As for where to locate, I recommend you read Richard Florida’s book – Who’s Your City. It describes the idea of clustering, which in your case would point towards Portland or Northern California. Good luck!

http://tinyhouseblog.com/

The big advantage of Portland is that you’ve already got a built-in small group of interested renters. I know of three other soon-to-be tiny home builders here, and there are sure to be more. Yeah, you could get cheaper land elsewhere, but I can’t think of a better place to start such a project.

I love tiny houses. They are awesome.

So I would say n-plexs are a good investment if you are ready to be a landlord. I would strongly recommend against renting out single family homes. Here is why:
If you have a 4-plex and one unit is empty for a month you lose 1/48th of your possible income. If you rent a single family home and it goes empty for a month you lose 1/12th of your income. If you have a mortgage on the property, you just lost all your profit on the single family home. Whereas the 4-plex you have not.

As for a trailer park with mini houses. I would seriously doubt there is enough demand for that type of residence and would be fairly risky compared to other options.

Good luck to you either way. Being a landlord can be a tough job with a lot of pitfalls, especially if you do all the work yourself.

I wonder if Section 8 housing is available for mobile homes and RV parks? If so then at least you won’t need to worry about not getting paid by your tenant. Though you might need to worry about them trashing your place…

(Said very tongue-in-cheek because I’m busy trying to organize a small home movement that’s NOT centered around California.) Would love to have you in my neck of the woods, though!

I imagine single family homes would be a tough game right now, as Price/Rent is still way too high. From what I can recall, there is a 1% rule. Where if you buy a $200k house, you should be able to rent that for $2,000. $400k for $4,000. That’s a tall order in this market.

And if single family homes are priced rich, there is a good chance duplex, four-plex, et all are priced rich.

You could diversify your RV / mobile home park investment with on-site liquor stores and strip clubs. This would be very compelling to residents, as they would not have to get into their auto’s and burn gasoline to get entertainment. And no risk of police and DUI. Now that’s frugal !

That will be your biggest hurdle in realizing this part of your dream

There is a long history of these in America.

Thoreau on walden pond. The temp houses built after the San Francisco earthquake. the log cabin it self, from settler days.

I like you idea

What you should probably look into are single family residences. Read the books by John Schaub on this. Your cash flow needs are so infintestimal that as few as five houses may do fine for you. Five well-located, well-managed, paid-off homes would probably provide you with good income for the rest of your life. And you can buy more at your leisure if you want more income or greater net worth.

The great thing about RE is you don’t need to invest the whole amount, just the down payment. The zoning would be the biggest hurdle, nobody wants another “trailer park” in their neighborhood.

The problem with your plan is your are too frugal to pay someone to do the maintenance, so it would turn into a full time job for you. Isn’t that why you saved and saved, to not have a full time job?

RE can make millions – if done right. It is best to do it conservatively, buying a one or two properties (I’m thinking single family residences here, though) each year or couple years, slowing building up cash flow and equity. If you buy too much, too fast, you can back yourself into a corner really badly. A RE investor in my region (the Dakotas) got himself in trouble, because he got greedy and aquired too quickly and was unable to develop and manage his cash flow quickly or well enough to service his debt. Lost everything.