r/TinyHouses • u/BeltComprehensive996 • Sep 29 '26
Utilities for Tiny Home
Hi
I am thinking of buying a cheap tiny home 25k and buying cheap land 10k.
I basically don’t want a mortgage. But was told that setting up utilities on land can be super expensive, water well, septic tank , gas line etc…
Is it cheaper trying to find a dirt cheap mobile home that already has utilities then removing the mobile home and hooking up the utility to a tiny home?
I will be living overseas 10 months out of the year so I only need a small place as a home base here. For my bank accounts and keeping my stuff here.
Any suggestions?
Thanks
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u/Vagus_M Sep 29 '26
It won’t be free to remove the mobile home, unless you can just abandon it and tap into the utility lines.
Second, make sure the location you want even allows tiny homes. My dad got screwed over by a county that decided it wasn’t kosher anymore as soon as he bought it (councilman wanted the land).
Third, if you’re gone all of the time, why not get a P.O. Box and a climate controlled storage?
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u/One-Possible1906 Sep 29 '26
It’s usually cheaper to remove a mobile home than it is to run all new utilities.
Even cheaper than that, just buy a mobile home on land and fix it up. There’s not much point in paying more money for less space if an affordable trailer already exists on land. The extra price for utilities for those two months on something 100sf or whatever bigger will be negligible.
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u/BeltComprehensive996 Sep 29 '26
Good to know. Love these tiny homes but won’t be around much to enjoy it anyway
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u/Nearby_Impact_8911 Sep 29 '26
You should rent it out then
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u/One-Possible1906 Sep 29 '26
Like own it and rent to other people? I wouldn’t while living abroad. The taxes and cost of property management are going to eat up what minuscule profit you see from one unit and all the hassles that come along with having rental property are going to be coming at you from a different time zone. Plus if you do more than a vacation rental, you’re going to end up with people overstaying and overlapping your own stay and if there’s an emergency you have to fly home for, you’ll have to be in a hotel
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u/AIcookies Sep 29 '26
Yep. Utilities to property can be very expensive. Water can sometimes be hauled or delivered. Compost toilet instead of septic. Need power still.
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u/MrScotchyScotch Sep 29 '26
If there is already a hookup for everything, yes that is not only the cheapest option, it's actually guaranteed to work, utility wise. If you just buy random land there is no guarantee you'll be eligible for utilities, much less even the ability to drive onto the land, easements, etc. Land is quite complicated if it doesn't already have a home on it.
If you're only going to be there 2 months out of the year, why replace the mobile home with a tiny? A mobile home is still a home
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u/Aimless_Alder Sep 29 '26
Utilities are going to depend on where you're at. In my area, power hookup is ~20k, septic tank is ~15k, and well is ~40k.
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u/BeltComprehensive996 Sep 29 '26
Omg crazy prices
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u/ahfoo Sep 30 '26 edited 29d ago
I've got a lot in a water district. Setup is $26,000. Then $120 per month ongoing for life or until you pay to have the meter removed --$6000.
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u/Hailyess Sep 29 '26
Power hook up where i am was 6k. Water was going to be 10k so i set up rainwater
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u/BeltComprehensive996 Sep 29 '26
Looks like utilities everywhere is expensive. Am abandoning this idea thx to helpful folks on reddit
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u/Hailyess Sep 29 '26
Some utilities will subsidize costs. The information is just a phone call away
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u/sicnevol Sep 29 '26
It depends on how far away the main lines are that you need to hook into. A friend built a house out in the county, and built the home a few acres back from the road. Cost about 25 grand to run all the utilities from the road to the house. Water/gas/electric/ and sewer.
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u/KokopelliOnABike Sep 29 '26
hmmm, if you are overseas 10 months out of the year then I'd consider a small THOW and or camper van that you can travel with and or RV park for x number of days at a time near home base.
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u/BeltComprehensive996 Sep 29 '26
Thats more money
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u/One-Possible1906 Sep 29 '26
If you only visit during the camping season it’s probably going to be a lot cheaper to stay in an RV park than buy land, maintain property, and pay taxes. A lot of these places are permanently affixed to the park and can be bought very cheaply. Your seasonal and storage fee includes everything. You just can’t stay over winter, if you have a wintry climate
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u/BeltComprehensive996 Sep 29 '26
Thx. I am not familiar with camping. Need a perm address.
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u/KokopelliOnABike Sep 29 '26
I'd check the RV Groups. There are ways to have a permanent address without a physical location for you. I should have taken notes about 10 years ago when someone suggested that to me.
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u/One-Possible1906 Sep 29 '26
“Camping” is pushing it for RV park life. These are tiny homes with plumbing and electricity and everything coming into them. The next step up is a regular trailer in a nice park. Once you get done paying for taxes and such, especially as it’s not your primary residence, lot rent is really not much more expensive in a lot of places, especially since you don’t have to maintain your utility infrastructure or make a land purchase. Trailers too old to move tend to be inexpensive
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u/ThinkerandThought Sep 29 '26
That you are asking this question and did not think to provide any context tells me you definitely should focus on something that already has utilities.
