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I'm happy for the tiny house craze I've wanted one for a very long time,mortgages enslave people for life and noone wants that.
The trick to a mortgage that does not enslave you is to find a home that costs less than a tiny home. A small older home like a 2/1 up to 1000 sq ft can be found in many parts of the country for $50 or $60K. Your mortgage may be $500 to $600 a month depending on property taxes and insurance.
Spending $50K on these tiny houses is foolish in my opinion and then you have to find land or rent land to put it on, and if a hurricane or tornado comes good luck to you living in a vehicle. I'd rather live in a single wide on my own land that in those tiny homes.
They seem too austere. On the Tiny House tv show, they show couples buying them. I'd think that after a couple of weeks in a place like that, they'd be ready to kill each other. The smallest ones aren't practical, IMO, except maybe for 1 person, and it would have to be a young person, due to the stairs/ladder issue you mentioned. The bigger ones (some websites show a variety of sizes and styles) look very practical and more comfortable. Some have a real 2nd story that you can stand up in.
I do like "smaller." My ideal house wouldn't about 700 square feet, and lived fairly well in an apartment in my younger days that was about 150 sq ft. That being said, no I don't think many of the tiny homes out there are practical. If you want something moveable you'd be much better if with a travel trailer. If you aren't buying land (which I think is a point of ownership really) you may as well buy a really cheap trailer in a park over an overpriced tiny house. A micro apartment is probably the best option if you are trying to be green.
The building codes in this province include things like wider doors to allow for future accessibility issue related to disability, age, illness, etc. A loft you have to climb a ladder on to a bedroom you have to crawl around is the exact opposite of this.
My wife had no choice but to live in a tiny house (400 square feet) for many years in the USSR. She now lives in our 1100-square foot palace while her daughter now occupies the tiny house (as she did when my wife lived there). On a recent visit, my wife offended her daughter by blurting out, "My God, it's so tiny, how did I ever live here?" She now agrees with me that 1100 square feet is barely adequate for two people. I'm a big devotee of Thoreau and love the concept of tiny houses, but realistically my attitude toward tiny houses is the same as my attitude toward Phoenix: It's a fun place to visit, but I wouldn't
want to live there.
For those who aren't familiar with Thoreau, there is an amusing section in Walden where he discusses how he toyed with the idea of living in a shipping container where he could just close the lid at night. But the reality is, even crusty Thoreau only lasted two years at Walden.
.......On HGTV, most of people seem to mooch off their friends and relatives and put them on their land
Which, of course, means that they can cook in their friend's kitchen, take showers in the friend's full size shower, use the friend's washer and dryer, and go and sit in the friend's den to watch the big screen TV.
So, they aren't really living full time in their cute little bedroom.
I see photos of really cute tiny houses, but what I see in actuality around here are plain boxes. They look like food carts. The fancy trims and cute porches and little doll house look costs a lot of extra money. The less expensive ones are ugly plain boxes.
The one around the corner from my son's house has a blue tarp attached to it and stretched out to the side to make a sort of covered patio area. Seriously trashy.
I live in a mh which is small. I would love to live in a 2 story, 4 bedroom, 3 full bath house with a fireplace, 2 car garage & big back yard (no pool).
Considering you're literally building a house on wheels Tiny houses run 50k and up. You can buy a trailer cheaper and get more longevity out of it. I think the whole thing is pretty retarded.
You're building a huge HEAVY house. On a trailer with wheels. So it moves. Does anyone ever wonder why trailers use a lot of fiberglass aluminum and synthetics? Considering how quickly weight piles up on a trailer when using traditional building materials designed for houses you can get heavy quickly. Not to mention you better figure out your weight bias because if you build it wrong you aren't going to be ale to tow it safely. Maybe not at all. So.....Now you need a truck that costs 40-50k+ to tow it. So you're into a "alternative house" for what? 80-100k. LOL. And it loses value with every minute and mile rolling on the clock or odometer. Hell sounds like a winner to me. Let me run right out and buy one. Imo You're better off building or buying a house with 100k but hey if that is what floats your boat.....anchors aweig Captain.
Last edited by Electrician4you; 06-02-2017 at 05:27 PM..
Now that we are retired, the our minimum criteria is ranch style with three bedrooms or two bedrooms and a den, two bathrooms and a large two car garage. We're not going to get that in 400 sg ft. I see the little house concept as a fad that will eventually die out as people realize it's just too small for anyone except a few hard core diehards.
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