass and trees and flowers living in this city. Sure there are parks to go to yet are not safe anymore and better to stay home in an apartment. I know I can adjust to a tiny home as I live in an apartment that is tiny…now to find the money to design one and build it and move…….

  • Katie B.
    November 10, 2019, 3:55 pm

    Again with these “not affordable” tiny homes. Its outrageous that even though the homes themselves are cute and a person can live comfortable in said home, the prices are just so far out there that it is impossible for regular folks. When the tiny home movement started it was to free people from having to spend thousands of dollars on a home. And yet, there are some units going for over $148K. How is that affordable? I work as a designer, and for high in cabinets, flooring, even energy efficient insulation, windows etc… The pricing is way more than what is put into it. Even for the labor part, its still so expensive that unless you do “have money to burn” a person who is on a fixed income cant afford to live in a home like this. Come on Alex, really. Even with the lots rent being $650.00 a month, the units themselves are not that expensive to build, and yet, you all charge way to much for the tiny homes. Its ridicules. Working in a place that helps people build their dream homes, I can tell you that they rather spend that money on a home that has some land to it, than to throw in into a “Tiny Home on Wheels”. You see for yourself that people spend $5,ooo.oo to build a home, some rather very small to $10,000, for something a little bigger. And they are nice looking. So explain to us why we should spend the next 30yrs at so much APR, to purchase something that is smaller than a 3 bed/2bath home on some acreage?

  • Richard L Herrington
    November 10, 2019, 4:16 pm

    This is nothing more than a financial ripoff for anyone stupid enough to buy into this. The tiny house concept was created to find a way for people to live in a reasonably priced home… to cut down of the things they owned and to save them money each month. What has been created here is nothing more than a high dollar, very expensive trailer park.

  • Donna Rae
    November 10, 2019, 4:17 pm

    I LOVE that this has been done and is spreading! I do wish, however, that they made it so they didn’t look like typical mobile home parks. It’s still very sterile even while the homes are more stylish. I’d love to see big trees and fun landscaping. It would just be nice if tiny house communities…or small house communities…had some the same characteristics of regular neighborhoods. Smaller houses and smaller pieces of land…yes, I am suggesting that people own the land their tiny house sits on…can make for more affordable housing.

  • Gail Van Luvanee
    November 11, 2019, 3:31 am

    I’ve wanted to do something like this for Seniors and Singles who don’t want to live in an apartment but also don’t want a larger size house, either. In fact, we have a community in western Central Florida that is just that.
    . The thing that bothers me about this situation is the Gentrification —- the forcing people out of their homes by pricing them out. It is legal discrimination (and, from what i picked up from something that he said, that IS what is happening).
    . This is something that i’ve had in mind to support for the manufactured home subdivision that i’m in now.
    . HOWEVER, as i mentioned, i’m just concerned about how they treated the existing residents —– if they forced them out by pricing them out, harassing them out, et al ………. People matter.
    . If they did that, i DO NOT support it because of THAT.
    That is the reason i chose NOT to purchase a foreclosed home —- for me, it was taking advantage of another person’s misfortune, and in my heart and soul couldn’t do that )and now that i’m in their situation,
    . i am understanding that …… pouring everything you have into your home only to have it ripped away from you.
    . Even when i purchased my own home, when the seller and i were working out a price, i asked my realtor “Is it a fair price” instead of the usual “How little can we get them to sell for” —- or, rather, “how much can we mess them over and still get away with it.”
    . It does give some good ideas and insights about how this can be done, though. I’d just like to do it in such a way that the existing residents wouldn’t be Gentrified out, especially since most residents in manufactured homes are low-income and/or living on Social Security and the low cost of their housing is helping them to survive (again, as in my situation).

  • Sheila
    December 1, 2019, 12:12 pm

    Although this is a great idea. I bet the space rent is outrageous. Why buy a home like this and pay up the nose in space rent here in CA? I have a manufactured home and own the land it is on. A lot here in the Sierra’s live in trailers or Mobile homes. Very few stick built homes here. Palm Springs is not cheap to live there. Am sure the space rent is high. At least we can sell our unit only and have something nicer without paying for space rent. These homes are beautiful but tiny homes seem to be getting more expensive. Not worth the price for the size. Sorry, I love tiny homes. They have gotten to pricey lately.

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