This whole "domicile" business is starting to make my head hurt

[Queen]

And that last point is a good one as well. If I need to use my TX health insurance for a major surgery or other serious health issue, I may need "all the comforts of home" for a period of time before diving back into vandwelling. In that event, I don't want to be dragging my ailing carcass around town looking for available rooms to rent.

Bob, and several other folks here have said they'd prefer recovering from surgery or illness in their vans, and I applaud anyone who could do that.  But recovering from my knee replacement was life changing for me, it was frightening/painful/debilitating, the fear and risk of infection is awful initially, and it's been two years and there are still days I cannot move around well enough to be "out there", so for me, I want a small home base.  I have to come back to IL for any healthcare needs anyway (state retiree), so keeping a small place is no big deal.

 

[slynne]

I am hoping to find the right person to whom to rent my house. If I rent to a "roommate" then I don't have to meet the city's requirements for a rental unit plus I would still have an address and such. I probably should talk to my insurance agent though. One of the reasons I really like Michigan is for the no-fault auto insurance. I imagine that I would still be covered that way even out of state but I guess I had best find out.

 

[TrainChaser]

Queen: "...without a lease or deed, the DMV requires a sworn affidavit (on a state provided document) from the friend saying I legally reside there..."

That is bizarre, even for IL. Does every single property renter have to go through that?

There must be quite a few people out there with some bucks, if they can afford to maintain a property AND travel.

Arpisme has a good idea!

 

[ganchan]

Bob, and several other folks here have said they'd prefer recovering from surgery or illness in their vans, and I applaud anyone who could do that.  But recovering from my knee replacement was life changing for me, it was frightening/painful/debilitating, the fear and risk of infection is awful initially, and it's been two years and there are still days I cannot move around well enough to be "out there", so for me, I want a small home base.  I have to come back to IL for any healthcare needs anyway (state retiree), so keeping a small place is no big deal.

But if I do opt to rent a place, it'll be as minimal as possible. A spare room in somebody's house would do. Just a physical address and storage for extra stuff. The homeowner will probably be happy to collect rent from a tenant who's only there on occasion. The best roommates are the absent ones....

 

[Queen]

Queen: "...without a lease or deed, the DMV requires a sworn affidavit (on a state provided document) from the friend saying I legally reside there..."

That is bizarre, even for IL.  Does every single property renter have to go through that?

There must be quite a few people out there with some bucks, if they can afford to maintain a property AND travel.

Arpisme has a good idea!

If you don't have a written lease or deed/mortgage, then yup, that's how the state is choosing to interpret the real ID act residency proof.

I think a lot of people just don't worry about it, or haven't checked into it enough yet. Or they have kids or other family that don't care if they use the address.

 

[MrNoodly]

Sounds like the vandwelling community needs a "co-op" of sorts. One that a group of people put money into to obtain a small house or apartment so they all have a home base address to satisfy the bureaucrats, a place to store some stuff and a place to crash for a bit when they're not wandering.
Would be easy to keep in touch with each member (cell phones) and you'd know when the place is available or not.
You could even have a "caretaker" live there by offering cheap rent or ? so there is someone there all the time.
Jus' thinkin' out loud. There's gotta be a way to do it!

One of the big reasons I got into this lifestyle was to be free of the burden of home ownership. And one of the reasons I became a self-sufficient adult was to be free of sharing the responsibility of maintaining living quarters with others. I could not enjoy life on the road while worrying what was happening to the house/apartment. Having roommates, time sharing, or being a landlord totally sucks. 

I don't need a place to crash when I'm tired of wandering. I just stop wandering. My van is my home. I park it on public land, handy to a town for supplies, and stay until I want to wander again.

 

[Ballenxj]

Sounds like the vandwelling community needs a "co-op" of sorts. One that a group of people put money into to obtain a small house or apartment so they all have a home base address to satisfy the bureaucrats, a place to store some stuff and a place to crash for a bit when they're not wandering.
Would be easy to keep in touch with each member (cell phones) and you'd know when the place is available or not.
You could even have a "caretaker" live there by offering cheap rent or ? so there is someone there all the time.
Jus' thinkin' out loud. There's gotta be a way to do it!

This is an excellent idea, but I'm sure there would be many legal hoops to jump through. First one that comes to mind is that it would most likely have to be a commercial park type property to accommodate that many residents.
Still worth looking into.

 

[DrJean]

Sounds to me, for me?, that becoming officially "homeless" works better all around: for residency and voting and van insurance too! Do we have to join the homeless "home" organization or can we just pretend to be rooted there

 

[MrNoodly]

...I'm sure there would be many legal hoops to jump through.

If it's a rental property, the first issue would be, whose name would be on the lease? It would need to be someone with a sufficient credit rating and good references. And that person would then be legally responsible for the all rent. That person would then have to collect it from all the fellow tenants, including those who decided somewhere along the line they won't be using the place anymore, or who are disgruntled the place is always occupied when they want to use it, or that the last people there left it a mess, or whatever, so they won't be paying their share of the rent any longer.

