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I rent my current home in an ever growing expensive portion of the city. I plan to permanently move to this part of the city (as the commute is very reasonable), however I found that the prices of homes (condos and townhouses too!) are extremely outrageous. At my current yearly income, there will be no way I'd ever dream to own anything within the city!

What I've found within my income was a generously sized parking spot on a parking lot. This is conveniently located downtown so I will have access to everything while others do not. This can cut down on me owning a car and paying other related expenses. I've spoken with the current owner (not specifically telling him what I plan to do), but I plan to put a large shipping container in my parking spot and live inside of it. This will work great as I will have covered living quarters and a plug outlet (used for electric parking) for misc tasks such as television or heating. I could also just simply find another type of container and just park it on top of my space if a shipping container does not suffice. Finally, I can simply move out when the time comes to own a house (which will be easy as a shipping container can be moved by a single truck).

My question is, should I attempt to save money for a home or use this as a stepping stone which will also save me money in the long run?

A little about me, I make $30,000 a year and houses regularly sell in this area for $800k or more. I live a very simple means as I do not own a computer (typing this at the library), a prepaid cellphone, and eat free food samples/shower at work. Any advice even if it is negative will be appreciated.

James Frachilis
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You don't mention where you live, but in the US, zoning laws, building codes, and insurance rules, would make this difficult if not impossible. People do convert shipping containers into housing, but they have to be modified to conform with local rules for habitability. This makes them more expensive then say, a trailer or a mobile home.

Charles E. Grant
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I would not recommend you proceed for the reasons given by others and would recommend focussing on raising your annual income to a point where you are better able to decide whether buying is an option.

Given the price of places where you are living and your situation it likely will be some time until buying a place makes sense financially if ever (at those prices I would expect renting makes better sense).

Aias
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A parking lot is someone else's property. They get to decide whether you can park a mobile home or equivalent, and can demand you remove it at any time.

Similarly, permission to charge an electric car us not permission to use power for anything else.

And health codes will be applied to your housing, as will zoning laws, as will...

Without permission you are just begging for trouble. With permission (which may involve paying rent for the space and paying for utilities) you're still likely to find this much more complicated, difficult, and expensive than it appears.

keshlam
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