Hello Skoolie World

[Bottomfeeder-SKO]

Hello Everybody,

This is the second time that I have tried to introduce my self to my new web family site. I am brand spanking new at this. I have been mulling over the switch from a boat anchor house(townhome and hoa) to something more affordable in the near future. No mortgage payments and no homeowner association hassles! I do not intend to be in the bus forever but my ultimate goal is to build a more neo-traditional tiny house with land. My thinking is that maybe once I got my Skoolie/Shuttle Bus in living condition that I could possibly trade it for some land to some parent who wants to send their son/daughter off to College/University and have a reasonable means of living. My initial expectations is that all of this will come together over a 24-36 mos period. I need to sell the boat anchor to seed-money the procurement and beginning stages of life-in-bus.

I have not approached my mom or my sister but it would entail me to live with them for a short while until I can get the bus in a reasonable shape to live in.

But I will be bouncing around the different forums here until I can get a reasonable idea on what vehicle I need. square footage, what I plan to use as cooking arrangements/ food storage cooling/ water supplies and how off grid power wise.

 

[nat_ster]

Welcome.

How about a 53 foot reefer trailer?

Nat

 

[family wagon]

Well that is a tricky proposition. The thing is, you'd be building an RV for you short-term and for somebody else long-term. In my own experience, this inevitably means I'm building something I personally don't like because I think it'll be more to the liking of some unknown person. Is it for use by the hypothetical parent (age 40-60, perhaps?) as an RV for vacationing, or is it for the hypothetical college student to live in while attending school (at a prestigious university with a skoolie-embracing campground nearby..)? The tastes/preferences/desires of both of those long-term buyers will probably be different to yours -- and likely not low-budget, either.

Personally I think a skoolie is valuable to me because it's a hobby and I can create exactly what I want. The same bus would have relatively little value to anybody else, though, because it isn't their hobby and it's quirky, different, and potentially hard to maintain.

If you wanted to build a skoolie to live in, then buy some land to park it on, that would make perfect sense to me. But to build it to trade out to somebody else in exchange for bare land (and then live in.. what?) doesn't make as much sense to me.

 

[nat_ster]

I never buy to resell, or sell.

I wear $hit out over the long term.

Nat

 

[Bottomfeeder-SKO]

So you think it is unreasonable to think that will work out. So instead of me going thru the trouble of building a bus then I need to just buy one all set up and then concentrate on building a tiny home. I do not have a lot of funds. I am on disability and work a little. So you are saying since I don't live in a 250k house my dream of being off-grid is smashed. So I do not owned a company that gives me a monthly income of several k a month than my dream is trashed. So since I am not blue blood than I have to be confined to living in what ever I can scrounge for. Since my ideas are not aligning with your ideas than I should go elsewhere. I thought you all are suppose to help and support one another. Evidently I am wrong. Maybe I need to go elsewhere. Or I am just going to ignore what you are saying and go about my plan and see if it will work!!!!!!

 

[M1031A1]

So you think it is unreasonable to think that will work out. So instead of me going thru the trouble of building a bus then I need to just buy one all set up and then concentrate on building a tiny home. I do not have a lot of funds. I am on disability and work a little. So you are saying since I don't live in a 250k house my dream of being off-grid is smashed. So I do not owned a company that gives me a monthly income of several k a month than my dream is trashed. So since I am not blue blood than I have to be confined to living in what ever I can scrounge for. Since my ideas are not aligning with your ideas than I should go elsewhere. I thought you all are suppose to help and support one another. Evidently I am wrong. Maybe I need to go elsewhere. Or I am just going to ignore what you are saying and go about my plan and see if it will work!!!!!!

As a part-time government surplus dealer since 1999, I can tell you these buses do NOT have much, if ANY resale value unless you know the VERY narrow resale market. If you notice on this forum we begin with a surplus school bus. In all my time here (some seven years or so) I have seen four, maybe five converted school buses re-sold. Every re-sale is for considerably LESS that the original converter has in the bus. What we are telling you is very simple, plan to lose your shirt on reselling your bus. Since you do not have deep pockets (like most of us here), you need to think with a different strategy in order to gain the best value for the money you will spend to benefit yourself. It's up to you to decide if this route is practical or not. We're not spending your money, you are. We are informing you of our experiences over the years we have been here.

Remember, you asked us about our thoughts. Don't get angry if we let your know what our thoughts are. As a member that owns TWO buses, I have NO plans on reselling either of my buses. Why? Because I know full well I'd NEVER get back any money I've spent. This is also why I spend very little on them. Right now I have a very narrow budget, and I have to plan accordingly.

Help and support comes in many forms. Our help to you is to rethink your plans. To us your plans do not sound logical due to our experiences (I concur with the others whom have answered your query). There are way too many risks. I am unaware of anyone between 40-60 years old that would be willing to buy someone else's conversion, only to rip it apart, start over, and build a bus to their liking. Another way of saying this (since I'm in that age range myself) I would never consider buying someone else's conversion. I look to buy surplus school buses from certain areas of the country because those school systems have a great reputation for surplusing high quality school buses for very little money.

So, for what it's worth, there's your help and support. It may not be what you want, but it is what you NEED. The wise person has the ability to discern between the two.

Just my opinion, just sayin'.......

