Early Retirement Extreme Forums

This appeared on my FB feed, so thought I’d share.

https://www.realtor.com/news/trends/ter ... N82hciz1_o

My personal thought is just buy a shed from Home Depot; seems like it would cost less and have the same pros and cons....

I will admit, I’m not a big tiny house fan (ha! Big tiny....). My personal thought is that except for the most expensive parts of the US, you could probably find a house on a piece of land hooked up to water and electric for not much more than some folks are paying for their tiny houses plus add-ons. But some of them are really cute!

An organization dedicated to selling whole built houses says buying kit houses is a bad idea. Shocking!

But I agree, in vast parts of the US existing houses are a much better deal.

Sears used to sell house kits in their catalog. Everything you needed to build a house.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sears_Catalog_Home

My grandmother lived in a Sears house.
Montgomery Ward sold them as well.
http://www.arts-crafts.com/archive/kith ... omes.shtml

Menards still sells complete homes: https://www.menards.com/main/building-m ... 109497.htm
(Also itinerant workers can be picked up in their parking lot )

I don't know about that cylinder shaped house. It's really just a glorified barrel. Who would live in a house that could potentially roll down a hill. Although I guess it would make moving easier and you could fill it up with water and bob for apples.

Diogenes lived in a barrel, so they have the right idea.

Point taken. But I'm thinking Diogenes didn't buy his barrel from the richest guy in Ancient Greece. Probably stole it from his vineyards like a true barrel dweller.

I recently visited this project in Detroit. It's really cute, each house is completely unique, and there are no garages or even cars parked on the streets in front of the tiny houses. I might throw down $250, so that I can apply for a dispensation to build one on my lots. I thought the rent-to-own metric of $1/square ft. month X 7 years was interesting and reflective of how restrictive codes can form significant boundaries to equity accumulation. In the business/warehouse/office world, modular sizing/pricing is much more prevalent.




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Im41GXjE-vM

Our 1922 bungalow is a Montgomery Ward’s kit home. From what I understand, they were considered a budget-friendly alternative to the top-of-the-line Sears kit home.

7Wannabe5 wrote: ↑

Thu May 23, 2019 8:09 am

I recently visited this project in Detroit. It's really cute, each house is completely unique, and there are no garages or even cars parked on the streets in front of the tiny houses. I might throw down $250, so that I can apply for a dispensation to build one on my lots. I thought the rent-to-own metric of $1/square ft. month X 7 years was interesting and reflective of how restrictive codes can form significant boundaries to equity accumulation. In the business/warehouse/office world, modular sizing/pricing is much more prevalent.

So $84/ft^2? Not impressed. I know you can find 1000 ft^2 houses all over rural Michigan for less than $84K, all of which feature the amenity of not being in Detroit. Not to mention the amenity of being a place I'd be comfortable leaving a car parked out on the street.

I wouldn't think putting tiny houses in the hood is a great idea. It just seems to be making things easier for criminals as they could steal the actual house and not just the shit in it.

Tiny houses do get stolen:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nat ... 373687002/

@EK - The original tiny houses (e.g. not the 500sqft+ HGTV co-opts) were built on wheels to circumvent minimum-size building regulations by technically changing them to RVs (that's how to insure them). However, for semi-permanent dwellings, it's standard to jack them up and remove the wheels. This makes them a bit harder to steal. Also makes for a more stable floor.

True, easier to steal when they’re on wheels, but can still happen:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/nypost.com ... house/amp/

This one was on wheels, but I thought the overall discussion of the whole tiny house thing was interesting:
https://caseyfriday.com/2014/12/end-of- ... as-stolen/

First Amber, then Silver, soon Tiny House. Between kids, Alzheimer's patients and people's homes it's like the whole road system is turning into a moving lost and found.

unemployable wrote:So $84/ft^2? Not impressed. I know you can find 1000 ft^2 houses all over rural Michigan for less than $84K,

True, but unless you have 3 housemates, your overall cost is going to be much higher. Approximately 350 square ft. per human is happiness maximum, but restrictive codes rule out this possibility for most people who also want to live by themselves in an owner-occupied home without shared walls. Also, it is much more difficult to avoid the expense of owning your own car or truck if you live in rural area.

That said, it is possible to find a rural home for as little as $50/square ft. and the property taxes would also be much lower. There are also rural locations where you don't have as much code to worry about when building your own home.

7Wannabe5 wrote: ↑

Mon May 27, 2019 6:22 pm

Approximately 350 square ft. per human is happiness maximum

Maybe in third-world countries. I have more than that right now and certainly feel a bit cramped. As a practical matter I agree a constraint exists that most housing stock starts around 1000 ft² and isn't designed for singles. I would have use though for an extra bedroom as an office, guest bedroom, storage area and/or sex dungeon. If a full continuum of living spaces existed I'd be looking around 700-800 ft², with a largish living area/office, a semi-partitioned kitchen and a smallish bedroom.

In the U.S. in 1958, national happiness maximum , average occupancy was 350 square ft. per human. Of course, living in 1958 might seem worse than 3rd world to many current era people, because no internet

Obviously, a family of 4 occupying a 1400 square ft house is a different dynamic than single adult occupying 350 square foot tiny house. If I had my druthers, mine would consist of reasonably large kitchen with a reading chair in the corner, and very small sleeping nook (since my book inventory does not require heated shelter, and I prefer to be the welcome guest visitor at sex dungeon. )

Beyond that, my ongoing city mouse/country mouse dialectic is further complicated by the desire to not spend all of any winter in my home region.

I could see multigenerational or group housing arrangements where there are multiple tiny homes on a plot of shared land. That would keep people together in group settings but might eliminate most of the 'stabby' problem as Wheaton puts it when it comes to getting along with people when cohabitating.