@Steve Babiak  the other reasons I thought it could be elective is I took massive depreation on our airplanes..

But at the end of he day you just don't walk into the cockpit of an airplane and fly away your first day.. it takes in many cases years to get the knowledge and experience to move up to different aircraft.. same with real estate. 

The biggest influence/motivator for me is when I'm in an airplane, looking out the window, seeing the whole city right below me.

Thomas depends on what area of the country you are but in areas like the west coast were the median price for an existing home is close to 400k.. there is defiantly a market for tiny homes that can be sold in the 100 to 200k range just like there is for condos that are one bedroom.. but whats happened with building cost is vertical construction is now at 400 to 500 a foot.. in our area.. so tiny condos are costing half a million to just build.. in an area like the mid west or rust belt were you can still buy homes for FAR less than replacement cost I agree with your thought process.its why Europe with high priced housing has led the way with these container homes. this is my partner in my airplanes container home company they have launched in Portland market he is building an 8 plex as his first multi but he is going after the rural camper market. first off he also owns a nice 15 acre site in the PDX metro area and plans to put a few hundred on it and run it on leased land.. but he is quite wealthy and is quite charitable and looks for social issue to help with most would not do what he is doing as you state not exactly dollars and sense wise.. but he can afford to be a philanthropist.

I have owned 4 MHPs  over the years.. 3 were great one was a stinker.. and the stinker was because it was private sewer and water.. so I will only buy them now on city utls.. but we did quite well with thembut of course my strategy is reposition and sell I never owned one more than 3 years as the profit was there to be plucked :)… I ran into Scott Myers at an event a few weeks back he teaches a course on storage investing.Although I owned one storage facility and for me it was a little more work than I liked I ended up putting a condo plat on it and selling each of the units off to my tenants who all owned floating homes across the dyke on the Columbia river.. that worked out well.One thing I am keen on though and am going to start looking for is airplane hangers.. talk about no work and consistent payments..

I've run into a similar situation with an airplane hangar.

My '55 Triumph, Honda motorcycle and Beechcraft airplane may be on the chopping block next

@Ben Stout   buy a company airplane that you use for building your RE empire that will take care of deprecation recapture :).. as well as many that have large appreciating assets  ( us west coast investors as you mentioned) we use 1031's... this is how many start small and end up owning big apartment complexes... over time they keep doing 1031's but they are buying assets that can actually be sold for more money than they pay for them.Most sub 30k SFR's  that are bought at market value..

@Ben Feder commercial asset types like apartment buildings, multi-family Self Storage are so specialized I strongly recommend to anyone who's serious about that asset type go to away well recognized trainer and often you got to get on an airplane and pay large fees.Anthony Chara I one of the top multifamily trainers that I know of.Weather 1500 what's the value or not is entirely dependent on who?

I suppose they are happy.then you have others that drive 100k cars and those car's are sitting the parking lot of the apartment they rent..Or buy really nice cloths and Jewelry... take great trips etc etc.its whatever floats your boat.for me it was airplanes I bought my first one when I was 25.. 5 planes later and a few million bucks .. could I have done better with real estate NO doubt never made a dime on any plane just spent big money on them.. but you can't take away the satisfaction of the ability to run down to the airport jump in my plane and in 3 hours be 750 miles away from where I live either doing business or some other neat adventure... would other people find the joy in this that I do  ... some yes.. some hell no.. they would think its a total waste of money.