M1031

 

[EastCoastCB]

I've seen a few uneducated buyers pay BIG bucks for someone else's half arsed conversion.But that isn't the norm.

 

[somewhereinusa]

So you think it is unreasonable to think that will work out.
Not unreasonable, but probably unlikely

So instead of me going thru the trouble of building a bus then I need to just buy one all set up and then concentrate on building a tiny home.Maybe. I do not have a lot of funds. I am on disability and work a little. So what,irrelevant? So you are saying since I don't live in a 250k house my dream of being off-grid is smashed. So I do not owned a company that gives me a monthly income of several k a month than my dream is trashed. So since I am not blue blood than I have to be confined to living in what ever I can scrounge for.
Lose the chip on your shoulder, nobody said any of that, in fact most of us here probably fall into the "I don't have any money" category.

Since my ideas are not aligning with your ideas than I should go elsewhere. I thought you all are suppose to help and support one another.
How much help and support is it to tell someone that their idea is a good one when it isn't. If you make a statement to 10 people and 9 tell you it might not be a good idea doesn't mean that 9 people aren't being helpful.

Evidently I am wrong.
You made some statements in your very first post, that many of us have found to be, at most wishful thinking. A SKOOLIE IS NOT WORTH ANY WHERE NEAR THE MATERIALS AND TIME YOU HAVE INVESTED IN IT. I probably have the most expensive skoolie build here and have no illusions that it would be worth a trade for any land.

Maybe I need to go elsewhere.
Maybe

Or I am just going to ignore what you are saying and go about my plan and see if it will work!!!!!!
Sounds like it.

 

[OMGIBoughtABus]

To the OP:

I'm not an expert, in fact I'm not even through pulling the seats from my bus for my conversion. So take my 2 cents with a grain of salt.

If I were you, I would not spend the money buying and converting a school bus, only to divest it (for what most likely will be a negative ROI) and start on a tiny house.

As others have pointed out, a Skoolie is a narrow markit, and the main attraction to a Skoolie is not in living in it, but in converting it. I would not ever buy someone else's Skoolie, I prefer to buy a bare bus and make it my own with blood and sweat.

For the price of a decent bus, you could most likely purchase a 32-40' gooseneck trailer and a used truck to tow it, and use the trailer for your tiny house build.

Nobody is trying to crap on your dream, just giving advise and opinions as you asked.

 

[nat_ster]

So I do not owned a company that gives me a monthly income of several k a month than my dream is trashed.

I don't know of any member on this forum that has the resource you speak of. I own a construction company, but I am the employee. Only when I can't do the job alone to I hire help. How hard I work reflects on my monthly income. Time taken to work and make money is why none of my projects are finished.

Hell, I lived in a tool shed for 8 months with less resources than you live with now.

I own 3 buses, but have paid for them over the last 7 years. I only got that many for the parts I need to build one good one to live in.

We are all in the poor house here. That's why we build with a product that no one else wants (school buses).

If you want resale value, start with a different platform.

Nat

 

[CaptainInsaneo]

You might think of building or getting a camper van and then building up the tiny home on a trailer frame. The likelihood is that a tiny home would be against code in the location where you want to place it on. BUT if is technically a trailer you can recreate on your land as long as you want just as long as you aren't living in it. The camper/van could even be used as a tow vehicle to get your tiny home where you want it to go.

Personally, I want to build an ultra modern tiny home that can go anywhere and is worthy of a dwell magazine spread. I figure that there is nothing more modern than a steel and glass house that can go anywhere and change its views with nothing more than some diesel and time.
From what I have gathered a converted bus will NEVER ACTUALLY SELL for more than about 1/3rd of what you put into it and is probably more valuable as parts or scrap.

Much like a lightsaber a skoolie is built by someone for themselves. RV's are built by a nameless corporation for a nameless person. That said if you want to try to leverage this transition buy the best used RV you can find that needs work fix it up and update it then try to flip that when it is time.

I should also point out that I have been researching Tiny homes for about 3 years now and have just recently decided that I want to merge my goals of tiny home living and wanting to live a nomad life, hence skoolie. Good luck and learn from others mistakes, listen to others advice but in the end you make your own choice.

 

[family wagon]

RV's are built by a nameless corporation for a nameless person. That said if you want to try to leverage this transition buy the best used RV you can find that needs work fix it up and update it then try to flip that when it is time.

That's the sad part, isn't it? A person can fix and flip a production RV relatively easily. But just getting somebody to look at a bus conversion, nevermind to pay a price close to what went into its construction, is a major accomplishment.

 

[charles_m]

If you do a nice enough job and maintain your aesthetics throughout and document and make clear your choices, etc. you can probably get out what you put in. Assuming your time is worth nothing. Ive done more than a nice job on my bus, but I don't think I could get more than the $22000 Ive put into it. And it was featured on HGTV!

 

[CaptainInsaneo]

Assuming your time is worth nothing.

Thats what most people tell me!

 

[The-Breeze]

It seems that if your lucky you can get back what you originally paid for it (if you didn't overpay).

Everything else as mentioned, your time & what you've installed become freebies.

THAT SUCKS!!!!!

Fortunately, I feel the time I get to enjoy it more than pays for all the blood, sweat & tears.