Tiny or Small Home Development

[elhelmete]

Originally Posted by Cloudship

I will say, you people have convinced me that there is a huge hole in the market that the conventional home industry is really ignoring.

I would sort of agree, but you can't consider the home-building industry as an island. It's inexorably connected to local governments and the finance industry.

[Cloudship]

Originally Posted by elhelmete

I would sort of agree, but you can't consider the home-building industry as an island. It's inexorably connected to local governments and the finance industry.

Around our area at east, I consider that a pretty integral part of industry. The town I live in, for instance, is pretty notorious for giving developers carte blanche to do whatever they want while denying individuals who seek to do the exact same thing. Most of the officials on the boards are from within or connected to the industry.

[davecj]

Didn't read the rest of the posts but here's my 2 cents as someone who does this kind of work with new construction:

Originally Posted by Cloudship

A mental exercise this. I want your opinion if you think an idea like this would work.

Let's say you have a lot of about 10 acres. Heavily wooded, but fairly close to the town center. I am thinking of a prototype lot in one of the Wachusett towns in Central Mass, though this is more a concept than a specific case. Zoning normally prohibits small houses on small lots. But let's say for the sake of this experiment that you have a loophole around that, mostly because you are looking at affordable housing options. And we will assume for this argument that you have worked out a deal with the town, so normal zoning restrictions are not an issue here.

Lots are 1/4 acre So 40 total homes assuming you can max out density
Obviously some tress will have to be cut down. However the goal is to limit as much tree cutting as possible to preserve the natural feel
Water, Electricity, and Sewer will be provided to the lots Roads? Stormwater Management? Cable?
Location is just within the commutable distance of Boston
Trains to Boston from the city next door are available
Land around the development will be protected Why? you have tiny homes on a 1/4 acre lot.
Walking paths and public space will be set aside (for instance playground, benches, etc.) for a social atmosphere
Home size will be limited to say 1000sq ft or less
The cost of building the home itself can't exceed $150k Not enforceable or even worthwhile. Stick to limiting SF or other tangible metrics
The lots are $50k apiece with utilities provided Even with max revenue of $2M, once you factor in the land, taxes, the utilities, attorneys, approvals and engineering, there is no way this deal works financially, even in your hypothetical scenario. The utilities alone will kill this deal with only 40 lots if they aren't cluster developed.
Houses must be permanent (i.e. no houses on trailers) but do not need basements You're going to at least need crawl spaces for the household utilities (i.e. where does the HVAC go, among others?)


Do you think something like this will work? Would there be interest in something like this?

[oldtrader]

Builders are not doing this type of project, because they cannot build such a custom home of that size on lots including all development cost, and be able to sell them at a price that the buyers for such a home can afford to pay except in some very rural areas of the country. If buyers cannot qualify for the loans at the prices builders would have to charge, they cannot buy the homes.

Such a project is a good way for a builder/developer to go bankrupt.

[davecj]

Frankly the only way I could see this working from a financial perspective if your goal is affordable housing is if you follow the trailer park model and cram as many homesites as possible into the property.