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Tiny houses entice budget-conscious Americans (AFP)
In a country that nearly always believes bigger is better—think supersize fries, giant cars and 10-gallon hats—more and more Americans are downsizing their living quarters. Welcome to the world of tiny homes, most of them less than 400 square feet (less than 40 square meters), which savvy buyers are snapping up for their minimalist appeal and much smaller carbon footprints. The tiny homes revolution, which includes those on foundations and those on wheels, began a few decades ago, but the financial crisis of 2008 and the coming-of-age of millennials gave it a new impetus. The proliferation of home improvement shows on networks like HGTV fueled the trend, inspiring customers ready to personalize their own small living spaces.
Cost is one of the driving factors—a tiny home of just over 200 square feet with a customized interior can go for about $50,000—a massive savings over a McMansion in the suburbs.
[...] Despite the advantages, the tiny homes movement is far from widespread. Rough estimates put the number of tiny homes in the United States at a little more than 10,000. The first sticking point is financing—would-be homeowners are finding it impossible to get traditional loans for non-traditional houses. Banks are instead offering medium-term loans of up to seven years—at significantly higher interest rates than regular loans. But the main obstacle is a legal one: most municipalities and towns ban residents from living year-round in anything on wheels, and often have statutes requiring homes to be at least 900 square feet.
[...] To vault over the many legal hurdles, many tiny home buyers are setting up their places without permits from local urban planning officials. But others are opting for tiny house communities, which are on solid legal footing and are sprouting up all over. Tiny Estates in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania took over a former campground and obtained the necessary permits to accommodate tiny homes on wheels. "It's important to go to your town meetings, your borough meetings and just say, 'Hey, here's what they are'," says Berrier. "It's not some clandestine little sketchy thing. These are beautiful tiny houses, well designed. If anything, they add property value to things."
(Score: 4, Interesting) by takyon on Thursday June 20 2019, @12:45PM (4 children)
So the problem with "mobile" (largely stationary) homes isn't the depreciation, it's that the people don't usually own them or the land they are on. There's nothing inherently wrong with some cheap, off-grid tiny house, or even a depreciating mobile home, it's just the finances involved. The parasites involved were covered on a recent episode of John Oliver.
I think the kind of person who would jump on the tiny house trend would either have enough money to own the land it's on, or be relatively poor but realize the importance of owning the land. It's possible that they could get cheap land in some rural or remote area, save money by building the tiny house on their own, add some solar panels, and try to be mostly self-reliant. They will even be able to get a high speed internet connection from SpaceX or OneWeb.
This kind of lifestyle should be encouraged, and legal barriers should certainly be removed. Maybe Phoenix666 is doing it, IDK?
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Thursday June 20 2019, @07:00PM
Damn it...you made me google "john oliver-tiny homes".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCC8fPQOaxU [youtube.com]
But, there he is talking about manufactured or mobile home "parks", which is true. If you are low income and living in one of these places you are toast. But if you have your own land to park it on it might be worth it. The only cravat is that in highly developed areas you will have to deal with sewage disposal, well drilling (or some source of safe water) and local land use ordinances.
Now of course if your land happened to be in the Mississippi River Basin this spring, you could have just hooked up and moved it to higher ground.
"It is easier to fool someone than it is to convince them that they have been fooled" Mark Twain
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Friday June 21 2019, @03:13AM (2 children)
I just did some real estate hunting for a friend in southern Ohio. Found numerous nice lots for sale for $10k or so. Lots of decent houses (mostly modulars or doublewides, but in good shape) under $50k. This isn't so unusual all across the farming midwest. Yeah, you can't get the 6 figure tech job there, but neither will you be a debt slave to your mortgage forever and anon.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Friday June 21 2019, @09:05PM (1 child)
Watch those $10k properties. It's easy to get excited and then find out the land doesn't pass a perc test for a septic system and/or the closest electrical utility is half a mile (and $8,000 in facility costs) away.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Saturday June 22 2019, @12:44AM
Oh yeah, can be a host of reasons why a property (or a whole area) is bargain-priced. Or at least bargain-priced by coastal lights... about 10 years ago an acquaintance of my sister bought a fairly nice older house in North Dakota for (are you sitting down?) $5000. Same house in San Francisco is a million bucks.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.