A Bus Conversion, is not a tiny home.
A Bus Conversion group, started FMCA and other what we now call motorhomes.
A tiny home is what we used to call a Park Model Travel Trailer.
Even a tiny home that is self contained, is still a travel trailer if it has wheels and a tow bar.
A bus conversion generally does not have a wood frame, skids instead of wheels, a wood shingle or shingle roof.
Bus conversions have some kind of rollover protection, to the degree of the time frame it was built, commercial size wheels and brakes, aluminium, steel or stainless steel frame. And have a long and exceptional history of advancing RVing.
Would any one call a million dollar entertainer bus conversion a tiny dressing room?...
Are you off your soapbox now?? >>>Dan
Yeah, not sure the point but my take is to get them all to fall into the same category as bus conversions is an old timer but left out of today's "it" thing to look for when wanting to travel or live or remote work, etc. especially in these days molded by Covid.
I'd think we want as much attention to come our way to get increase the interest and numbers in bus conversions. It'd be great to get more skoolie fans checking out bus conversions, same with tiny homes on wheels, and of course regular RV and travel trailer crowd. too.
If you label your bus conversion as a tiny home you can ask twice the price or more when selling. At least that's how it works in the skoolie world.
"Tiny home" is a slick way to make some money shooting tv shows, not sure it does anything else?
I think a key economic indicator for this hobby is whether there are people being paid to do conversion work.
That space is glaringly empty, compared to 20 years ago. If someone can't make some money building... we aren't going to make any money selling?
And these internet spaces, both the old boards, and social media, do not fairly report the carnage of failed projects strewn across the continent, a total that silently grows as fast as the fresh newbies arrive, all full of enthusiasm and questions.
I would suggest this carnage drags our values down via association, not make ours more exclusive. This is not a collector car market.
During the covid, international travel is destroyed, large numbers are piling into camping as something "safer" to do, rv and traailer sales are healthy, campgrounds are booked solid the moment another block of dates comes open, and busnuts are NOT getting the money their coaches are worth in this hot market...
We should see good prices at this moment, not sure how the market conditions could get any better?
Happy coaching!
Buswarrior
Quote from: buswarrior on March 06, 2021, 02:18:48 PM
...rv and traailer sales are healthy, campgrounds are booked solid the moment another block of dates comes open, and busnuts are NOT getting the money their coaches are worth in this hot market...
We should see good prices at this moment, not sure how the market conditions could get any better?
Happy coaching!
Buswarrior
Well, one of the requirements for a satisfied bus conversion nut is knowing they are going to have to wrench on it DIY, and not even think about taking it to a shop for everything that needs fixing.
That means the market conditions really don't apply to us, even though the planned use is the same. Honestly, most people think a bus conversion is cool but most all serious buyers who have both eyes wide open, must go wobbly kneed when they consider what is involved to keep the beast in working order.
The "hot' RV market is selling to the 99% who think buying an RV from a dealer gets you a comforter and baby bottle. Whenever something goes wrong, you go waah waah and drive it to the dealer to warm up your bottle. Then they leaving going waah waah after writing the check.
But skoolies is a good crossover as many of them are thinking on the cheap DIY but still a school bus is different than a revenue bus.
We've just seen more than a couple of conversions go for higher and higher prices recently, prices which many didn't think were possible. The ones I'm thinking of were Custom Coach conversions in nice condition and a 60s Wanderlodge in original 'as-found' condition. There is still money out there if you have a bus that ticks off the proper boxes.
Tiny house vs. bus conversion? I guess that all bus conversions are tiny housed but not all tiny houses are bus conversions. In a world where people are advertising "restored" tin can ham travel trailers as tiny houses, why wouldn't a bus conversion qualify.
Yes, there were a couple recent that sold for good money but they were quite a cut above what most of us have. In fact, I'd speculate that Bluebird was purchased by a collector rather than a bus nut and would not be surprised to see it back up once it gets spiffed up, guessing for sure.
Exactly, just get bus conversions to fall under the "tiny home" label and it can only increase the interest and market size.
I think the biggest factor keeping our conversions down in value is the fact that they don't show up in RV value guides that the banks use to establish loan values. (The only exception might be American Eagle RV's being confused with an Eagle Coach, but when they look up the VIN.....).
Quote from: DoubleEagle on March 06, 2021, 07:58:25 PM
I think the biggest factor keeping our conversions down in value is the fact that they don't show up in RV value guides that the banks use to establish loan values. (The only exception might be American Eagle RV's being confused with an Eagle Coach, but when they look up the VIN.....).
Agree, that generally applies to newer buses/RVs where secured bank financing is involved. The price guide is still good for all used market valuations but it'd be curious to know how far back it goes. Would be wild if they tried to price out some 50's-60's revenue bus.
Just because someone decides to join in our hobby and bring their terms from their hobby and uses those terms in the communications with us, doesn't mean we have to accept these new labels, replacing what we've always used.
Did I miss someone trying to force us to change labels? If I'm talking to someone and they refer to their bus conversion as a tiny home, this neither confuses me nor changes how I address my own bus. I like my bus that I've turned into an RV, if someone else has a tiny home that happens to be built on a bus chassis, that's no skin off my nose.
