Smaller Houses, Fewer Problems

The Small House Movement is pretty self-explanatory: people are sick of the cost, lifestyle and impact of living in large houses – so some of them are going small. (Real small.) The NY Times features a nice piece on the movement’s growing momentum, helped partly by advocates like Gregory Paul Johnson, a founder of the Small House Society in Iowa City, who took his small house on the road to spread the word. NY Times reports:

In July, Mr. Johnson, who lives in a 140-square-foot house made by the Tumbleweed Tiny House Company of Sebastopol, Calif., took to the road to promote his vision of living small, along with Jay Shafer, Tumbleweed’s founder. The two men drove from Victoria, British Columbia, to San Diego, pulling Mr. Shafer’s house behind them on a trailer. (Tiny houses, which rarely have foundations, are often built on trailers.)

Along the way they stopped to hold workshops and give (very brief) home tours. Some events drew hundreds of people. “It seems like everybody is fascinated by the idea of living in a tiny house,” said Mr. Shafer, who started Tumbleweed eight years ago. “But for a long time, I was just selling the dream.”

Now though, more homeowners are turning to mini-homes as an ethical, and sensible, alternative to traditional home ownership:

“I wanted to buy my own place by 30, and the way the housing market is going that’s not going to happen,” [Tumbleweed home owner Tara Flannery] said, referring to the tightening credit market and the fact that home prices remain high in Seattle, despite the mortgage crisis.

In a way, Ms. Flannery’s tiny house, which will be about 100 square feet with a sleeping loft and will cost roughly $40,000, is a modern twist on the starter homes of the 1950s suburbs; it offers her a way into home ownership, of a sort, without the debilitating costs. “I can spend my money traveling instead,” she said.

NY Times: The Next Little Thing?