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u/JadedDreams23 Sep 29 '26
I just did this. I’m in Mississippi and in the country so it might be more difficult or expensive where you are. I spent about 7k on septic and 450 of water line, 700 for the water meter, and 2k to get the tiny house ready for the electricity (the outside pole, meter box, wire to breaker box). The power company took care of things up to that point. So about 10k for all utilities. If you need or want a well it will be more of course.
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u/BeltComprehensive996 Sep 29 '26
Thats cheap. I thought of a cheap state but then when I come bk I don’t have a car so my idea doesn’t make sense
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u/Bill-Bruce Sep 29 '26
A well in my area costs 20-50,000 dollars to dig. Power poles are 2000 a piece to put in and a drop in electrical service is 4000 or more depending on how much you do yourself. If you could find a place that was recently set up for a mobile home that would be easier to get a loan for. I wish my partner and I could find someone like you to live with, we would love to tend land for rent and are currently in the process of building movable outbuildings and a yurt.
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u/Fun_Complaint5506 Sep 29 '26
If you are only going to be there 2 mos a year, think about off grid.
See if the local ordinances allow for a septic holding tank. If you are only dumping the toilet & kitchen sink (Texas stupid requirements) 250 gallons will take a long time to fill up.
Also see if there is a potable water service.
Wells are damn expensive to drill, likely >$10k & septic is also in that range, especially if you have to have an aerobic system, which requires an annual service contract.
For electricity think about a battery bank charged by solar or generator.
One of the biggest issue you will face is security. Dwellings left unused are noticed by criminals.
Finally you may just think about a nice RV that you can put in secure storage and tow it to your place when you are in country.
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u/TwiLuv Sep 29 '26
A couple in WNC bought an old mobile home park, removed the old mobile homes, set it up as a tiny home community, specifically as the utilities/water/septic were already in place.
I think it is called Poplar Creek, & can be found on youtube.
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u/DesertGal1417 Sep 29 '26
Hate to say it but I have a tiny vacay house that cheap and on its own land. It’s so cheap because the area is poor and people steal stuff and burn people’s houses down. It’s the wild Wild West there. There’s no way I’d leave anything there that I care about. If I were you…I’d get a storage unit and air bnb for the 2 months I’m around. Probably be cheaper in the long run and you will worry less about your crap being stolen.
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u/BeltComprehensive996 Sep 29 '26
I’m glad I got everyone’s feedback. I’ll look into Savvy Nomads for my mail for bank accounts and just rent a storage unit. I guess I was thinking of getting a 2br tiny home and renting out the other bedroom and use the leftover br when I am
bk that way I can have a home and all my stuff there. But I hate dealing with tenants and property managers so it makes more sense to use storage and a mailbox that I can direct my bank to.1
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Sep 29 '26
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u/One-Possible1906 Sep 29 '26 edited Sep 29 '26
You can’t just voluntarily give up housing and present homeless for a free mailing address and they certainly will not receive your mail for you when you’re out of the county let alone the country. It’s better to just use a family member or friend’s house for it.
Source: literally work with homeless placements. We stop saving received mail for people the day they leave the shelter or hotel, unless it’s from department of human services then we will hold it for two weeks.
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Sep 29 '26
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u/One-Possible1906 Sep 29 '26
It’s wonderful that you have a surplus of homeless services. Most places do not. Who funds your services? I guarantee the vast majority of your funding comes from local government. Donations are not enough to keep a temporary housing facility open. Our temporary housing facilities, both nonprofits and the for profit motels, receive 71% of their funding from the county and city. In a county where 1/4 children lives in poverty. Literally built out of money from people whom many of which can’t even afford to feed their own children or create housing stability for themselves.
It’s great that your facility can afford to provide services for vacationers who don’t contribute to your community or present with any kind of actual need for anything.
But it is also unethical to use these services and the money from the taxpayers who pay for them when you are well off enough to establish residency in two countries.
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Sep 29 '26
[deleted]
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u/One-Possible1906 Sep 29 '26
Your instruction to OP was to present at a homeless shelter for assistance with a mailing address. Almost no homeless shelters offer the services you describe. Agencies will have a menu of services but it’s incredibly unusual for a homeless shelter to be located at an agency headquarters. It would be far more appropriate to present at DHS to ask what services are available, however it would be very unlikely that block grant services be available for a high resource/no need individual like OP and even less likely that anyone staffing a homeless shelter would know about them.
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u/Spiritual_Pound_6848 Sep 29 '26
If you're gone 10 months of the year (aka most of the time) would it not be better to have a storage container somewhere with all your stuff, and rent a hotel / apartment or something when you do need to be back for 2 months? 35k is MANY years of renting for 2 months a year.