Humm. The only reason I chimed in was about getting more folks interested in bus conversions. We sorely need more new blood. We are busnuts and love our bus conversions and that is that. But it still wound be wonderful if all the people behind all them other labels became aware of how awesome what we do and drive.
More people, interest, and involvement in buses is a win all around, i think.
What "Most people" really want is to write a check and drive it away..>>>Dan
( That's why half done conversions are going for chump change)
Bus to tiny home
Quote from: lvmci7070 on March 07, 2021, 05:53:37 PM
Bus to tiny home
Exactly!
The perfect example of melding the two worlds. Never know something goes viral then overnight they come like locusts.
The cost of new tiny homes is stupidity expensive, many can only dream of buying one but a basic paneled shell looks like a steal then dreams of a quickie conversion get the checkb out.
I notice a lot of young people posting on FB about converting coach buses and school buses into motorhomes/tiny homes. So I don't see our busnut hobby dying at all.
And speaking of prices, the lower end old conversions, or the half done ones, are the ones only worth up to 20 to 30k. But the higher quality ones are holding their value in the 50,000 and and up range. A well maintained 1990s to 2000s factory conversion starts in the 60s 70s, up to a couple hundred gran.
You can call me Bus Conversion, Tiny Home, Motorhome, House Truck, Shanty Car, Motor Cabin....
Reminded me -----
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoYsfbq3vMc
:^
Tiny house to me is a pretentious term. It goes hand in hand with eco-fascism and carbon foot prints - the types that focus on electric vehicles but conveniently ignore where and how the power is generated or how the lithium is mined. "Tiny house" term is a trendy buzz word that is poverty appropriation. I'm from Europe originally- you have no choice but to live in a tiny house. I used to travel to Japan, and you had to live in a tiny space - so the pretentious concept of a "tiny home" doesn't exist over there. I drive a bus, I own it, no payments and I've converted mine. I don't need trendy terms to feel accepted by society. That said- if the tiny house term garners more popularity for our steeds, so be it!
So do tiny homes pull dinghy or toad ;D
I like what Dreadnought said, and I wonder if some of the trend we're seeing pushing this tiny house movement isn't just a generational reaction to the previous generation.
In the decades since the 70s there has been a trend towards larger and larger homes in suburban America, and now we have a generation eschewing driving, large homes, excessive lifestyles, etc. In many ways it looks like a repeat of the hippy generation which did the same thing with their return to more a down-to-earth lifestyle than their parents and grandparents.
Bottom line for me though is that if the tiny house movement makes my tiny house on wheels more valuable, so be it. It certainly can't hurt to have more and more people interested in living in small spaces, whatever they call them.
Just another trend that will come and go. People get tired of cramped accommodations. Which then is a desire to enlarge the living area some. Just like travel trailers and mini motor homes, the trend is to trade up to larger. Imagine a TV with no remote or a car with crank down windows. Its human nature to desire conveniences, including more space.
Quote from: chessie4905 on March 11, 2021, 04:37:04 AM
Just another trend that will come and go. People get tired of cramped accommodations. Which then is a desire to enlarge the living area some. Just like travel trailers and mini motor homes, the trend is to trade up to larger. Imagine a TV with no remote or a car with crank down windows. Its human nature to desire conveniences, including more space.
I'd love a car with crank down windows right now...
My guess is that once the current generation which is embracing the tiny houses have one or two kids they'll see the advantage to having more space. Maybe not the McMansions which became popular in the 90s, but more than a single room for sure.
When mine quits running it will be towed and become a tiny home for somebody. ;D
Maybe a multi family apartment.😅
Quote from: lvmci7070 on March 06, 2021, 11:01:29 AM
A Bus Conversion, is not a tiny home.
A Bus Conversion group, started FMCA and other what we now call motorhomes.
A tiny home is what we used to call a Park Model Travel Trailer.
Going back to the OP. so a tiny home is not a tiny home? ::)
The problem is that an ever diminishing part of the new generations can afford the McMansions that the housing industry has been insisting on building. Half to quarter million dollar homes have been the gold standard for well over a decade now. With minimum wages in the 8 dollar range that's just not sustainable over the long haul. Those people are now sharing beds stacked up like cordwood in the cheapest apartments available and spending all their income to do it. No way they have any hope of ever raising even a $1500/month mortgage payment AND 10% down when take home is $320 a week, the numbers just don't work. And rent is often higher than that.
Jim
Inheritance will help many. As demand dries up for those expensive houses. prices will drop. As the higher income people retire, new ones will be needed to take their place. Doesn't help that regulations, a benefit to all, also chase our jobs to other countries, leaving a lot of low paying service industry jobs left.
do you guys want to move into this house that sold for $800,000 over asking price ! and I think of it as a tiny shack
you got to look at it
https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/this-tiny-toronto-house-just-sold-for-800k-over-asking-1.5072243
what happened to our world ?
dave
As suspected, this sale is a land sale. the structure is just in the way and will get razed as soon as construction on a multi-million house goes up. I'm a bit stuck like that seller. Every dollar put into the structure/"improvement" is a dollar that just got thrown away. I'm still debating whether to permit work I do as the new buyer is going to do the same thing and tear it down.