Does anyone have a good solution for “cheap housing” for your model railroad town/city/village? My town will be out in the open and pretty close to the front edge of the layout, so I can’t use “space fillers;” I have to have houses that look pretty good.
I got some old Aristo Craft houses from a seller on Ebay, but they have turned out to be way too small; for the most part they are about 2.5x3"… a very modest sized home indeed.
It seems like most of thd kits on the market today are in the $15-20 range; I need enough of them that that option isn’t really practical.
So, I’m wondering if anyone has discovered a good source of modest priced HO scale housing. It would seem that while one can get industrial models of everything from blast furnaces to pet shops, the average, every day, ordinary family home is pretty hard to find.
I’ve never seen one of their kits live, but Colorado Model has been advertising in the back of MR for quite some time. The advertise a 2 story house for 6.95 that looks to be perfect for suburbia. Coloradomodel.com
Check around for AHM/IHC “farmhouse” and similar. Should be not too expensive. Also, I have used “company Houses” from AMBXpress. (I think that is it.) Simple laser cut at economical prices. Grandt Line has the “3 in 1 Pack” too.
I scour swap meets for cheap kits–I have found some very nice ones (including a Faller victorian, an old “Ma’s Place” and others) for $2-3 each–your mileage may vary, of course.
About how many homes do you need? There are quite a few residence kits on the market–how good they look generally depends more on the modeler than the model. Consider how big you want yards to be, and streets–often residential homes are kind of crammed together on a layout, and if your problem is a lack of kits than perhaps upgrading the size of yards & streets might reduce that number somewhat.
(mainly for danmerkel)
Not knowing exactually what you are looking for,but have you considered homes
under construction[?] An order of Bass or Balsawood goes a long way,and could
be semi-productive in what you would like. A new sub-division[?]
Different styles/floorplans than can be bought outright[?]
I’ve used this on a couple of previous layouts with some sucess.[:)]
A good source of very modest priced HO scale housing is to purchase a sheet of styrene and get some old model railroading magazines for plans (and to scale) and start making yor own, you need a sharp xacto type knife and glue and your imagination, it’s so simple and easy ,soon you’ll have a whole village.