Now, imagine the problems of a group of people coming together to BUY a place and one or more of them can't or won't meet their financial obligations.

 

[DannyB1954]

What a house costs depends on where it is. If you want to have a back up property in New York City, it will cost you a million or two. If you are OK with someplace like Pahrump Nv, it can be $40k or less. My house payment is less than $400 a month including insurance and property tax.

I know a bus dweller that bought a lot near what would be our downtown for $2k. He can legally live on it in his bus for 6 months a year.

 

[Ballenxj]

If it's a rental property, the first issue would be, whose name would be on the lease? It would need to be someone with a sufficient credit rating and good references.

I was thinking more along the lines of procuring some of that land that BLM considers to be worth only $100. an acre. Get about twenty of those worthless acres that BLM wants to privatize, start a dry camping RV park, and then a lot of people can claim that as their address.
To get in on this you would have to buy shares that equate to land. It would have to be a sort of private club. Set it up with a care taker that checks your membership upon arrival, and stay pretty much as long as your supplies hold out. Remember, you would have to haul everything you needed, including water. A dump station would have to be built.
OK, wake me up now.

 

[DannyB1954]

A while back this topic came up. Buy land or RV park and sell / rent them to CRVL members. It went nowhere as soon as all the realities were considered. Little things like who is going to pay for it. How do you discipline people who want to trash the place when they own the land that they are on. Who is going to pay for the management, etc. You will need rules like HOA's have. The question is who is going to follow them? And when they don't, what do you do.

BLM land for $100 an acre interests me. Let me know where it is, I might want 20 acres or so.

 

[wayne49]

In Maine I've seen  houses for sale as low as 10 to 15k. Florida has some cheap homes and that's one of the first states on my list to check out.  They're in pretty rough shape usually, but it's a legal residence with a mailbox.  I'll probably buy a property like this when I do hit the road full time.  I know they exist in other parts of the country too.

Make sure there are no liens (property tax) on the property and that the property does not need maintenance to be up to code. Also, who is going to cut the grass, etc. while you are on the road.

Look for places that don't have standards and grass to cut. Cough, Nevada, cough.

 

[wayne49]

A while back this topic came up. Buy land or RV park and sell / rent them to CRVL members. It went nowhere as soon as all the realities were considered. Little things like who is going to pay for it. How do you discipline people who want to trash the place when they own the land that they are on. Who is going to pay for the management, etc. You will need rules like HOA's have. The question is who is going to follow them? And when they don't, what do you do.

Sounds like a continuous RTR.

 

[Every Road Leads Home]

Make sure there are no liens (property tax) on the property and that the property does not need maintenance to be up to code. Also, who is going to cut the grass, etc. while you are on the road.

Look for places that don't have standards and grass to cut. Cough, Nevada, cough.

Nobody really cares what you do or don't do in Maine. (Most areas) Like everywhere there are subdivisions with rules.  I have a house here that I left vacant for 2 years when I got sick.  Grass 4 feet high people could care less. I'm in one of the bigger towns in Maine too with full town government and no one ever bothers me about anything.

 

[closeanuf]

I hear there are some real bargains on real estate in Detroit.

 

[slynne]

I hear there are some real bargains on real estate in Detroit.

There are! Although to be honest, the city has been undergoing a huge revitalization so there are certain neighborhoods which are overpriced in my opinion. Still, you can get a Mies van der Rohe townhouse for under 200k!!! I am kicking myself a little because I saw a unit in a Mies van der Rohe inspired mid century modern highrise for $4k 5 years ago but I didn't buy it. I guess it is for the best as that building has a rule about no subletting and it is a co-op with high fees. 5 years ago, there were also a bunch of Albert Kahn (another favorite architect) in a different upcoming neighborhood that were going for around $20k but now they are more like $100k. Oh well. I guess I won't kick myself about the lost real estate opportunities.

I am thinking about buying a vacant lot there and putting up some good fencing and then parking my van/rv on the lot as my little pied-a-tier in the city. There are lots in ok parts of town for as low as $1k. Detroit allows you to park on private property for up to a week without a permit and up to 5 weeks with a permit (which is apparently easy to get from any police station). I would probably just be there on the weekends though and can probably just stealth camp for free because even though the city has an ordinance against sleeping in your vehicle, the  police have bigger fish  to fry or at least that would be my hope. I have left my car in bar parking lots overnight without any issues so my guess is that the police probably would let that go and since most likely, the bar parking lot is where I would want to be, all would be ok. I don't know though. The urban stealth camping is something I am really looking forward to though.

 

[DannyB1954]

Careful about back taxes owed on the property. I almost bought a place in Algonac Mi. about 8 years ago. House and property was $30k. Property taxes were nearly $3k a year. A few years of taxes owed doubles the price.

 

[slynne]

Good point! I'll bet there are tons of lots in Detroit with titles that aren't clear and on which taxes are owed. I wonder if buying in one of those city tax auctions would help?

 

[DannyB1954]

And did they take out a second or third mortgage against it? The cost of the title insurance would be money well spent. Then if something was owed and not discovered, the title company would have to come up with the money.