An English couple sold their home and bought it for about $108,000 after falling in love with it the first time they visited an abandoned mobile home park—with the goal of living mortgage-free.
John and Emily James, both 33, bought the old mobile home park near Llanelli, Wales in the UK in June and hope to bring it back to life.
The couple decided they wanted to live debt-free and sold their first home and property for $159,500 via Instagram.
After paying off their mortgage, they had $95,000 left over and used approximately $13,000 in savings, leaving only $725 in the bank for the mobile home park.
The couple, who are both wedding photographers and videographers, decided they wanted to live a simple, mortgage-free life and thought a mobile home park was the perfect fit.
They moved to the land eight weeks ago and are living in a small trailer – which they fixed up – while they renovate the park.
SWNS / Zenger / Simon Galloway
Emily James said that in order to save money, they do all the work themselves and are not afraid to learn new things along the way.
Emily James said: “We heard the land was going to be sold in 2020 and when I mentioned it to John I asked if he knew where it was, and he said, ‘No way we’re buying it.’
“John knows exactly where he is every time we go to visit his grandfather.
“A year went by and it was still for sale so we thought we’d go and have a look in August 2021.
“We fell in love as soon as we moved in and put in the offer the next day.
“The sale took 8 months to complete, and at one point we thought it was never going to happen.
Simon Galloway / SWNS / Zenger
“When we finally got confirmation of his passing, there were many happy tears. We wake up every day and can’t believe it’s ours. We’re grateful that we were able to pay off the loan and now have the land without any debt.”
“Living within our means was always important, so we wanted to buy affordably without going into too much debt or having a big loan. We didn’t really have a big budget, which meant our options were limited. What we could afford.
“A caravan park was in our budget and a place we simply love, it allows us to live debt free, so this seemed like the perfect fit for us.”
In the year The old miners’ mobile home park steadily declined after the coal mine closed in 1989 and became completely overgrown, Emily James said.
She said: “The abandoned passengers are completely rotten and beyond repair.
“We are living in small caravans on the land. When we clean the land, we are planning to bring the park back to life. To clean the land, we plan to remove the old and rotten caravans. Decades old and replace them with more modern ones.
“We are not afraid of challenges and we love how many new skills we get along the way. When we spent all our money on buying land, we don’t really have the budget to hire someone to work. We are getting paid from our jobs and renewing every month.
Simon Galloway / SWNS / Zenger
“We are very happy to see where we will be at this time next year. This is the least amount of money we have in our bank account. But we are happy very easily and we don’t need much to be happy, so we are taking it every day.
“We took all our money from our house sales and savings to buy the land outright, which made us who we are. [$725] In our bank.
“It’s a slow process when we start saving money from our day jobs every month, but it’s important for us to do what we can.”
The couple is documenting their journey on YouTube.
Developed in collaboration with SWNS.
This story was reported to Newsweek by Zenger News.
